Professional Gamers League Finals

  The first-ever Professional Gamers League Finals took place on January 30
and January 31, 1998 in Seattle, Washington at the Sega GameWorks super-
arcade. Here are the full results. All results are listed in the order they
occurred with the final matches at the bottom of the report.
  
In Command & Conquer: Red Alert games:

ROUND 1 QUARTER-FINAL GAMES
SOLJA beat MOBBIN. These two guys are cousins! Anyway, SOLJA won and he 
moves to the winners bracket, but MOBBIN's still not out of it since it's a
double-elimination tournament.

push beat STR8BALLIN. After beating CNC_GOD and Havok3 and being accused of
cheating, STR8BALLIN was knocked into the loser's bracket by the heavily 
favored push.

DeepBlue beat Hoggleford. This game was huge! Hoggleford was just coming 
off a big win over n-sane to get here, but DeepBlue beat him in an awesome 
game!

Sephiroth beat unabomber1. This is yet another in a long streak of upsets 
by Sephiroth. Here is a guy who was 36-36 in the regular season, and turns 
around and goes undefeated all the way throught he playoffs against some 
tough competition, including BJ2, the #1 ranked player during the regular 
season. SEPHIROTH COULD GO ALL THE WAY!

ROUND 1 LOSERS BRACKET
MOBBIN beat STR8BALLIN. Both had just come off big losses and the pressure 
was on because one more loss and you're eliminated. MOBBIN came out on top,
eliminating STR8BALLIN.

unabomber1 beat Hoggleford. Hoggleford was probably the favorite to win 
this one, but he suffered another tough loss and is now eliminated from the
tournament.

WINNERS BRACKET ROUND 1
SOLJA beat push! In this battle of the titans, SOLJA took EVERYONE by 
surprise (including push) with a quick rush of grenadiers. push was 
completely unprepared for this and SOLJA took the victory with just seven 
kills, sending push into the losers bracket, where he still has a chance at
coming back and winning.

DeepBlue beat Sephiroth. DeepBlue finally ended Sephiroth's long streak of 
huge upsets. At one point, everyone was giving Sephiroth the game when it 
looked like he was on top, but DeepBlue remained calm and brought in 
reserve tanks to wipe Sephiroth off the map.

LOSERS BRACKET ROUND 2
push beat unabomber1. Going into this game, unabomber1 was coming off a big
win against Hoggleford and push was coming off a big loss against SOLJA, so
all the momentum appeared to be on unabomber's side. However, push managed 
to beat unabomber1, eliminating him from the tournament.

Sephiroth beat MOBBIN. Sephiroth pulls another uspet out of his hat to 
avoid elimination! It appeared as though MOBBIN was going to win with an 
early tank rush, but Sephiroth launched a huge counter-attack, giving the 
upset kid another chance and eliminating MOBBIN.

  And so now, after a full day of grueling, close, and exciting match-ups, 
the only four players remaining are SOLJA, DeepBlue, Sephiroth, and push. 
The next big Red Alert match-up is DeepBlue vs. SOLJA. Both players have 
been undefeated thus far in the tournament and the winner of this game will
become the favorite to win it all. In the loser's bracket, it's push vs. 
Sephiroth in what is sure to be an intense game since one loss for either 
player and they're eliminated. The PGL playoffs have been extremely 
exciting thus far, and things are only going to get more interesting as the
first season comes to a climactic close.

IN QUAKE GAMES:
Unholy beat B2 to avoid elimination. Unholy was down by six kills with like
a minute left, but managed to pull off another incredible comeback. In what
has to be considered an all-time Quake moment, Unholy was down by one kill 
and was chasing B2 with like ten seconds left, then killed him a lightning 
bolt to send the game into a five-minute overtime period, which Unholy won 
3-0. B2 has been eliminated and Unholy moves on to play the loser of the 
Thresh-Reptile match later today.

