Day 1 Recap: Lakeman In Control

July 30th, 2016 - The phenomenal Robbie Lakeman wasted no time on the first day of Kong Off competition in securing his place in Sunday's bracketed finals.

On the very first quarter-drop of the tournament, Lakeman scored 1,135,300, not merely guaranteeing that he would make the cut (while putting heavy pressure on his world-record rival Wes Copeland), but in doing so, managed to pull off the highest score ever achieved at a Kong Off.

Mirroring the Day 1 results from last year's Kong Off 4, 2nd and 3rd place were held by the always-reliable Dean Saglio and Jeff Willms, followed by strong showings from Jason Wade and a focused Steve Wiltshire, who came determined not to repeat history. He ended up on the wrong side of the bubble in 9th place at the very end of Day 2 of the Kong Off 4. His 1,043,600 is not a lock, but is likely to hold up.

The million mark has yet to be breached by anyone else in the field, but rest assured, it will be. Vincent Lemay came the closest with 993,500.

Billy "USA" Mitchell honoring his long-running tradition - taunting Canadians - while Jeff Willms (right) works to cover the exchange rate

Tanner Fokkens who became the youngest Donkey Kong kill-screener in the game's history last year at the tender age of 16, holds 7th position.

Ending the day in 8th place, defending Kong Off champion Hank Chien managed 851,000, but will have his work cut out for him if he wants to survive to Sunday.

Here are the full standings as of the end of Day 1:

Rank	Player	Best Score
1	Robbie Lakeman	1,135,300
2	Dean Saglio	1,084,100
3	Jeff Willms	1,071,200
4	Jason Wade	1,046,900
5	Steve Wiltshire	1,043,600
6	Vincent Lemay	993,500
7	Tanner Fokkens	884,100
8	Hank Chien	851,000
9	Ethan Daniels	824,800
10	Wes Copeland	815,100
11	Mick Winzeler	778,600
12	Eric Tessler	581,200

Sadly, Steve Wiebe, whose role in The King of Kong is one of the reasons we're all here in the first place, encountered a last-minute family emergency and was unable to attend this year's event. His presence is missed, but the show must go on.

Will Copeland pull ahead of Lakeman? Will Chien have the opportunity to defend his title? Might the great Saglio finally get a chance to walk away from a Kong Off with the belt?

Stay tuned to Kong Off 5 live stream and the official scoreboard to find out, and thanks to Polygon for sending viewers our way!

Hammering Hank Chien Wins The Kong Off 4! Lakeman Defeated In Final Round Grudge Match

Photo: Jeff Harrist

August 3rd, 2015 - Hank Chien tasted sweet revenge on Sunday when the deposed world record holder defeated his usurper, the current King of Kong Robbie Lakeman, in an ultimate final round grudge match at the Kong Off 4.

Chien may no longer be on top of the all-time high score standings, but another Kong Off win (his second after the the inaugural installment in 2011) is a comeback to be proud of.

The always amazing Jeff Willms submitted the event's highest overall score, and if not for the new head-to-head finals, would have successfully defended his Kong Off title once again for an unprecedented three in a row.

The Bracket Tourney

Sunday's single-elimination bracket tournament—consisting of eight players in seven matches and seeded by Friday and Saturday's high score competition—initially met with wide skepticism. Players and observers were unsure whether or not the format could succeed, being so radical a departure from the traditional model.

Scores for this "one-and-done" style were indeed relatively low compared to those attained in isolated, individual sessions, where players can enjoy the luxury of multiple attempts and easily-aborted weak games, with only their very best game ultimately mattering.

But when limited to one game, against a specific player, entirely new dynamics are introduced, and the community at large came away very pleasantly surprised with the excitement, pressure, and novelty of this much more direct form of competition.

Commentary At Last!

Several weeks ago, during Steve Wiebe's appearance at the Mall of America, Mitchell Elliott was a guest on the live stream, and offered superb running commentary on the action, helping viewers to better comprehend what they were watching. It was a taste of what was to come this past weekend.

Donkey Kong live-streamed games and tournaments have always struggled with the problem of a game that is notoriously spectator-unfriendly. For the uninitiated, it's slow, hard to understand, and tactically arcane.

As Jesse Hicks of the Verge described it in his 2013 piece on the Kong Off 3: "To the casual eye it's something less than poetry in motion."

On Sunday, expert players including Wes Copeland, Ethan Daniels, Dean Saglio, as well as Wiebe, Elliot, and others, sat down in the ReplayFX broadcast booth to do their part making Donkey Kong more accessible. For the first time ever, Kong Off matches were streamed with play-by-play announcers, and the results were very well-received.

I've wanted commentary for a long time and it was wonderful to see how strong and professional it turned out to be.

Here is the final Lakeman versus Chien match. If you've ever wanted to understand just what goes into playing this game at a high level, I recommend giving it a listen:

On To Next Year

The Kong Off 5 has already been scheduled for next year, where Hank Chien will defend his title at the same location and on the same weekend at ReplayFX in Pittsburgh.

Thanks to Richie Knucklez for his hard work in making the Kong Offs happen, and to many others who help in so many ways behind the scenes. Photographer William McEvoy deserves special mention for his talents, covering the last three Kong Offs, as well as other classic gaming events around the country. Needless to say, McEvoy's work has been indispensable to my blog posts.

I'd also like to thank renowned gaming journalist and Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless, who over the weekend Tweeted a link to the coverage here and sent some curious traffic in this direction. The gaming and tech press has always been kind to Donkey Blog and it is always appreciated.

And on the subject of traffic...

It's pure serendipity that it would happen within a fortnight or so of a Kong Off coming to a close, but it would seem that my pageview counter's rollover to 1 million is imminent! When I started this blog four years ago, it was a pet project that I never would have foreseen hitting that milestone. My "score" here is higher than my personal best at the game. Much gratitude goes out to the many thousands who have linked, reddited, Tweeted, shared, read, commented, and encouraged.

Congratulations to Hank, Jeff, and all the other competitors for another well-played Kong Off!

Hard at work on Kong Off Row

Ethan Daniels' understated reaction to a Steve Wiebe autograph

Richie Knucklez and Alan Radue with the champion's barstool Radue created for the event

The Kong Off 4 lineup (left to right): Walter Day, Jason Wade, Ethan Daniels, Dean Saglio, Jeff Wolfe, Steve Wiltshire, Wes Copeland, Mike Groesbeck, Daniel Desjardins, Steve Wiebe, Vincent Lemay, Jeff Willms, Hank Chien, Eric Tessler, Jeff Harrist, Robbie Lakeman, Billy Mitchell

All photos: William McEvoy

The Top 10 Is Fully-Loaded As The Limelight Shines On DK

January 5th, 2015 - Competitive Donkey Kong is getting "face time" yet again—and on this occasion, it's the ink-and-paper kind!

A little over a week after Robbie Lakeman broke the world record in September, I was contacted by Sam Rowe, a journalist from the UK who was interested in preparing a feature on the high score chase.

It just so happened that Lakeman and other top players Hank Chien, Ethan Daniels, Vincent Lemay, and Wes Copeland were about to meet in New Jersey in October for an informal "mini-Kong Off" at Richie Knucklez Arcade. Sam spent a few days with them, getting to know the players and more about their world.

The next month, Sam's story made it into a few different publications—including two of the UK's more widely-read lifestyle magazines, Forever Sports and ShortList.

Soon to come will be an interview with Robbie Lakeman for AskMen, as part of his continuing rounds as the reigning King of Kong.

Robbie Riding High

Strange as it may seem, it would appear that the people of Earth still want to know who their Donkey Kong champion is.

The story of Robbie Lakeman's new world record spread wider than I thought it would, to blogs, websites, and newswires large and small.

The hype continues up to the present moment. This past week, Robbie was picked to be one of Polygon's 50 Admirable Gaming People of 2014.

Here's Robbie talking about his achievement with his local TV affiliate:

Speaking for myself, being the source to break a "new world champion" announcement was one of the last of the to do's that I needed to cross off of the bucket list for this blog. It was a pleasure to tip off the first domino.

I love this community, my close, personal connection to it, and am happy to be known as "the guy who writes articles" on its behalf. I was thrilled to be there with Robbie and my friends as his game played out on Twitch. The blog post was an all-nighter, but needless to say, well worth it. (The highlight for me: a write-up in The AV Club, a sister publication of The Onion, which had some very kind words for my work.)

What has not been widely-reported is that on December 1st, Robbie actually managed to push his own record a bit further (by 3,000 points), in a run that ended with 1,144,800 points. This new score, having occurred so quickly after the game that beat Chien, and not being much more than a cherry on top, admittedly happened very quietly. In fact, word did not spread outside of the DK community. Congratulations were forthcoming nonetheless, and the record will now be that much tougher to beat.

