EVO 2013 - My Third Year!

I watched EVO over the weekend with Zach.  For those of you who don't know what EVO is... it is an annual "national championship" for fighting games.  I've been watching EVO for three years (this being the third), and oh, man am I hooked!  It's like watching your favorite team win the superbowl... but it's only one person vs one person playing a video game... in front of thousands of people...and against super talented people... and against people from around the WORLD.. Imagine the pressure!

Thousands of people from around the world watch online, go to Las Vegas for the tournament or participate in the EVO tournament each year.  Just because they love games.  And it's amazing.  This is just as big as the super bowl or the world series, but so much more personal.  There are fan pages, idols, favorite announcers, players, apparel, gear, channels and careers built on/around this tournament.  It's the most incredible community of people.  They all come together just because they love one thing - fighting games - and could care less who you are or what you look like.  So. Incredible.

This year's tournament was SUPER exciting!! Some of the crowd favs lost and the crowd non-favs won, making it very entertaining to hear their reactions.  Plus, they announced a new expansion for Street Fighter IV! yay!

My fav games to watch are Persona and Street Fighter.  Zach likes to watch all of them.  He's a huge gamer in general, but fighting games are his all time favorite.  He definitely plays more than I do, but we love to compete against each other for fun.  It's even more fun when I beat him in Persona.... muahahaha!  Ahem.  You mean when I beat you? - Zach

I didn't get to watch too much of this year's tournament since I had to work.  I did catch some of the more memorable battles though!  Many of the players enter in multiple games/categories so it's exciting to see how they do in each game.

First off, they have to go through pools.  Thousands of people enter the competition just to say they did, but some are there to win it all.  Pools are tournaments where they knock each other out until they get down to the Top 8.  The Top 8 are the finalists who compete for the grand prize!

Throughout the tournaments, if you lose you get knocked into a "loser's bracket".  They run double elimination brackets to make the games as fair as possible.  The loser's bracket games are always so much more exciting to me.  I wonder if the players feel like they have to prove themselves even more when they are in that bracket.  hm..

With EVO 2013 coming now over... I hope we can go next year.  The tournament takes place in Las Vegas and you have to book your hotel super far in advance.. so fingers crossed!  Anyone else watch EVO?  Happy Gaming!