Also you still need to play your 2 trny games to be eligible in the playoffs.
Good luck to everyone!
Finals
#1 mr_camtasia vs #10 _MaTt15_ - Here we finally have the main event after almost two months of sets only two players are left standing and we have Chris and Matt as the div A finalists. Matt was finally able to break through after this being his third semi-finals appearance with a great win against a shaky Craig. Matt almost blew an 8-3 lead in that set before Craig finally handed him a gimme in the final game. Chris had a bit more of a tougher time with his semi final set against Jeremy as it went the distance and then some finishing with a 13-11 score. Now Chris has still never lost in this competition and it could possibly take a miracle for Matt to win this set but it is possible. This seems to be the competition where Matt excels as deep runs have become his usual and so far he's knocked off top quality opponents in Andy, Dan and Craig its possible this run isn't ready to end. Chris is going to have to be giving up shots for Matt to have a chance but if Chris isn't running every table then Matt could have an ok chance to keep it close. In the end this is still a mismatch and keeping it close might be the best result for Matt.
9-5 Chris
Semi-Finals
#1 mr_camtasia vs #4 pro.jeremy - Unlike the rest of the competition the top seeds have managed earn their rightful place in position to win the title. We are down to the final 4 and everyone has a decent story to tell about how they got here. After getting past Brent in a close set, Chris has managed to to keep that undefeated record intact and it really doesn't look like anyone can beat him right now. The next challenger is Jeremy, who has always been considered a good player but has sort of come out of nowhere to make some news here. In his first season in the competition he managed not only to grab this high seed but he's also been able to play up to that high standard after getting through David and Pita. The determining factor in this prediction for me is that I've never really seen Jeremy in this position before in a competition while its business as usual for Chris who is expected to win every time he plays. Jeremy is obviously playing great by anyone's standards but in a race to 9 Chris is going to leave most people in the dust. Look for Jeremy to keep it close and maybe even lead a little throughout but you can't pick against a guy with camtasia in his ID.
9-6 Chris Result - 13-11 Chris
#10 _MaTt15_ vs #6 __God - Please do not mistake the lack of top seeds here for a potential lack in entertainment value. That would be a grave mistake because there's a potential for fireworks here. Craig is coming off great wins against Kenny and Trav, and is now looking like he's on the best form we've ever seen from him at this stage in the sscam season. Matt is the lowest remaining seed but he's no slouch by any means. So far he's been able to dispatch of Andy in a close set and was able to dominate Dan in a blowout in the quarters. To start it's important to make people aware these two came out of the same group and the last time they played it was a 7-2 win for Craig. While Craig definitely does appear to be the favourite here Matt is back for his 3rd attempt at an sscam semi-finals and he'll be doing everything possible to come out with his best effort. While Craig's great play definitely has to be commended it's noteworthy that in his victory against Trav that his level of play hit an obvious slump when he hit a 6-2 lead which allowed the set to go longer than it should have. Craig will definitely need to stay in a good head space if he wants to close Matt out. Craig has definitely developed into the better all around player and but I don't expect his patience to hold up as well as in his set vs Trav which is where things will get interesting and closer.
9-7 Craig Result - 9-6 Matt
Quarter-Finals
#1 mr_camtasia vs #9 sykology - Here we have another marquee matchup here in these playoffs as Chris will face off against Brent for a spot in the final 4. Both players are playing at a pretty high level to make it this far as Brent dispatched of Jesse in a close set while Chris had his last set against Gary in a blowout. It's worth mentioning that Chris has never lost a set in an sscam elimination set with this being his 3rd such competition. While Brent is the clear underdog in this set, it will definitely be the biggest challenge so far for Chris on his title run. Chris is going to run a lot of tables and not make too many mistakes no matter what. Brent is going to need to find his top game and catch a couple breaks to pull off this upset. Brent is no stranger to this quality of opponent so he'll like his chances going in but Chris will take care of business.
7-4 Chris Result - 7-5 Chris
#4 pro.jeremy vs #5 new.bies - Well so far in this section of the bracket the top seeds have held serve with not a ton of pressure from either opponent. Jeremy has definitely been impressive all season and his solid win last round shows that it was no fluke. On the other side we have Pita who is really an underdog in number only. Pita's specialty seems to be coming through in crunch time so while he might leave some tables open to begin he'll definitely be locked in at the end. Pita definitely is going to be wanting this one and odds are there will be a good bunch of viewers to cheer him on. Neither of these players really has made a habit of making deep runs into cam comps and while I think Jeremy will be a formidable challenge I think Pita won't be stopped here.
8-6 Pita Result - 7-5 Jeremy
#15 dwaechte vs #10 _MaTt15_ - Ok well as I write this some strange shit has just gone down to setup this match. Dan actually had lost his previous round's set but no tapes were provided and the set was forfeited.... sketchy stuff folks. So that sets up the following round between Dan and Matt which will be a much more wholesome set we imagine between a couple good players. Matt is coming off an impressive round 2 victory against Andy to continue his string of playoff success in this competition. Dan is coming off his 2nd consecutive dq win so its pretty hard to tell how he's playing. There's no real clear favourite in this set because Dan has done a good job getting his skill level up to par recently. The last time these two played a set was in doubles competition where Matt took the victory... I'm thinking they'll both be taking this one a little more seriously and it should be a close win for Matt.
7-5 Matt Result - 7-3 Matt
#19 trav_the_king vs #6 __God - Of all the players who made it this far Trav is definitely the guy who has had to dodge the most bullets picking up wins against Scott and Stu in the first two rounds. Craig has been waiting a little while after discarding Kenny in round 2. We haven't seen Craig so far into the competition since his famous 3 round bye from last year. Two really good players here who both have the ability to get really hot at any time and both can really play any style of game. Both players are probably smelling blood too with a favourable semi-finals match on the horizon as well. It'll come down to who can focus on the task at hand for the entirety of the set. Unless Craig starts out really hot with a big lead I think Trav will come out with this one in the end and continue his great sscam success of late.
7-5 Trav Result - 9-7 Craig
Rd 2 Matchups
#1 mr_camtasia vs #17 boston.bruins2011 - Introducing one the most successful players in the history of sscam, Chris is once again the top seed heading into the playoffs. Chris is most recently coming off a victory in the SSCam prize tournament beating out all the former champs to collect the cash prize. It's a little bit of a surprise to see that his opponent Gary even made it this far as the last round appeared to be a mismatch. Does Gary have the potential to pull off an even bigger surprise against Chris? Probably not. Chris doesn't really lose any sets to anyone and Gary won't be the guy to derail his second sscam title run.
7-2 Chris Result - 7-3 Chris
#8 jmunoz3rd vs #9 sykology - Here we matchup two of the stronger players from the group stage who each earned first round byes through their good performance. Brent is no stranger to the playoffs in this competition as he's been here a few times but is still yet to make any kind of a significant run. Meanwhile Jesse is in the competition for the first time and surprised me a little bit with his quality of play coming in second place in a pretty tough group. There's always pressure that comes in to play in these sets and while Jesse has been around pool for a while Brent is the player who I think would be least affected by playoff pressure as he has made deep runs in 8brcam and other competitions before. Anything can happen when they actually decide to play especially when there's so little separating these players. Brent's creativity and shotmaking should give him the slight edge in this set.
7-5 Brent Result - 7-5 Brent
#4 pro.jeremy vs #13 l3_lvl_x - Well after surviving a 20 game marathon set David lives on to face Jeremy in the next round. Jeremy is new to the competition this season but so far has not disappointed after a 5-0 performance in the group stage. David is coming off that extremely long set where while there were a lot of mistakes made it was clear that he definitely has the overall skill to pull off wins against top players. The big difference between these two players is that Jeremy probably has a better vision for safeties and just a better sense of when those shots are appropriate. Davids goal usually seems like its in the neighbourhood of run this table no matter what and that could work out but usually requires a little luck. Jeremy is a little more solid and should be moving on.
