FWA Con Report - Saturday

Just a short post from the con, since I know that the longer I wait, the more things I'm likely to forget.

Thursday: Really not much to say. I arrived about 4 PM, checked in, and paid the extra to upgrade to the executive floor. As such, I have a heck of a view, free breakfast, free snacks (practically dinner) in the evening, an extra-comfy bed, an extra-large TV, and extra housekeeping services. Not too bad, considering this might be my only con for the year. There really wasn't much else that happened; I spent a bit of time checking out the artists' alley when it opened, but nothing caught my eye. I did, however, stay up far later than I should have waiting for Carenath and Sjach to arrive from Pensacola, since they needed crash space for the night. We weren't in bed until nearly 4:30 AM, which made waking up awfully difficult.

Friday: Despite my plans to wake up at 9 AM and get breakfast, we didn't actually get moving until nearly 10:30. The morning started off slow, but I kept busy, mostly by wandering back and forth between the alley and the dealers' den trying to decide what I wanted to get, since I brought plenty of money for commissions. Due to a miscommuncation, Gideon didn't have my sketchbook, so I'll have to give him a mailing address later. I played in the first poker qualifier in the afternoon and, out of about twenty-five people, I survived long enough to be one of the last eight and qualify for the semis. I ended up all in at the final table once with Jack nine off suit, but tripled up when I caught a straight on the flop, which kept me afloat long enough to make it to the next round. After getting some snacks for dinner, I went back to the room to hang out with a few people, went down to the artists' alley once more, then went to bed.

Saturday: Today was... something, alright. The busiest day of the con, but it just didn't feel like that to me, probably because there just weren't that many events I was interested in and the ones I wanted to attend all conflicted with one another. I managed to wake up in time for breakfast today, then went downstairs, wandered around a bit, bought Gideon's newest CD, had lunch with a couple other furs from Pensacola, took photos of the fursuit parade, commissioned BushyCat, got a shower, then played in the poker semi-finals. Despite that lengthy list, it really didn't feel that busy; I just kinda was wandering around aimlessly most of the time. The semis proved to be somewhat more competitive than the preliminary round, but I ended up with significantly more chips than I had the first time around. Ultimately, Bucktown Tiger was eliminated ninth, on a hand screwed up enough to nearly warrant a post on its own: he was all in with the small blind after he'd been auto-folded repeatedly due to being away from the table, ArdenFetz was all in after huge bets from Stevie and Horse's Ghost, and the latter two still kept making big bets. Stevie won the hand, but it was irrelevant at that point: we had established the final eight players and, interestingly enough, I found myself in sixth place when the round was over.

After dinner and a completely failed room party (don't ask), I went down to play in the finals. On the second hand, I busted out RebelCat with a set of queens, then held on to ultimately, take third place, losing to Horse's Ghost and the Dude. I still can't quite believe that I made it that far into the tournament, much less that I managed to finish in third out of more than forty who attempted to make it in. Nobody's quite sure what prize I'm going to receive, aside from the FWA-branded deck of cards all the semi-finalists received, but I heard a rumor that third prize was an attending membership to next year, which would be completely awesome. I'd be thriled with nearly anything extra, though. Once the game was over, I took one last look through the artists' alley, signed up for tomorrow's Mario Kart tournament, and came up here to write this post. Soon as I send this off I'm going to bed since I really, really need to get some extra sleep. More posting to come sometime tomorrow!