8th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Cribbage Tournament

It took some effort and strength to get up the next morning. Some of the participants had it easy, others were left wondering if they really had what it took to compete at this level. The number of contestants were down this year, so a new format had to be adopted in order to maintain the stamina portion of the tournament. On average, over the last 5-6 tournaments, the winner will have been trapped at this event for a good 14 hours. Past years have seen a double elimination style with 16 players involved. This year we switched to a round robin format and then seeded based upon final standings.

The round robin portion of the tournament started at 12.55 pm on Saturday afternoon. The games were friendly at first, then as the pecking order started to take shape, the competition became fierce. The annual corned beef was prepared about 2/3 of the way through the round robin and was ready to eat as the round robin came to a close. By this point, I was enjoying myself throughly and as happens most years, I forgot to get a picture of the corned beef. It was a nice 15 lb slab of meat. In order to get it to fit into Tall’s oven we had to cut it up into four pieces. The photo below shows the piece of corned beef from the 2003 tournament but you get the idea.

The tournament brackets were intiated about 7.30 with Seth as the number one seed. He had played strong through his apparent weakness and was poised to take all challengers. The tourney progressed and I made my typical early exit. The night wore on and the games continued. We came down to the final battle – Stelly D on the left vs Seth (aka bobby/daddy) on the right. Stelly had not participated in the tourney for a few years and it looked like fresh meat was going to take the tourney.

But Seth came out strong and was not going to let the upstart take away what was rightfully his. Seth used his manly charms and lulled Stelly into his trap. The trap was sprung and Seth took the day and the tournament. Unfortunately, only a few people witnessed the triumph of good over evil and the conclusion of the tourney came at about 2.30 in the am.

I awoke the next morning to passioned inquiries. the vistors were demanding the spoils. I had done a decent job of stashing the cash (or they just didn’t look for it). Seth sobbed as he put the money into his pocket and exclaimed “now, my little girl can have her violin lessons.” The prizes were handed out and another tournament was history.

We all loaded back into our respective vehicles and made the trek back to civilization. On the ride back, I contemplated what went wrong, like so many other past tournaments, I came out on the losing end. I had played a strong round robin portion, finishing second, but my opponent in the first round, Chard, had stonger spirits on his side than I could overcome. I took my beating and will have to wait for next year.