Kiehl Crashes Into The Chien Force Field

Hank Chien may have finally lost the world record for the arcade platform, but his mythical "force field" seems to still be menacing everyone whose name isn't Robbie Lakeman.

Mark Kiehl, who has been his characteristically-quiet self ever since taking 4th place on the all-time list over two years ago, recently reclaimed that very same spot on the much tougher leaderboard of today.

In so doing, Kiehl dutifully honored what is quickly becoming a bona fide tradition... just barely missing Hank Chien. He managed to slip into the impossibly tight space between "Dr. Kong" and Ross Benziger, coming 1,000 points shy of Chien's former world record.

(Almost) Ten 1.1s

I must confess, I never thought that I would see it come to pass.

The ten highest-scoring Donkey Kong players in the world are now all sporting personal bests within the "max-out" range - that once-elusive 100,000 point corridor between 1.1 and 1.2 million points.

10th place—now held by Wes Copeland at 1,099,500—technically falls just short, but he's clawing to push through (more on that below). Copeland's score, along with the aforementioned recent performance by Mark Kiehl, and Steve Wiltshire several months ago, have loaded the bases going into the 6th (and final) Donkey Kong Online Open which begins this week.

Just a little over two years ago, when the Kong Off 2 was about to get underway, only two players other than then-champ Hank Chien had crossed 1.1: Dean Saglio and Jeff Willms. The rest of the field (headed by Steve Wiebe in 4th with 1,064,500) was quite a distance behind.

The gap has closed in the 26 months since, and now the traffic snarl around the top score has gotten even more chaotic.

Coping With Copeland

Copeland (left)
with world champion Robbie Lakeman and Vincent Lemay

Wes Copeland, a young programmer analyst from Arkansas who came in second place in the Donkey Kong Online Open #2 earlier in 2014, took down first place in DKO #4 this past August.

Copeland's aforementioned 1,099,500 point performance came a little over a month later on September 30th, and now rounds out the all-time top 10.

Having only played Donkey Kong for about a year and a half, "Copie" is blowing minds. Suddenly the field has (yet another) world record-capable player to contend with.

The road to cracking 1.1 has been tough, but Copeland's determination is tougher. As he recently put it on Donkey Kong Forum:

"Truth be told, playing at 1.1 pace on a daily basis has removed all joy and fun from the game for me. The game feels more like a job at the moment because of how hard I'm grinding on a daily basis, but I mentally can't stop until I know my score reflects what I think my potential is."

Copie is currently locked in a full-time battle with the game, his goal being to play every day, often for 8 hours or more, until he crosses the 1.1 mark. None of us doubt that he will do it soon enough.

Saglio's Fingerprint On The Big Bang Theory

As the recent magazine articles were being prepped, competitive Donkey Kong managed to find its way (by the subtlest of measures) onto primetime network television.

A brief scene on a recent episode of CBS's hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory depicted Leonard locked into "the game of his life" on a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet.

A brief shot of the monitor caught the eagle eye of none other than Vincent Lemay, who noted that the score read 464,100 on Level 9. Lemay, knowing that only one player had ever accomplished such a feat, checked to confirm his suspicion, and discovered that the game footage being piped into the cabinet for the scene was indeed none other than Dean Saglio's MAME world record!

How, why, and by whom the footage was inserted in the show remains a mystery, but it was a fun moment for the community, and a great homage (even if unintentional) to Saglio's epic performance.

(Skip to 1:30 to check out the scene.)

The Donkey Kong Online Open #6 Starts Wednesday!

Check back here soon, as the 6th and final installment in the Donkey Kong Online Open tournament series (which began last February) will kick off Wednesday night at 9 PM Pacific. A brief event preview will be posted prior to the start time.

Follow this link to Donkey Kong Forum for more information on how to register and compete.

Steve Wiltshire Ushers In the "Post-Twin Galaxies" Top 20

February 16th, 2014 - Steve Wiltshire—who grabbed every eye in the standing-room-only crowd as the "last man standing" at the Kong Off 3—found himself in an awkward position a few weeks ago: he'd just achieved 7th place all time in the Donkey Kong standings, but there was no official referee to whom he could submit the score.

Four months into its mysterious disappearance (which I wrote about in January), Twin Galaxies ownership has yet to utter a peep about its whereabouts. Every day that passes brings more gamers into the growing camp who have come to believe that the organization is gone for good.

Kong Off 3 Tournament In Review

The third Kong Off proved to be the biggest and best yet, with more competitors, much bigger scores, and suspense right up until the last minute. Donkey Kong's finest "brought it" last weekend, putting on a show for which Twin Galaxies and the gaming community should be beaming with pride.

