I am not going to claim I am good at Mario Kart, but I would like to believe I did well in this tournament. Last Wednesday, the Seattle University E-Sports Club held a Mario Kart tournament in Chardin, where groups of two competed to be at the top. 

You could either sign in with a buddy, or you could sign in alone and try to get lucky to have somebody play with you. I sadly had no such pleasure of having any of my friends or anybody I know come with me, but I happened to be paired with a great partner. 

Going into the waiting room where we would sit anxiously for the groups that came in, I was excited yet nervous about who and what I would be facing. I started by introducing myself to everybody and asking questions, such as “How good are you at Mario Kart?” and “How long have you played for?”, which did not help alleviate my anxiety. 

Some answered with a reassuring reply, such as “not much” or “just a little.” However, others did not have such comforting answers. As per my luck, there happened to be last year’s winners of the Mario Kart tournament sitting right next to me. I asked them if they knew of any shortcuts or tricks in the game that I might make use of, but they just said they didn’t know much, which somewhat put me at ease. 

With all that was going on, my partner and I had to come up with a team name. Before we decided, though, we had to see what characters were using to influence our answer. I decided, considering I was playing Waluigi and my partner was playing King Boo, that we would be called the Villainous Bros. 

As we waited, the club provided us with Gatorade and Red Bull, which was a nice touch. After all the attendees had arrived, the announcer came in and told us of all the house rules for the game to begin. No cheating, no profanity, no game glitches, etc. 

We started heading towards the game room, away from the waiting room, to see which team was playing which. As our luck had it, we were playing against two very experienced players who also had a very complex build. When the first round ended, I looked at my partner and said with sorrow in my eyes, “We are here to have fun, right?” 

We lost the first round very harshly; however, we still had one more chance to climb up the leaderboard. My partner and I decided to lock in and look up a meta build that would help us win. Considering we had 20 minutes to wait for our next round, we sat down and planned out our character very well. 

The second we got our characters figured out, we were confident that we would win something. When they yelled out our group name, and we started our second round, we were both excited and nervous. We managed to narrowly beat our competition. My partner and I got so excited, and we had faith that we would not end up last. My partner, however, did not fail to remind me that I was hopeless, not 20 minutes ago, of our situation. 

I denied all the accusations that my partner brought up. We moved on to the fourth round, where we got to face what seemed to be a very skilled player. Everybody seemed to know how good the person they were facing was; however, my partner and I did not know our opponent, so we just kept our confidence and remained in a state of ignorant bliss.

The person we faced not only destroyed us, but he did it without a partner who happened to be as good as he, who had to leave for personal circumstances. My partner and I lost our fourth round; however, we ended up in fifth place out of 11 competitors. For a bunch of people who haven’t played the game for a while and aren’t as skilled, we felt pretty lucky and proud of the work we did.

Even if we didn’t end up going home with the winning medal, I was happy to be part of the team and to see everyone put their best effort into winning the tournament. For me, it was all about the fun environment and the new friend I made.