Wizfest 2011 invaded the city of Pickering Ontario with 60 enthusiastic Wizard players. The two day event saw a lot of fun, some craziness and challenges to contend with and that was just getting me dressed up for the event.

I wanted to point out a few fun things that I noticed that weekend. I’m sure there were more, but for those of you that didn’t get to see it all or didn’t get to attend, I’m going to try to give you some of the highlights of the event. First off, we had eleven players that came from the USA. In fact we had 13 come as Mr. Wizard’s Mom (Elaine) and Nephew (Tyreek) joined in and took the trip up from Boston. There was JudJ who travelled from Illinois and stopped in Detroit to pick up Kbmcdev and together they travelled the rest of the way. And for those online players, never say things in chat and be sarcastic. I made mentioned to Kathy that if she wanted to bring a few bags of Doritos chips with her and a few boxes of Yoohoo chocolate drinks that I would be ok with it. Little did I know Kathy would bring over $30 worth of the yummy food over for me. The thing about Yoohoos is that they are just so inviting. Lastly, James Penn and his crew from New Mexico. The five of them impressed me with their ability to smile at almost everything I said. It was almost as if James told them, if you see Mac, just smile and nod. Cause it was just a 24/7 smiley moment with those five. Congrats James for your third place in the B tournament! From Canada, I think it’s safe to say that once again this year DougJ travelled the furthest. Yeah Doug!

Most of you don’t know this and in fact most of the people at the Friday social don’t know this, but we had a trivia contest. I had 20 questions to challenge everyone with, but people started to arrive to the social before we had everything set up and before we knew it people were way too busy playing Wizard card games and it seemed silly to interrupt them with such trivial matters. However, Megan Fairless did complete it. And although she got 47% of it right, she still wins. Way to go Megan. Among the other things you won’t believe the social was only a few hundred dollars short of $2,000. WOW, who ordered the Fat Bastard? I want to know why!!!!!!

The tournament itself started off with yours truly having one thing to do. All I had to do was set the computer up and load the Excel sheet that Jacqueline made to keep track of scores and positions. Nothing else, turn it on and load the program. Well I managed to turn it on, but the program that I had a copy of was no longer on my computer, the email that had it attached was gone. Sladist to the rescue. He had a memory stick in his car (seriously who has a memory stick in their car?) and Jacqueline rushed home and got another copy of the program and put it onto the stick. She claims her computer froze and she had to re-boot it twice before she was able to copy it, but I think she just wanted me to feel more guilty that I couldn’t even do one small thing. We did get the program going and we did get things up and running, but we had one more small problem. We had 2 players who didn’t show up.

Now, these two winners of the new alarm clock and Red bull contest over-slept! How can you over sleep before a WIZFEST? They were replaced and with Tyreek and Mr. McCoy. The ongoing debate is over what happened? I’m going with AM/PM. I think they set the time to wake them up at 8:00 PM. Other picks include: Hit the Snooze and fell back asleep, Volume and they wanted to act out their own version of “Hang Over 2”.

The Matrix round came and the best line coming out the Matrix rounds goes to Mr. Wizard, this delightful young man who by the way will not shut up while playing. OH MY GOODNESS KEITH, SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He wasn’t like this last year, honest! Anyway, he was quoted as saying, “Canadians – they’re basically good for EH and maybe maple syrup.” There was a discussion about the Canadian National anthem and someone from south of the border said, “Well I know it’s called Oh Canada, that’s something.” I know the search to find SOMEONE from south of the border to be able to even hum the tune of our anthem was met with failure and Sirromap said she bet everyone here could sing the US National anthem, and what crafty comeback from our American cousins was received? “I bet you there are more Canadians that could sing the US anthem then there are Americans that could.” Hard to argue such a profound statement. However, the line of the day, or at least the line that I heard of the day, goes to my good friend and fellow morning Wizard Player – Kbmcdev. She was on the final table waiting for Merlin, who is known for his somewhat mystic personality. Well at one point in the final table Merlin had his eyes closed and he was pondering his bid. To which my friend Kathy said, “How are we supposed to win with Merlin using his psychic abilities?”

After the lunch everyone came back we had a tie breaker as 2 players tied for the last spot. Lynda and James the Oreo – Ok it’s not really THE Oreo but I hear he makes good cookies. 10 cards, delayed reveal bid. From what I understand James bid 7 and got 8 and Lynda bid 2 and got 2. Once that was that, door prizes and awards to our sponsors were given out. Dave Charbonneau of Kroeger Games left the building without telling anyone so when it was his turn to get his thank you we’re yelling, “DAVE? YO DAVE,” to which someone else yelled, “Dave’s not here, man!” I’m not making this stuff up. It really happened.

