Friday the 13th

Dear Diary.............

Yes, it really was Friday the 13th. What a weird night...I was put in charge of running the weekly tournament I play in a fairly regular basis since the tournament director is already in Vegas. I can say quite honestly that I don't ever want to do this again unless the director is in dire need of help.

Ok, where should I start...I was put in charge, and this girl C was asked to come help me so that I'm not by myself. I got there about quarter till 8, so I sat down and had my dinner while I waited for more players to show up. C asked the bartender for the materials needed for the tournament 5-10 minutes before 8. Both the bartender and I told her it was too early but she was anxious to get it started. The bartender was getting irritated because she was told that I will be running the tournament, and she had no confidence in C doing it. There were only 5 players and I finally convinced C to wait to see if more shows up. A few people did. It was 8:30, so I decided to go ahead and get the stuff ready. By this time, I actually did want her to help since there were things that could have been done easier with more than one person. However when I specifically ask her for help, she was too busy socializing, even after my asking her 5,629 times.

I decided to do a race to 2 instead of 1 since there were so few people. I guess this is where things went terribly wrong, because most players we had tonight weren't experienced enough to shift gears that quickly. They had the hardest time understanding that the loser breaks. The second major flaw in tonight's tournament was that most people were extremely drunk and I was probably the only person who was sober. Most players were not paying attention to what's going on in the game, especially S. C, although she thought that she was helping by offering clarification on rules and such, was actually sticking her head into situations when she didn't need to and it actually looked like she was siding with her friend P. P's opponent S got angry with C and they started arguing. I guess they had a history of not getting along.

Meanwhile, I'm playing P's boyfriend Cl who misunderstood (or assumed something) our rules. I thought C told me that Cl has played in our league but she meant A LEAGUE. That means DIDDLY SQUAT!! He got upset with the fact that 1. he made this mistake although in his mind it's not a mistake 2. I'm being b#tchy by telling him that after the fact 3. I didn't shake his hand after EVERY FREAKING GAME, which in his mind makes me a snob.

S eventually forfeited her game because she was frustrated. She said she was "drunk" and was upset the rules didn't make sense. Keep in mind that SHE HAS PLAYED IN THIS TOURNAMENT BEFORE AND NONE OF THE RULES HAS CHANGED. Around that time, P lost her second game and was out of the tournament completely. So P and Cl decided to leave. So C decided to leave because P AND CL ARE HER FRIENDS. So C managed to screw everything up in the tournament, and decided to leave all the mess behind her and go hang out with her friends.

I thought Mr. Sweatpants from another tournament on Saturday nights was going to be a troublemaker, but he turned out to be a really good sport, even though he's really weird. Sweatpants understood what tournament play means, and he didn't argue when he made a mistake because he forgot about the rules. C would never get that, not in a million years.

When C collected money from the players she wrote down "Dan" but it turns out that this guy's name is "Dean." I was calling him "Dan" all night long....and he forgot that it was double-elimination so he left without taking his 3rd place prize money.

OK, I think this is enough...there's plenty more that went wrong. This is to remind myself that I SHALL NEVER RUN BAR TOURNAMENTS AGAIN. I don't have the patience to deal with ignorance mixed with intoxication.