7-5 Jeremy Result - 7-4 Jeremy
#5 AzN_PrIdE_LuVa vs #12 n00bsquad_knight - Here we have our first rematch from the group stage between Pita and Stephen. These two should already be somewhat familiar with each other after they played to a pretty tight 5-4 score with Pita on the winning side. This is actually only Pita's second time into the playoffs which is a bit surprising considering how long he's been in SS. He had a great group stage this time around finishing with just one loss and coming out on top of one of the tougher groups. Not that Stephen really needed the charity but he advanced to here based off a win being given by AJ in the previous round. While Pita will definitely be the favourite in this set, Stephen will definitely be up for the challenge as he actually invited a re-match during some table talk not too long ago. Not a whole lot to lose for Stephen as he tries to breakthrough and get a marquee victory for the elimination portion of his cam comp resume. I think its good for Pita that he has no opponent to look forward to yet in the next round so he'll keep his focus solely on this set and grab the win.
7-4 Pita Result - 7-1 Pita
#2 ooo_franchise_ooo vs #15 dwaechte - Introducing another one of the favourites to win this competition we have the Rufferman making his sscam playoff debut vs Dan. Ruffer had one of the most impressive group stages after collecting one of the 4 5-0 records through some strong wins. Dans previous round once again was a DQ win and that gives him the opportunity again to take out a top competitor. Ruffer seems to be a fundamentally strong player who moves the ball around effortlessly wherever he wants while Dan is a little more rough around the edges. Theres always a chance that hangers and some bad bounces can have an impact on the end result but they dont call this guy franchise for nothing.
7-3 Ruffer Result - DQ win for Dan
#7 X_STRIKE_X vs #10 _MaTt15_ - Well no one said it would get any easier for any of these players and here we have a prime example with set between Matt and Andy. Andy is in the competition for the first time and didn't disappoint with a 4-0 record managing to win his group. Andy has long been an underrated player because of his tendencies to have incredibly long safety games in inters but what people miss sometimes is that while he isn't the most spectacular player he's one of the strongest with fundamentals and doesn't often make mistakes on easy tables. Matt is the kind of player who is either going to have great success or crash and burn in a set vs Andy. He's mostly a run first player who is going to need to finish some of those runs to have a chance here. I don't see Matt really being comfortable playing safeties a lot here but he needs to make the tables as hard on Andy as possible to have any chance of coming out with a win here. I think Andy probably takes Matt out of his comfort zone in this set and moves on.
7-5 Andy Result - 7-5 Matt
#3 zl_stu_lz vs #19 trav_the_king - Trav definitely showed some good signs when he was able to dispatch of Scott in the first round but it will be getting a lot harder in this round. Stu is coming off an impressive 5-0 season where he was able to defend his turf against some pretty good players. Trav is slightly newer on the scene as a top player and while he's recently coming off great success in some other competitions he still seems susceptible to coming out flat and not playing as consistently. Stu, on the other hand, consistently has some of the best cue control out there which allows him to keep things simple and not make as many mistakes. This very well could have been a finals matchup with the type of runs these two players are known for making in competitions. Stu probably doesn't appreciate having to take out Trav first on his run but he'll still probably get it done.
8-6 Stu
#6 __God vs #22 the_pool_professor - We introduce another one of our first round byes to the competition with the #6 seed Craig. Once again Craig had very little trouble with his competition in the group stage, managing to move through with an undefeated record. Last season Craig's playoffs were cut short in the second round when he wasn't able to complete his set so he'll be looking to improve on that. Kenny is just coming off a great win against Jordy in the first round which shows us that the shaky form he had in the group stage is possibly a thing of the past. Definitely hoping for a good showing from Kenny again because he'll need it if he's going to keep this run going through Craig. As always with Craig the start of the set is critical because early deficits are killers for his confidence especially against quality like Kenny. Craig would be the safe pick here but I can't ignore Kenny's big win from last night.
