World Beer Pong Tour $25,000 Atlantic City Championship

Once again a major event has taken place in the sporting world. This event would have been good enough to televise on the Ocho, if there was such a channel. Yes, you guessed it! I am talking about Beer Pong. This past June in Atlantic City teams competed for $25,000 in cold hard cash! If you do not know what Beer Pong is then you should check out my article on the World Series of Beer Pong. http://hubpages.com/_pob8fm7z76fs/hub/WSOBPIV Feel free to read said article as well if you have not before or just want a refresher.

Back to Atlantic City! On June 11th through the 14th of 2009 Almost 200 teams descended on the Resorts hotel and casino in Atlantic City to compete in the World Beer Pong Tour $25,000 Atlantic City Championship, and for bragging rights. The event was put together by The World Beer Pong Tour http://www.worldpongtour.com so check them out! Lots of familiar teams showed up for this show down. Including Smashing Time, F'n it Up and home town favorites Jesus and St. Michael. (Just a little side note about Jesus and St. Michael. They had to improvise their team shirts the night before the big game because Fred Richart at Richarts in Ada, Ohio screwed them over and decided to not fulfill their order. They found this out the day before they had to leave for Atlantic City!) Anyway, this was the first year for this event and the people putting in on were visibly nervous as to weather it would succeed or not.

The first night of the event was supposed to be registration and open tables. There was also a Diva Contest scheduled. It was unorganized and chaotic compared to the way things were run at registration for the WSOBP IV, but hey this was their first go at it. Wristbands were handed out with proper age verification of course and papers were signed releasing liability. That was the extent of registration. People were drinking beer everywhere during this process, however everyone was well behaved. There were people playing some cash games on the tables. Small tournaments of roughly 16 teams were being put together and played out. These games had buy ins of $50 or $100 with a portion of the buy in being given as the prize. The other portion covered the beer. One on one tournaments were also going on. This lasted till about 11 of the first night. The scheduled Diva Contest for the first night never came about.

The second day, which was the first full day of the tournament, play began in the for the $25000 prize. The teams were divided up in to groups of twelve or thirteen teams. The teams in these divisions played each other. Every team was guaranteed twelve games, and twelve 16 ounce beers. The teams received a paper with all the names of the teams in their division. Beside each team name was a number. On the opposite side of the paper was a spread sheet print out with the team numbers placed on it showing which teams you played and where to put the score. This way you could easily keep track of your wins and cup differential. Each division was also given a number, and a section of the floor. There were four tables in each divisions section of the floor.

After the opening announcements, which started out late, the games begun. At this point you had to try and find your opponents in your division and play them. It was very chaotic, however the games went faster. Once you found the team you had to play you set the cups up on the table grabbed some beer and water to fill the cups up with then commenced play. After the game was over one person from each team was responsible to walk over the the division staff and report the winner. You also had to report the cup differential and initial in your teams space. Both teams had to initial the stats for the game that way it cuts back on cheating or a team lying about their win.

These games went on until late after noon. At that point there was a dinner break, but most people went back to their rooms to practice for the up coming games. Once the dinner break was over a second round of the Diva contest was held. The divas in the contest were also the girls handing out the beer. Their name was announced as well as other unimportant details as they walked across the stage in skimpy clothing (some of which was not very flattering). When the meat parade was over the games commenced once again. Most everyone only had one or two more teams to play so everyone was done fairly early. There were some problems with teams who had never shown up at all that day or had given up half way into the day when they realized they would not make it to the next day. This left teams with less then twelve games. The organizers decided to put all the teams who did not get to play all their games cause a team left or quit into an inter divisional game. It was different then how the WSOBP handles no shows but this was not the WSOBP, plus it was a solution that worked.

With the first day of tournament play coming to an end people were playing lots of pick up cash games. Even in the cash games people were friendly. Some of the cash games were more about fun like the left right one on one game. For those of you who do not know what this is, the left right game is just like playing beer pong one on one. However, You can only throw one ball with your right hand and then have to throw the second ball with your left hand. It is quite hard getting used to throwing hte ball with your non dominant throwing hand. Just like regular pong if you make both cups you get one ball back and you can throw that ball with either hand. People were also having parties in their rooms and small tournaments in their rooms.

The second day the top 96 teams were seeded into brackets. There was heavy competition in these brackets. Once the teams were narrowed down to the top 32 a new bracket was formed. The top 32 games were best of three. You would have to play each team at least twice if you one both games and three times if you lost on of the games. There was one team from Maryland who was good enough to get up in the top 32 during the day. They were playing a team from Ohio, team F'n It Up, who was obviously much better then them. It was a very intense game and a large crowd was building around it. Team F'n It Up was having a little too much fun during the second game and lost. Then the crowd got behind them. The hole crowd was chanting O-H-I-O and it was really getting to the Maryland team. The one kid never hit a cup after we started cheering. The other one was so distracted by the noise he knocked three cups off the table on his own side. That must be embarrassing!

Unfortunately team F'n It Up did not make the final game, but Smashing Time did. The final game was between Smashing Time and PongTracker.com. Smashing Time, as you should be well aware if you are reading this article, won the WSOBP IV in Las Vegas this past January 2009. Pongtracker.com was a team representing the Pong Tracker website which, as you may have guessed, is used to keep track of player and team stats as well as keep informed on upcoming tournaments. These are definitely elite teams and proved themselves by making it to the final table. The final game was played on a stage with Lights, cameras and microphones on the players. it was an intense game with Smashing Time once again coming out on top.

For being the first year of for the Atlantic City Championship is was run very well. It might have been a little chaotic at times, but their were very few problems. The problems that did arise were handled quickly and professionally. Everyone seemed to have a good time and lots of people were looking forward to a bigger one next year. Congratulations to Smashing Time for wining their first (and last) AC Championship! Now its time for everyone to start gearing up for the WSOBP V. See you in Vegas!