2018 GenCon Recap

We had a great GenCon and hope that everyone who attended has had a good recovery over the past week. This year the USTA held a total of four events during the convention and all of them were nearly sold out by the time of each event. Overall, GenCon was a success beyond our expectations this year.

Our flagship event was once again the GenCon Tak Championship, which this year saw over $700 in prizes distributed to the top 8 finishers! Top prize this year was a Wyrmwood White Oak Tak set. Second place received a Classic Tak set plus the Arcanist’s board. Third and Fourth place received the new University Tak set. The top 8 all received a copy of Mastering Tak by Bill Leighton.

2018 GenCon Winners
Congratulations to the Championship top four (L to R): Shinjini, Trenton, Matt, and Brian!

There were 12 entrants to the tournament and every player was fantastic, kind, and wonderfully patient. With a community like this we’re sure to be running these events for years to come. There were many people who it was great to see again and also fantastic to see so many new faces at all of our events. Thank you to all the players for being a part of this.

The semifinals and finals of the tournament were video recorded and will be posted once there has been some cleanup and editing done on them. Keep an eye out here for those to show up soon.

At the request of many in the tournament, here are the full final standings:

  1. Shinjini Basu (M_Ainsel)
  2. Trenton Sarnowski
  3. Matt Cavanaugh
  4. Brian Strassman
  5. Matthew “Queso” Niederberger
  6. Tim Lo
  7. Ian Ward
  8. Andy Smith
  9. Shane Tilton
  10. Mike Schank
  11. Donald Forbes
  12. Justin Taylor

GenCon Learn-to-Play Events

Aside from our annual tournament at GenCon, this year the USTA held three other events focused on introducing new players to the game and giving them a chance to just play for a couple of hours. The turnout for these events was amazing, and it seemed that anywhere Tak was being played passers-by would stop to watch people play and ask about the game.

These events were clearly a huge success and we will be continuing and expanding this kind of effort in the future. More announcements about some of our future event plans will be coming soon.

Volunteers and Sponsors

Finally we want to say a huge thank you to those who volunteered to help with all of the events – particularly David Cornwell and Bill Leighton – who showed up to every event to help run things. They gave up part of their GenCon, and their chance to participate in Tak events, to ensure that things ran smoothly.

As always we’re also hugely thankful to Cheapass Games for their support in making our whole GenCon presence possible, not only just in creating the game we all love, but also though their sponsorship of the USTA.

Thank you to our other continued sponsor, Wyrmwood Gaming, for providing a sponsorship of their amazing Tak boards, giving our prize offerings that extra wow factor at every event.

We’re a little sad that GenCon has ended and we’ve had to say goodbye to many old and new friends, but we’re more excited about Tak than ever. See you all at GenCon next year!