7-5 Kenny Result - 7-3 Craig
Rd 1 Matchups
#16 haters vs #17 boston.bruins2011 - Here we have a couple players who essentially did what they had to do to make it out of the group stage with matching 3-2 records. Both players finished in 3rd place respectively and lost to the higher two seeds. While their stats are definitely very similar I'm pretty sure that'll be where the comparisons end. Both players do like to run quite a bit but Ryan is a lot more calculated in his runs than Gary. While I'm more impressed with Ryan's game he seems like he's also prone to blowing some easy games and getting into a funk. Its hard to pick a clear favourite here when both players have shown pretty big inconsistency throughout the competition but in a race to 7 the better player usually wins and I'm going to have to pick Ryan here.
7-4 Ryan Result - 9-7 Gary
#13 l3_lvl_x vs #20 leafed_leafs - So here we have David & Jon who both struggle in groups at times, but then come out in playoffs and make deep runs. I feel Jon has the advantage here, having more of strategic feel to the game. David can clearly run tables when he's playing good, tho if he's not finishing at a high percentage Jon will be able to pick up a few wins from that alone. However, this can go vice versa if Jon is in more of an attack mode, and using less patience. It's really gonna come down to who's the more relaxed, patient player at the time of set. I'm gonna give this one to Jon, based mainly on an experience factor, since it isn't clear to me which player is on their game atm as David went 3-2 & Jon went 2-3. Tough groups, but still doesn't tell me much. Should be quite a RD 1 set to watch.
7-4 Jon (by Trav) Result - 11-9 David
#12 n00bsquad_knight vs #21 ItsAJ - Well look who we have here in the div A playoffs... Its AJ! For a guy who won't shut his mouth about how he doesn't belong he still managed to beat out half the field for a spot here. While being a playoff player in div A is a nice little accomplishment getting in with such a high seed definitely makes the road that much more challenging. Stephen has qualified for the playoffs for the second consecutive season and will be looking to improve on his first round exit from last season. Not sure how AJ is doing it but he's put up some pretty good results in this competition and 8brcam so I won't go so far as to say he has no chance. Stephen will have to make sure not to look ahead to Pita and take care of business here if he hopes to advance. Should be a close enough set.
7-5 Stephen Result - DQ win for Stephen
#15 dwaechte vs #18 adambuddy - Here we have a couple very skilled players with only room for one of the two to move on to round 2. Dan is into the playoffs here for the 3rd consecutive season and has started to make a habit of playing past the group stage in almost every competition he enters. Adam is like a box of chocolates mostly because he doesn't really play the comps as consistently as he used to. This season though he had a pretty solid 3-0 mark with 2 sets unplayed. Not sure how much these players really know about one another aside from maybe a couple meetings in teamer trnys. Dan is definitely up and coming but I think Adam will be forcing him to take a seat once again in round 1.
8-6 Adam Results - DQ win for Dan
#14 Sc0t_ vs #19 trav_the_king - As far as skill is concerned this is definitely the set to watch out of all the ones from round 1. Scott has finally qualified for the playoffs in this competition after 2 previous seasons coming up short by taking care of the weaker players in his group. Despite having the higher seed here Scott will have to show that he can take down one of the real contenders in Trav. Trav is coming off a prize tourney performance where he knocked out Ant on the way to a second place finish. Unfortunately because of one unplayed set Trav's seeding has been knocked down quite a bit. Trav's bad luck though is good luck for anyone who follows the competition as any viewers will be treated to a pretty good set here. It's really hard to pick a winner here because both players have had some eyebrow raising results fairly recently. Should be really close but Trav has a tendency to come out on top of those sets.
9-7 Trav Result - 7-5 Trav
#11 xlx_skill_xlx vs #22 the_pool_professor - More evidence that getting into the playoffs is not even half the battle, we have another great matchup here between Jordy and Kenny. Kenny returned to action in pool not too long ago to participate in the ss prize tournament where he had some decent results before losing in the semis to Trav. This Sscam season though was pretty shaky for Kenny after he barely managed to win 3 sets and came in 4th place getting in on a wildcard. Jordy on the other hand dominated most of his sets and his seeding is doing him no favours with this first match. Both of these players know how to play any style they really want and there really isn't much to choose between the two. Kenny I'm not so sure about just because he seemed shaky through his group sets. Have to go with the higher seed here although an upset would not be a big surprise.
7-5 Jordy Result - 7-4 Kenny
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