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Day 67 - 8 September 2005 13 FEVER! ever been in a 13 tournament? ME EITHER! whether you call it Pisoy Dos, Tien Lin, Chinese Poker, or 13... the fever here is spreading like the plague! people of all ages and all walks of life have joined in and duked it out in first ever "World Series of 13" tournament (Cape Verde circuit). so official it was that an announcement was made during our official Community Meeting the preceding Monday. the first round consisted of 12 players or 3 tables of 4. To eliminate the first 4, a point system was developed wherein the winner received 4 points, 2nd place got 3, 3rd place 2 and the ultimate loser a big fat zero. after 13 games, the scores were totaled and the bottom score from each table was dropped. then from the remaining 9 people, the player with the lowest score was dropped, leaving 8 players for the semifinal round the next day. The semifinal round consisted of those 8 players and 20 games with the same point system. the lowest 2 scorers from each of the 2 tables were dropped leavin the final 4 for the last day of game play. somehow the final round began to show why the roots of the game come from the Asian persuasion- of the final 4, all were at least half Asian. coincidence? also take into account that of the original 12 players, only 2 had played this game for the past 10 years, while the other 10 players had just learned the game 4 weeks prior, meaning the half of the final 4, and the ultimate champion were still newbies to the game. talk about a Cinderella story...the fact that we even ran this tournament with a buy-in and box of “surprise” items donated by the players in itself RI-DI-CU-LOUS...but it sure was fun. wonder when the World Series of 13 will storm the ESPN 8 - the OCHO! I am proud to say I came in 3rd, splittin part of the prize and sinkin my lucky number 3. «pat on back» it was an honor and a pleasure to be in the likes of all of my worthy opponents... <--- the mantra                the end of training --->