RED ALERT WINNERS BRACKET ROUND 3
DeepBlue beat SOLJA! DeepBlue now has to be considered the favorite to win 
the whole thing. SOLJA still has a chance if he beats the winner of the 
Sephiroth-push match and earns a rematch against DeepBlue, though.

RED ALERT LOSERS BRACKET ROUND 3
Sephiroth beat push! push is now out of the tournament and Sephiroth 
advances to play SOLJA later today. The winner of the Sephiroth-SOLJA game 
will go the finals to meet DeepBlue, also later today. In the finals, since
DeepBlue has been undefeated throughout the tournament and SOLJA and 
Sephiroth have both lost once (and it's a two-losses-and-you're-out 
tournament), DeepBlue's opponent will have to beat him twice in a row to 
win the championship, while DeepBlue only has to win one more game.

QUAKE WINNERS BRACKET ROUND 3
Reptile beat Thresh! OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! THIS IS THRESH'S FIRST 
LOSS EVER IN AN ORGANIZED COMPETITION! Thresh was dominating early on, but 
Reptile kept his cool and came back with kill after kill after kill to 
eventually take the 10-7 victory! Reptile moves on to the Finals, but 
Thresh isn't out yet. Thresh moves on to play Unholy, and the winner of 
that plays Reptile in the Finals later today. 

RED ALERT SEMI FINALS:
SOLJA beat Sephiroth. Going into the game, SOLJA was coming off a tough 
loss to DeepBlue, while Sephiroth was coming off a big win over push. SOLJA
crippled Sephiroth early by taking out his construction yard and power 
plant. Sephiroth gave it all he had, but it just wasn't enough and now 
Sephiroth has been eliminated. SOLJA moves on to the Red Alert Finals 
against DeepBlue later today, and as explained in an above update, SOLJA 
will have to beat DeepBlue twice in a row since DeepBlue has gone 
undefeated thus far throughout the tournament.

QUAKE SEMI-FINALS
Thresh beat Unholy. It started out close, but Thresh pulled away and won 
14-5 in this battle of close friends. 

RED ALERT FINALS- DEEPBLUE WINS!
SOLJA beat DeepBlue, but then DeepBlue won a close rematch to take the 
championship! DeepBlue had beaten SOLJA earlier in the day, but SOLJA came 
back with a win in their second game against each other. That pushed them 
to a final third game for all the marbles- and what a game it was. SOLJA 
managed to take out DeepBlue's construction yard, then slowly but surely 
took out power plant after power plant and effectively destroyed DeepBlue's
base. However, DeepBlue got this far with his uncanny ability to regroup 
and keep his cool, and that's exactly what he did here. When SOLJA 
destroyed his base, he didn't even flinch. Instead, he quietly prepared a 
massive counter-attack. DeepBlue's tanks and SOLJA's tanks squared off in 
the valley area of the map. DeepBlue appeared to have the advantage in the 
initial tank battle, but SOLJA looked to have the upper hand in the long 
run since he could still produce more tanks and DeepBlue couldn't. However,
DeepBlue had something up his sleeve. Apparently, while he was holding his 
own in the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) tank battle, DeepBlue managed to 
sneak a group of infantry into SOLJA's base and destroy it. SOLJA no longer
had the advantage of being able to out-produce DeepBlue since both bases 
were now gone, and DeepBlue took the victory. An amazing finish to an 
amazing season!
  DeepBlue now has to be considered the #1 Red Alert player in the world. 
He takes home $7,500 cash, a brand new AMD computer system, and more for 
winning.

QUAKE FINALS- THRESH WINS!
 Reptile beat Thresh earlier today. In their second meeting in the finals, 
Thresh won. After the match, Reptile complained about the level they played
(DM4), calling it the "cheeseball level." In the deciding final game, 
Reptile started off with a 2-0 lead, but Thresh came back to win 5-2, 
making Thresh the first ever PGL Quake champion! He goes home with $7,500 
cash and a brand new AMD computer system, plus he just signed an 
endorsement deal with Microsoft yesterday, and will no doubt strike other 
deals when the PGL finals hits newspapers and television news everywhere
tomorrow.
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