Summer 2013 Tournament

Scott Hardie | August 13, 2013
** annoyed sigh **

Once again, I have made a tournament goo much harder than I meant to. Isn't it awesome when we enter a tournament all fired up with enthusiasm and possibility after ten weeks of the regular season, only to have the spirit sucked out of us by a miserably impossible goo on the first day? Maybe I'm exaggerating and maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but I'm annoyed and I had to express it.

Monday's goo is hereby stricken from the tournament because nobody solved it by midnight. We're starting over with a clean slate today, Tuesday. You're all still in this.

I'm not going to tweak the rest of the goos this week in light of Monday's accidental no-solver. Some goos might be easier and some might be just as hard. We'll find out together. Good luck!

Samir Mehta | August 13, 2013
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Scott Hardie | August 13, 2013
Some goos stump you, and then you see the answer afterwards and you smack your forehead and think, "duh, of course." Other goos stump you and you later see the answer and shake your head in relief, thinking, "wow, there's no way I could have solved that." I was aiming for the former, but in hindsight I'm pretty sure I made the latter.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, anyway. There is one big advantage to a really hard tournament goo that stumps nearly everyone: If you somehow manage to pull off the only solution, you're way out ahead of the competition. I trust that's decent incentive to keep trying. There were some good guesses yesterday, but none were close enough to be that one.

Samir Mehta | August 13, 2013
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Scott Hardie | August 13, 2013
If I had to articulate the feeling as a word, it would start with the letter f.

Chris Lemler | August 13, 2013
To me Scott I think you should of let the Monday goo go. The reason I say that is that one year no one was able to solve three goo's in a row. But I do see where you think the goo's are hard and challenging and a lot of players like the challenging ones :) But if you can't get them you can't get them. A few players took a shot at the goo's so they must of had a gut feeling who it was. Or maybe they didn't know. But I like to try to figure out the challenging ones too. And if I can't find them I can't find them. Usually it's me barking up the wrong tree to! I am just in it for fun :) If I win i'm thrilled and if I lose I'm thrilled cause I know I try my best to solve them as best as I can. But anyways keep up the good work Scott you do a fabulous job on the site and tournaments so no complaints here :)

Steve West | August 14, 2013
Yeah, Monday was okay to stay for me, too. I like challenging goos, sure, but not impossible ones. I don't know that it was impossible - I only know I couldn't get it with the time I devoted to it. I also take your word that you didn't intend for it to be impossible. Keep making them hard and if we don't solve them, then so be it. It's all good for me.

Samir Mehta | August 20, 2013
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Samir Mehta | August 21, 2013
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Justin Woods | August 21, 2013
Thanks Samir, I thought I was only going to have seconds...

Thanks Scott for a great round!

Scott Hardie | August 21, 2013
What a finish! There was a series of surprises over the last few days. It was neat to watch unfold.

Justin, you have more than earned this title after a tough tournament. This is your sixth victory in just under three years. Amazing! :-) Samir and Joanna, you gave him a good run for his money.

Chris, Steve, Samir, thanks for the votes of confidence above. I was in a grumpy and sleep-deprived place when I wrote my initial comments above, and I have since come around about that goo's appropriateness. That said, I screwed up, and I'm sorry: According to the official rules, a goo is supposed to be stricken from the tournament when failure to solve it causes all remaining players to be eliminated, thus making the tournament impossible to continue. That wasn't what happened on Monday last week, when all players failed to solve the goo but some players still had extra chances remaining. It should have stayed in, and even though I can say "no harm no foul" as every single player benefitted from my error and it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the rest of the tournament, it was still a big mistake on my part and I'm sorry. I didn't even notice that a mistake had happened until last night, when time was running out for anyone to solve yesterday's tough Cuisine goo, and we were about to have a conundrum as to whether to follow the official rules (which would give automatic victory to Samir) or whether to repeat the precedent set last Monday (which would give Samir and Justin and Joanna another chance). Justin's hard-earned correct guess late at night not only averted that little crisis, it was probably the primary factor in his victory today, so way to go on that, Justin.

Scott Hardie | August 21, 2013
Next up: Seven bonus goos to finish out August, then a new season beginning September 2. Two themes called "Jimmy Talks a Lot" and "A Passage to India" were on the summer schedule for a long time, but I set those aside for the fall in the interest of thematic variety.

I still intend for the winter season in December to bring a fresh new format to the game, but first I have to accomplish wedding planning, weeks of overtime at work, two freelance website builds, major mobile-friendly upgrades to Funeratic, a fall event in Pirate Paradise, and a road trip. Overhauling the goo game will feel like a pretty easy project on the end of that list, if I have the time to get to it. (To be clear, I'm not complaining; I'm just trying to be clear now about the risk of this announced change not being possible in time. I'm working hard on the list.)

Steve Dunn | August 21, 2013
Bravo Justin!

Chris Lemler | August 21, 2013
Wow another win!!!! I didnt see that coming :)