RVA Solo

The RVA Solo tournament held at LQ Richmond was actually my very first Laser Quest tournament. I looked forward to seeing what this experience would bring and I’m really pleased to say I met some great people and had a wonderful time.

Playing at this site gets me a step closer to a hitting a significant milestone when I play my next arena, but at this point I was simply appreciating the how impressive the arena in front of me was and looking forward to the rest of the night. This LQ was built on another former Ultrazone site and is also very distinctive as a result. I walked around taking in the full scope of the maze even though the tournament would only be played on the ground level.

I asked about the one souvenir I was most interested in taking back with me…the magnet!

And as I adopted a spot at one of the tables I started to meet the other players before the competition got underway.

The evening began with eight regular games being played with the entire group. After each game we would rotate to the next sequential pack so that nobody would play with the same pack twice for the obvious reasons.

As I recognized I was in the presence of much better players I adopted a strategy based on my own strengths. I know I am not good at dogfighting, but I have always done well as a sniper, so I hung back and took my shots while the more experienced players were distracted with each other. However, this was just enough to keep my head above water. It was more of a learning experience for me to be in midst of this kind of competition as the only times I have played competitive Quest in the past were at multi-system events like Armageddon. I learned a lot simply from observation and implementation.

At the end of the regular games the cumulative scores were tallied and we were broken into groups to play in the ladder ascensions leading towards the Triple Quest finals. I was not surprised to be in the lowest group on the ladder, but for me this was simply about the experience so I went in ready for whatever would happen playing a four-man round against Aigis2000, The Hand and TrixR4Kids. Now, I’m not suggesting that this was a spectacular showing, but I was pleased that by placing in the top two of this game I was a wild card and got to advance to the next round.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as I made it in the main comp, but I was actually heartened to have done that decently. I was a rookie here and also glad that I would have a chance to play in the Rookie Double Quest later in the night.

I’ll cut to the chase, I took second in the rookie division behind Kristin (aka Lucky Charm) by a scant 29 points (heartbreaker!), but I congratulate her on taking first. Between us the scores were 675 to 646, so it was pretty close and resulted in me taking home a nicer souvenir than my magnet!

Now, to be honest, I really have no idea what happened in the Triple Quest. I say that for two reasons…first, I was in this part of the arena playing Rookie Double Quest while it was happening…

…and second, I am not sure I am reading the spreadsheet correctly, so rather than report it incorrectly I’ll just refer to the final results Travis announced.

First Place with 931 points – The Fiesta

Second place with 792 points - Juggernaut

Third place with 781 points – DJ Puppy

Congrats to them all. I especially shout out DJ Puppy for playing through on an injured ankle which occurred in one of the final three rounds.

The Fiesta takes home a belt worthy of a WWF wrestler…I’m not quite sure the significance of giving belts as awards, but I guess it makes as much sense as a trophy, lol! And the rest of us took home some great memories and for me a bit more of an education about this facet of competitive Laser Quest. For as many LQs as I’ve been to I generally only get as competitive as playing the Ironman. Perhaps I’ll get to do that on my next adventure which will mark another laser tag milestone. You see, LQ Richmond was my 299th arena and my second to last LQ left to play in the United States. That said, can you guess where I’m headed next? ;)

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Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

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