Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Players' Page

The emperor's new apprentice?

Alex @ Wednesday, September 1st 06:31AM [link]

Movement

Not too much movement. #1 Kouider was active and even scored a WR, but his AF actually worsened because #4 Andreas Rudmarker was on fire with 8 trailblazing PRs -- many of them WRs. The good news for Kouider was that #2 Richard's and #3 Hendrik's AF worsened by even more, so his grasp on first place now has a 0.53 AF point cushion. Andreas made a 0.9pt cut, passing Aron (now #5) and making up lots of ground on Hendrik and Richard. Andreas is currently 0.65 pts behind Hendrik. Will he reach top-3?

#28 Kevin Borne raced over 20 new shiny 60Hz PRs (I count 22 of them?) to go from 48th place to 36th place. He passed many famous names that you'll recognise, including Andrew J, Paul Regeffe, Jon Prentice, Arnaud and Jamie.

#33 Sebastien Legay reported 10 PRs and made a 3pt cut, good enough to pass Yannick, Luke and Alejandro. He also passed Scott D in 60Hz to reach 18th place there. In ARR, Sebastien is still Myth D, but he subbed 5.0 ARR points there and is the 28th person to do so.

#109 Piet den Dulk, aka 'Mr. Holabola', sent in a PR. It's only his second one of the year, but his oldest PR is from early 2005, which marks a 5-years-and-5-months PR career.

#234 Timur Ahmad decided to race 7 PRs at the very last moment of the month. Not as crazy as his usual, but he's on track to reach top-200 by the end of the month. With these 7 PRs, he advanced by 10 places. #248 Jordan Hack kept up with him once again, advancing by 12 places. He's top-250! Perhaps a race with Timur to top-200 won't be such a bad idea? And with all his times now being Expert level, he looks set to grab his first Hero time quite soon. #278 Ashley O'Hara extended last week's 70pt AF cut with a 40 pt cut this week. He's on the good side of the top-300 now, which means more work for #305 Nick once he returns. Ashley reached 205th place in 60Hz, missing out on that barrier for now, but he did get the promotion from Expert D to C.

New Records

Lots of records once again, mostly from Andreas Rudmarker!

Andreas improved the LC course time to 1'14"711 G+10, 0.07 faster than Kouider.

He also improved the LC lap to 24"213 G+9, also 0.07 faster than Kouider.

...and Mushroom Bridge, 1'18"340 and 25"641. The course time was 0.007 faster than Richard and the lap was 0.03 faster than Vince.

...and Daisy Cruiser, where his 31"254 lap was 3 thousandths faster than Hendrik.

The last record was from Kouider, not Andreas: 1'35"964 G+10 on Waluigi Stadium. It's 0.4 faster than Kouider's old record and 0.5 faster than Marijn.

Even though some of Andreas's records were by small margins, they gave the WR tally a good shake. Kouider returned to 11 WRs, but is still in the lead. Andreas rocketed upwards to second place with 8. Richard fell to 7, Hendrik to 3, and Vince, Aron and Marijn each have 1 left.

New Players

Welcome to...

Jon Coppernoll, USA (651st, Intermediate C).

The emperor strikes back

Alex @ Sunday, August 22nd 02:09AM [link]

Movement

#1 Kouider Benarioua came up with the goods to take the top spot once again. He started the week by reporting a dozen 60Hz records, and then scored a few more 50Hz records and some WRs to chop 0.35 off his AF: it's now 2.47 against Richard's 2.87. We haven't heard from Richard in weeks, so maybe he's working on something in secret? Meanwhile, Kouider subbed 34'30 in combined total times and is now four tenths of a second ahead of Richard -- but it's mostly thanks to his superior lap times because Richard is still well ahead in course-only totals. With his 60Hz PRs, Kouider slipped into 2nd place ahead of Andrew Math in the 60Hz ranking. His 0.81 cut was large enough to drop his 60Hz AF to 3.66 and overtake, although Marijn's AF of 1.94 is still roughly half that.

Meanwhile, #9 Andrew was active and defending his position. He lost one place in 60Hz to Kouider, but passed Vincent v/d Fluit for 9th place on the overall chart. While he couldn't fend off Kouider in 60Hz, his 0.3 cut reduced his AF to 3.84, which means Kouider is only 0.18 ahead. Perhaps this battle will continue next week. Andrew has already promised to improve DKM and is not far from #7 Konsta and #8 Jean-Christophe. #5 Andreas Rudmarker was active, too, reporting 6 PRs for a nice 0.4 AF cut. He moved up very close to #4 Aron, needing only a further 0.16 AF cut to reach him. Let's leave the top-10 now.