Robbie Lakeman, Shaun Boyd, and Jeff Willms on "Kong Off Row" (Photo: Dave Danzara)

Within hours of the first quarter drop on Day 1, former Top 12 competitor Kyle Goewert asserted his place among the big boys—despite his demotion to the Wildcard Division—by turning in the first million-point game of the weekend. With Corey Chambers already having taken an early lead with almost 900,000 points, it was clear that the wildcards had stepped up to give the Top 12 lineup a run for their money.

By evening, Goewert had slipped, finding himself in the middle of a "Steve sandwich" as Steve Wiltshire grabbed first place ("I just took the lead. Holy crap, I'm winning!" Wiltshire told Facebook), and Steve Wiebe rounded out the top 3 just 800 points shy of Goewert.

Ross Benziger struggles on Day 1 (Photo: William McEvoy)

Before the day was out though, world champion Hank Chien had pushed ahead of the field with 1,056,900, and less than twenty minutes later, Jeff Willms realized everyone's worst nightmare: an enormous 1,096,200.

With first place now higher than the all-time personal bests of all but five of the competitors, the field groaned at the imposing task before it. It felt to many that this year's title would go to Willms again, with Billy Mitchell himself declaring "nobody's going to beat that score."

In reality, Willms was not actually as safe as he might have seemed. The defending champ even admitted that he had "gotten lucky" and would have to remain so to hold the lead. With such a high mark established at the end of Day 1, it was no longer "anyone's tournament", but by no means was a Willms victory a foregone conclusion.

Indeed, Chien and Saglio showed up for Day 2 ready for war, and both pushed deep into games that could have taken first had they reached the kill screen.

Willms (left) discreetly checks in on Saglio (right) via one of the overhead TVs

Saglio had the closest call, reaching 1,033,000 in a game that ended on the last board of Level 20. If Saglio had cleared that board, he would have needed a Level 21 worth about 60,000 points in order to bridge the gap. Considering that Saglio's level averages have routinely exceeded 61,000 in his "1.2" runs (with level maximums often close to 70,000), Willms was likely only minutes away from losing first place if bad luck hadn't gotten in Saglio's way.

Meanwhile on Day 2, Dave McCrary (who, like Goewert, was another former Top 12er pushed into the Wildcard Division for this year's installment) had the game of his life, turning in 1,032,000 which earned him first place for the division (a $250 prize), a new personal best, as well as a bump up to 13th place on the all time scoreboard.

The "Team Wiebe Girls" make an appearance (Photo: Westword)

Steve Wiebe, not content with his standard (but frighteningly consistent) "flat million" with which he has been gracing live events for years, decided to push a little harder on Day 2. He got a hold of a strong run that was on pace to beat Chien for second, as well as push past his (now three year old) personal best, but the game, unfortunately, ended prematurely. Wiebe nonetheless pulled back into third position with 1,048,800.

Then, in a game that went into overtime after "last quarter" at 6:00, Kong titan Ross Benziger rose all the way from dead last in the standings to second place (where, incidentally, he also sits on the all-time scoreboard). With the pressure on to prove himself, and despite being "sick as a dog all weekend", Benziger's run was good enough to overtake Chien and the $1,000 second-place prize.

Steve Wiltshire: Last Man Standing

As player after player finished his last run, stepping away from their machines as the live streams went dark, attention turned to Steve Wiltshire—the "last man standing" at the Kong Off 3.

Steve Wiltshire with his wife Jessi. (Photo: Westword)

As he crossed his earlier score of 1,016,700 with only a few boards left to go, it was clear that there were not enough points left between Wiltshire and the kill screen to win the tournament, but if he could hold on to his spare man and cash it in for extra points on the last barrel board, he had an outside shot at Hank Chien (now in third) and Wiebe was well within striking range.

With hundreds of eyes on him, flashes popping, and the crowd on the edge of its seat, Wiltshire's cash-in succeeded. He then pushed through a troublesome final rivet board (one close call in particular eliciting an awed gasp that swept the room), hit the kill screen, and snatched fourth place from Wiebe.

Big, Big, Big

The final leaderboard tells the tale of just how serious these competitions are getting. While no new world record was set over the weekend, this was, by far, the toughest Donkey Kong tournament ever held.

For perspectve:

At the first Kong Off, not a single player broke a million points.

At Kong Off 2, just three players managed to roll the score.

