Anyway, double post. This one contains some useful links for Sunday.

I quickly wrote a doc file that includes the set-up of the event. I think this is going to be useful for ourselves as well as our stream viewers: Dutch Open of Super Mario Kart.

And here's a link to the result sheets: Dutch Open Result Sheets. Sheet 1 has the overall rankings, sheet 2 the Time Trial Tournament results. We'll try to keep both updated during the action. Actually, this is probably where we will do the scorekeeping ourselves, so we kind of have to!  

Congratulations to Aron for his fantastic victory in the TT competition! Very impressive!

Btw Karel nice work on winning the rest.

Thanks TVL.

Results: https://goo.gl/YjcM2t

Battle Mode: http://challonge.com/jdzbvhxg
Match Race: http://challonge.com/vi10u465
Time Trial: https://goo.gl/YjcM2t (sheet 2)
GP150cc: http://challonge.com/9afhsgi9

I'm very happy with how the day went, we had some really exciting races and mostly kept the schedule. I might have been favourite to win all the multi player modes, but doing it is another thing still, so I am proud of getting it done at the very first Dutch Championships. There were some strong performances at times. The one aspect that was lacking in my game today was the zoomstart; I didn't really get an acceptable succesrate in any of the racing modes. Other then that I was consistent enough to come out on top.

As for TT, I had a really strong group stage, winning all 5 races with decent or even good times. In the semi final I dropped the ball and my opponent Martin did really well.
First off we got KB1, which is a very treacherous track for 1-tries. It didn't go well for me and I barely scraped a sub minute. Martin actually got a 54 though, so that would have been hard for any top player to beat in a 1-try. At this year's CDM, only Aron, Neo & Sami got better than that time for instance. Credits definitely go to Martin there, who almost equalled his PR.
Then I could still save myself on GV2, but there were some distractions (involving our cat and my SNES) at the start and I missed the zoomstart. Over and out.  

The overall rankings look like this (average finish across all modes):
1      Karel van Duijvenboden      1.5                  
2      Martin van Haasteren      2.5                  
3      Aron      Langerak 3.75                  
3      Christian Wild      3.75                  
5      Michael Jongerius      4.75                  
6      Gerard Roodhorst      5                  
7      Matthew Ballard      6.75

Battle Mode:
1 Karel van Duijvenboden
2 Gerard Roodhorst
3 Martin van Haasteren

Match Race:
1 Karel van Duijvenboden
2 Martin van Haasteren
3 Christian Wild

Time Trial:
1 Aron Langerak
2 Martin van Haasteren
3 Karel van Duijvenboden

GP150cc:
1 Karel van Duijvenboden
2 Christian Wild
3 Martin van Haasteren

Despite the fact that Aron set out what he wanted to do (win the TT), surely he can't be happy with his overall result there. Martin comfortably beat him and can now officially be considered the 2nd best tournament SMK player in the Netherlands. Great achievement if you ask me!  

The next competitive SMK tournament with my involvement will probably be CDM 2016, though I think we should try to have a Dutch Championship again at the end of next year too. Before that though, there is AGDQ '16 for Neo & me to look forward to, a little over a month from now.  

Thanks to everyone who attended or watched this event, it's been a blast!

That 6th lap incident was insane, what a scenario! Actually the climax of that same match on MC2 was very, very impressive by Chris. Martin had the match winning cards in his hands with a good lead and (if I recall correctly) a red shell in the pocket. Chris really salvaged that one from the gates of hell with some superb driving, including LBs and the works! Almost Neo-esque!  

Michael Jongerius, the beast of SMK(64)!

TT 1-try consistency was never my thing, which is why I've never won gold @ TT for CDMs in all these years.  

Well, it's not that I can't win, but considering my overall TT level, I think it's fair to say that 1-try ability is not one of my strongsuits.

I did have a direct face-off with Aron on TT this weekend and beat him 5-0 though, even with a missed zoom on GV3.  
Video: http://www.twitch.tv/nlg_organisation/b/683829411 (3:51:19 in the video onwards).

I'll properly archive and highlight all the action later.

Karel won Battle Mode? What is this voodoo...

And here is how it happened: https://goo.gl/hQ69yI

The link contains videos of all the matches played in the battle mode tournament. More to follow during the course of the week.

Quick highlights are Chris' suicide vs Aron at match point in Losers Round 2 and the unfortunate random green 'reward' for Rub right after he sniped an excellent green vs me in the final. That random turned out to be the balloon that gave me the championship...anti-climax much?  
The best matches of the tournament were probably the Winners semifinal that Rub & me played and at the same time the Losers Round 3 with Martin vs Aron. Both matches went to the wire: https://goo.gl/y46mRx

Haha, pro Aron opposition strats.  

Match Race videos are all archived on YT as well: https://goo.gl/lLsn6H

One sick highlight I definitely remember was Aron's elimination in Losers Round 2 against MJ, where the latter came back from a completely doomed position @ match point on GV1...
The lower bracket semifinal between Chris & Martin was a thriller as well.
Ah and the VL1 finish in the Winners semifinal between Chris and me certainly deserves a mention.  

I processed the Time Trial videos tonight!   Playlist: https://goo.gl/V8DTHX

This contains the group stage clash between the two titans of Dutch TT: https://goo.gl/87TuVC (5-0  )

Martin upsetting me (KVD) in the semi final (excellent KB1): https://goo.gl/AGPved

Another race worth noting was the little final between MJ & me on MC3. MJ drove a classic MC3 of pure beauty, but did not get the reward he deserved (because of the powers of the dark side). His 1-try was the best one of the entire day though: https://goo.gl/mQUnZ6

Winning that match, I really felt like some Western ignorant colonist with a big gun, simply shooting down a highly skilled and lifelong trained Samurai swordsman.  

The first Dutch SMK Championship is now fully video archived.  

GP150cc playlist: https://goo.gl/rtf4oa

The semi final between Martin & Chris Wild had the shocking RR finish that was certainly one of the most eye catching moments of the day: https://goo.gl/Njg4bt

There was a very cool VL1 in the final between Chris & me as well.