Last season of the decade. 28 teams. A new problem: Dilshat-aka's technician wants to leave for Almaty, so for the first time, I am also the one who knows how to fix the LAN. I carry a screwdriver now. I feel very serious.
The new bracket with names in two colours of marker. Red is for the winners of the previous seasons. The wall is almost full of history.Season 6. 24 teams, 3 divisions. I made a spreadsheet to decide the groups and it took me 4 evenings. Nobody noticed except Madina, who said "you made a government".
Next to the club is the Misgaron row. Every year the guys make the cup a new base. This year's base is a piece of an old samovar.Because nobody asked, I will tell you: all the matches, all the results of five seasons are in a notebook with a green cover. 11,314 rounds. Yes I counted. No, it was not hard.
The league is growing, and the room is not. Dilshat-aka is thinking about a second room, but the neighbour is a barber who says "no noise after 21:00", and a barber has a big influence in the Old City.
Dilshat-aka agreed to some friendly matches in August. Only 3 days, one in the afternoon when it is 38 degrees, so we play in a room with the door open and the fan pointed at the monitors, not at the people. Shirts off, I see. Nobody takes pictures.
Winner: a team called "Chai Time", that was formed on the spot by 5 guys who walked in to buy a mouse.
16 teams. The wall is not big enough. Dilshat-aka painted a part of the next wall with white paint and said "no more". I drew the bracket on the white paint with a ruler. Everybody is impressed. I'm not good at drawing, but I'm good with a ruler.
Special guest: a team of schoolboys from Iyık Janyl, who came on the marshrutka with a cooler bag of samsas. They were the first to bring food for the whole club. They were also the first to lose in round one. We ate the samsas anyway.
I have been asked many times: "why is the league still on CS 1.6, the club has newer computers?" Short answer: the computers in the back room are 14 old boxes from 2009 with an old video card. They run 1.6 like a dream and the new game like a slideshow. Long answer: 1.6 is the game our brothers played, and the Old City likes things that don't change. Also, our oldest player has been playing since he was 22 and does not want to learn a new one.
Final: Sarchashma United vs Citadel Rush. 14-14 on inferno, last round, the bomb is planted, 4 seconds to the kaboom, and the power cut. All the monitors black. Complete silence. A boy said "don't touch anything!", but nobody was touching anything.
When the light came back (31 minutes later) the match was gone: the server restarted. We had to decide by a coin. Dilshat-aka said "we do not decide a final by a coin". We did a 1v1 on aim_map between the two captains, with knives, at 1 a.m., with 40 people in the room.
Sarchashma United won, the captain of Citadel Rush shook his hand, and told him "you were lucky". It was true.
They are called Ak Gül ("white flower"), five girls from the philology building at TSU, one of them is the sister of a Misgaron Boy, who now hates it. They have lost two matches 16-2 and 16-4 and won the third 16-15 in overtime on inferno. The room stood up. I am not joking, all the room stood up and clapped, and the guys they beat clapped too.
The Lagers captain said "she was camping at B". The girl (the captain of Ak Gül) said "yes, I was camping at B and your whole team was running into it". Beautiful.
New bracket on the wall. This time Dilshat-aka gave us the WHOLE wall and a new marker, the thick one.Registration closed in 4 days: 12 teams. Two are from Nurzhan (they came by the bus on purpose), one team is only girls (!), one team is 14-year-olds who say they are "retired".
New rules after last winter:
The back room at midnight. 30 people watching 10 monitors. You cannot see the floor.The final was played on a big monitor that Dilshat-aka took from a dead computer in the shop. 31 people in a room for 14 people. A grandmother came in to buy a charger and stayed until the end (she supported Misgaron, because her grandson plays there).
Result: 16-13, MISGARON BOYS. The captain got the copper cup. He hit it with a spoon, it sounded good. Then he hit it with a bigger spoon and put a dent in it. It is now the OFFICIAL dent.
Thank you to everybody. Season 2 in December. The bracket will stay on the wall until then, please nobody wash it.
Semifinal 1 was great. Semifinal 2 was 11-11 when the light went out. All the monitors, the fans, the helicopter. 4 minutes in the dark. Somebody turned on the phone flashlight, somebody started to sing the anthem of Temir-Kapka, which is not an anthem, it is a song about a goat.
Dilshat-aka found the fuse. Light came back, the game was restarted from the same round (we trust each other, mostly), and Temir-Kapka won by one round. The Lagers say it is not fair. Of course it is not fair, it is a LAN in the Old City.
The back room of Kashkar before anybody comes. 14 monitors, 14 chairs, 1 fan that sounds like a helicopter.OK people. After 3 weeks of arguing about the rules in the shop, the Old City CS 1.6 League is real. Dilshat-aka said yes, he will give us the LAN on Friday and Saturday nights from 20:00 and the winter is ours. Entry is free, you only pay the normal hourly price (5 som). Night pass 18 for those who want to stay until 7.
8 teams, 5 players each, starting 20 December. Registration is in the shop on a sheet of paper from my school notebook. Names so far: