Irving Ends 13 Year Drought To Regain Championship!

We had 14 fighters submit their dogfighting records for consideration in the finals. Happily, despite a very generous condition that pilots only needed 10 fights against 4 unique opponents (leaving open the legal possibility of fighting the same opponent 7 times) not a single fighter engaged a particular opponent more than 3 times. Records varied through the pilots, but the best qualifying score was an incredible average of 4.3/fight put up by Matt Chestnut. Matt amazingly did not lose a single dogfight in the preliminaries and only tied once against Richard Irving. On the other side of the ledger was your humble GM who went 1-10-1 in the preliminaries only getting a 2-0 win when his opponent needed to leave early so did not re-engage.

8 (9 counting the GM) players showed for the final circus including alternates Jenn Craig and returning champion Bill Burtless. Unfortunately for them all 6 qualifiers showed, and we were down to a Round Robin match amongst our top fighters.

(Note that because of inefficient swapping of pairs we had 7 rounds to accomplish our 6 person round robin schedule)

In the first pairings, two-time champion Richard Irving quickly dispatched first time finalist Sara Ward 6-2. 2019 3rd place finisher David-John Pack had an epic battle with 8-time finalist Doug Porterfield edging him out 7-6. And #1 seed Matt had a quick win over another new finalist Brad Raszewski 6-2.

In the next two fights, Richard staked his claim on an early lead with a 7-2 thrashing of David-John while Sara held on tight against Doug but eventually fell 7-4.

For Round 3 Richard (2-0) went the distance with the neophyte #1 seed Matt (1-0) but experience triumphed and Richard got his third win 7-5. David-John (1-1) redeemed his loss to Richard by dispatching Brad (0-1) by a 6-3 score.

Round 4 had three win Richard waiting while we got our first upset of the finals as #6 seed Brad (0-2) took down Doug (1-1) by a 6-4 score. The other match had David-John (2-1) get himself to 3 wins with a close 6-4 win over Sara (0-2).

After 4 rounds, the standings were as follows:

1. Richard 3-0
2. David-John 3-1
3. Matt 1-1
4. Brad 1-2
5. Doug 1-2
6. Sara 0-3

Round 5 saw the two most experienced pilots go head-to-head as Richard (3-0) took on Doug (1-2). Keeping his hopes alive, Doug pulled out a 7-5 win in the back-and-forth affair, knocking Richard back to 3-1. The other match had Matt (1-1) dash David-John’s (3-1) hopes of a 4 win final by quickly shooting him down 6-2.5.

Going into round 6 both Matt and Richard only had 1 loss each but another upset was brewing. Sara (0-3) drew Matt (2-1) in this round and while it went back and forth, Sara persevered and pulled out a 6.5-4 victory that crashed Matt’s hopes of a championship. In the other match, Richard’s (3-1) final match was also close against Brad (1-2) but he pulled out the 6-4 victory for a 4-1 record and his third Ace of Aces Championship.

Despite Richard having secured the win, there were still 2 matches to go, including the one that would decide second place in the tournament. Matt (2-2) needed one more win against Doug (2-2) to secure second place in his first time in the circus. Alas, it was not to be. Doug pulled off a 7-5 win that secured David-John the second place standing on tiebreakers. But the fighting was not over as Sara (1-3) took on Brad (1-3). With a win, Sara could vault herself up into 4th place and drop Matt down to 5th. Unfortunately for her Brad dispatched her quickly 7-3 securing 5th place for himself with a 2-3 record.

A huge thank you to everyone who participated this year and congratulations to our champion, Richard. Next year we will endeavour to have the buttons and coins that make this a truly special event at WBC and hopefully continue to grow it to a new audienc