This year though, an unprecendented nine competitors were able to breach seven digits, with two (Wiebe and Wiltshire) doing it twice, for a total of eleven million-point games.

The Kong Off 3 was also a much tighter race than KO2: Willms and Saglio ran away with it in 2012, with Wiebe's third place trailing them by 73,000 points. This year, in contrast, that same gap represented the total span from 1st all the way to 8th.

In the Spotlight

Media interest in the Kong Off 3 was high (and is actually still underway, with two major pieces by Vice Magazine and The Verge expected in the coming weeks).

The tournament was front page news in The Denver Post, Denver's ABC, CBS, and Fox affiliates covered the event, Westword featured a photo gallery, the Lincoln Journal-Star interviewed Steve Wiltshire, major technology websites like Ars Technica followed the action (and were kind enough to link to this blog!), and other gaming/sports outlets such as RetroDomination, Polygon, Kitguru, and One World Sports ran stories as well.

Here's CBS 4 Denver's brief segment (note the anchor introducing the story with the exact same joke that he used last year! We love you, TV news...)

What About Me?

I was one of the Wildcard Division competitors in this year's tournament, having won my spot during the Online Qualifiers this past summer.

Saturday, however, proved to be one of my worst playing-days in a very long time, in terms of luck, energy, focus, mood, and every other factor you can name. I had failed to put in any practice in the lead-up to the tournament, had barely slept the night before, and my head, as they say, "was not in the game." None of this helped.

Only the 10 highest-scoring players in the Wildcard Division would move on to Sunday, and it became clear to me, as evening fell, that it wasn't meant to be. I decided to stop throwing myself and my "F" game at a machine that was refusing to work with me, and instead turn my attention to other things.

The world-famous Allen Staal!
(Photo: William McEvoy)

I quickly made peace with the decision, and it was an easy peace, as I'd actually been feeling for weeks prior that I was going to the event primarily to experience it, with competition being a distant afterthought. I'd cared much more about doing well in the online preliminaries; to prove that I could "make the cut" and earn a place in the big show. I wasn't so concerned about what would happen once I got there.

My real priority in Denver was to spend time with this group of friends who, up to this weekend, I'd only known online. I wanted to have Steve Wiebe autograph my King of Kong DVD, to shake Billy Mitchell's hand, to personally thank Walter Day for his part in creating this strange and amazing world. I also wanted time to get into the trenches and follow the action for the blog.

In other words, I wanted to do anything and everything but play Donkey Kong! So my elimination on Saturday ended up being the best thing that could have happened, as I got to check all of the "to do"s off my list, and wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I could not care less that I finished lowest in my "online pre-qualifier" division. I came back from the event with my own trading card, an award certificate recognizing my "tremendous contributions to the world of competitive arcade gaming", and unanimously positive memories.

Certificate Awards (Photo: Cat DeSpira)

I want to extend my thanks to Richie Knucklez, Jourdan Adler, the crew at The 1up, and my fellow players. It was an exceptionally wonderful weekend, and I have a new appreciation for how much blood and sweat go into an event like this. I'm looking forward to doing it again someday!

The Kong Off 3 is Set!

November 11th, 2013 - The October 25th deadline to crack the Twin Galaxies Top 12 has come and gone, and the three Wildcard Qualifier tournaments are in the books.

After months of spirited action, 22 players—12 for coveted "dedicated machine" honors, and 10 online pre-qualifiers for the Wildcard Division (who will play on shared machines)—are headed for Denver and their chance at a share of the Kong Off 3 prize purse of over $5,000.

The battle begins in just four days.

4 New Millionaires, 2 Sweet Cabinets

June 20th, 2013 - 2013 has been an exciting year for the Donkey Kong faithful. With the arrival of the Donkey Kong Forum, the community is now all together in one place, sharing news, scores, strategies, and stoking the competitive fires.

For those who are not regulars and may be out of the loop on the latest happenings, here's a little catch-up...

Wiltshire Pushes The Leaderboard to a Possible Kuh Screen

Brian Kuh, moments after acquiescing "the first
Funspot kill screen" to Steve Wiebe in 2005

September 30th, 2012 - Earlier today, Twin Galaxies verified that Steve Wiltshire of Lincoln, Nebraska has taken 9th place on the Donkey Kong leaderboard with a fantastic score of 964,600.

This means that Donkey Kong competitor Brian Kuh, portrayed in The King of Kong as Billy Mitchell's protégé (and likely to be eternally beleaguered for one infamous, immortal scene in particular), is being threatened with imminent excommunication from the top 20.