If you’ve ever watched soccer, ok I know, who admits they watch soccer, but if you ever watch the World Cup you know that there is always a “Group of Death”. There’s this one group with 4 teams that are all good teams. It’s the challenging group. The group where some good team is going home early ‘cause only 2 teams can advance, but all 4 teams are good? With me? Anyway I had the privilege of being on a Table of Death in the quarter finals. With me on table one were: Mr. Wizard (Keith Gill), JudJ (Jud Joyce), Winnie Rade, wait there’s more…. Merlin (George Wellsbury) and and wait for it again, Wizard (Ken Fisher). 6 great players, 3 of us were going home. It went down to the last hand. Doesn’t it always? Mr. Wizard and JudJ were in a great position to move on. Wizard was holding on to 3rd and Merlin and I were a few points behind him. I was ready. I had a few scratches, all underbids. All with cards I’d never bid on so I was happy. All I needed was some attacking cards. Sure, I needed Wizard to scratch, Yes, I needed to bid more then Merlin or make him scratch. Yes I knew I wasn’t going to get any help from Mr. Wizard or Winnie or JudJ, definitely not JudJ. So I took my 10 cards. 2, 6, 6, 7, 9, jester, 4, 8, jack and 3. At least I made my bid. Wizard scratched, Merlin bid 2 and tied him and was able to move on along with Mr. Wizard and JudJ.

In the semi final, there was all kinds of action. On table one, Mr. Wizard (who STILL hadn’t shut up), lost a place in the final on the last hand – in response, he dropped to his knees and screamed, “noooooooo!” at the ceiling. Table one was another Table of Death – with Mr. Wizard (Keith Gill), JudJ (Jud Joyce), Warlord (Ross Weir), Merlin (George Wellsbury), Taurus (George Hatfield), and rookie Trisandra (Andrea Binnington) holding it down for the ladies. Merlin and Warlord moved on. In the final hand of table two, Kbmcdev needed to go big or go home. She needed to bid lots to get in because going into the final round everyone was within 10 points of the person ahead of them and Kathy was in 4th. On her last bid she took at least 35 minutes to make her bid. Ok it wasn’t 35 minutes, but Dr. Wizard will tell you it felt like 35 minutes; she bid an impressive 5 and made her bid. Table two was the reverse, gender-wise, of table one, with Anita Gray, Mae Lougheed, Player (Marilyn Brooks), two rookies, The Mexican (Natalie Rivera) and Kathy McDevitt (Kbmcdev), and Kevin Gill (Dr. Wizard) holding it down for the men. Due to her dramatic come-from-behind bid, Kbmcdev vaulted into first on the last hand, and the second person to move on, Nat, was decided on a tiebreak. Table three consisted of Nesta Pickering, Joker67 (Wayne Fairless), Sirromap (Patty Morris), Cdngrl51 (Marilyn Vaillant), AP Sirius (Karl Anderson), and rookie Gerry LaCroix. To be honest I don’t really know what happened at this table, and everyone I talked to has memory loss and can’t remember. AP Sirius and Cdngrl51 moved on.

In the final it appears all players weren’t nervous or tense or anything, but they were bidding on cards I’d never even think about bidding on. Early in the finals AP Sirius was getting visible frustrated as bids were not being made and players were taking tricks when they had no business taking. The first of the 2 games saw 13 scratches in 10 rounds. It was an ugly start to what is best described as a very sloppy game. However, Merlin went perfect and was able to take an early lead. Merlin maintained his lead until the 8th hand of the second game. In the 8th hand the wizards started to pop and the tension really started to build. Merlin’s first scratch in 2 games occurred after he was wiz popped twice in the same round. Once by AP Sirius and once by Warlord who were starting to make their move. Merlin’s second and last scratch occurred in the 9th when he was forced to bail on his bid and take Warlord with him. His hold on second was shrinking as KBMCDEV was started to catch him. With Warloard’s scratch, he was no longer in contention for top 2 and it became a 3 person race to the top. The tenth round I was sitting right beside AP Sirius and as he laid out his cards, I knew that the game was over. I was looking at a hand of 3 wizards and a jester. There was nothing else in his hand that could trip him up, the game was his, and he knew it. Merlin, took a long time to bid as he was obviously trying to figure out away to keep KBMCDEV at bay. In the End, AP Sirius made his 3 bid and was awarded the championship. Merlin stayed 10 points ahead of KBMCDEV and was awarded second. It turned into a really good game. (I won’t tell you there was 24 scratches total in those two final games…shhhh).

I just wanted to take a moment once again to thank the committee that helped to make all this possible Heidi Sapiano, Jacqueline Wells, George Wellsbury and Lesley Roper. As well I’d like to thank our sponsors: Wizard Card Inc, US games, Kroger Games, UPS, Mom’s and Kids stuff, Berine and June Realtors. A special thanks to Lisa from Coca-Cola, The Fox and Fiddle Manison and The Pickering Rec Centre for helping us run this event.

Look for information regarding the Wizfest 2012 in the Fall. Until then, keep on wizzing me online.