#28 Kevin Borne continued his 60Hz rampage with a not-unexpected 151 pt AF cut. He had only recently tried 60Hz 'for fun', but given his top-30 ranking you would expect him to do quite well in 60Hz. He's now 48th there, happy to take the top-50 spot that he was targeting. His timesheet is a little bit uneven (his rankings vary between 17th and 57th) but perhaps Kevin will work on it a little more next week. In the same 60Hz region was Jamie Disley, who moved up to 45th place. He passed Alex H. and Sylvin R. to (temporarily?) stay ahead of Kevin, and also gained 3 places on the overall chart to #85. More significantly, Jamie became the newest Titan player by reaching Titan D.

#131 Laim Stanton gets a mention for two reasons. First, he passed #132 Cesar Martin (one of the first MKDD champs to hold the top position for any decent period of time), and second, he seemed very pleased with finally subbing the LC lap, even if it was by only 0"001. smile

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You remember Timur, Jordan and Nick from last week? #244 Timur Ahmad had no trouble reaching the top-250, sounding very leisurely in his submission. He reported 22 PRs while also saying he "didn't play much". Perhaps he's trying to say that top-200 will be a formality by the month's end. He made a 44pt cut and, having just improved all his Advanced times to Expert-level and scored his first Titan time, he will probably be looking to increase his Hero times tally. So far he has 5, all in Mushroom Cup.
While still on the less-green side of top-250, #260 Jordan Haack amassed a 42 pt AF cut to mirror Timur's progress. Still training with the Barrel and practicing the advanced techniques, Jordan said that he tried A-tech on LC and cut off a billion seconds, and that was despite finding time to improve his other 31 PRs over the week, so perhaps he could have cut 2 billions if he played just LC. In 60Hz, Jordan breached the top-200 barrier and took 189th place, pushing MK64 vets Brent Wingert and William Lacey down to 200th/201st.

#305 Nick Welch was the other member of the happy trio, but he lost ground on both Timur and Jordan because he's going on vacation. He still had some time to play and reported the last of his PRs for a few weeks, making a 19pt AF cut. His place in this sort-of-rivalry might be supplanted by #304 Ashley O'Hara, who popped out from underneath Nick's feet with a big 71 pt cut. Ashley made the top-250 in 60Hz as well, taking 227th place. In ARR, Timur became Exp B, Jordan become Exp C, and Ashley became Exp D; Nick was already Exp D and will need to do some catching up on these three guys when he gets back.

Finally to round off his longer-than-usual update, #438 Jean-Francois Schepers gained 12 spots and became Advanced B. And that's the week.

New Records

Many records this week, all from Kouider:

Luigi Circuit 1'14"788 G+9, 0"04 faster than Richard, and 24"283 G+5, 0"013 faster than Hendrik.

Sherbet Land lap (60Hz) 23"953 Myth A, 0"02 ahead of Marijn.

Mushroom City lap 30"865 G+10, 0"008 faster than Andreas.

Yoshi Circuit lap 32"166 G+5, 0"06 faster than Hendrik.

Dino Dino Jungle lap (60Hz) 33"060 G+1, 0"02 ahead of Andrew.

Bowser's castle 2'17"453 G+4, 0"12 faster than Richard.

Kouider already held half of these records, but some of them are new for him. His 60Hz WR tally increased to 8 (but Marijn still has 16) and his combined tally increased to 13 (Richard is not far behind with 9).

New Players

No new players.

New EPL season: and we're off!

Alex @ Monday, August 16th 03:44AM [link]

Movement

The top two 60Hz players were active this week. The champ Marijn Jongbloed, who is #6 combined, improved one of his 50Hz times to slightly catch up on #5 Andreas in the overall ranking. He is only 0.1 points behind Andreas and that 5th place. The runner up Andrew Math, who is #10 combined, raced 2 PRs for a 0.16 cut to help him increase his lead on Kouider to 0.34pt points. It's a small lead, but it's a lead. Kouider has been playing hardcore in recent weeks, so Andrew and Marijn may be warming up and preparing to defend their 60Hz fortress.

#28 Kevin Borne decided to play some 60Hz "just for fun". He sent in his timesheet and debuts at 188th place.

Having just reached his top-75 goal, #74 Andrew Johnson made his position a little bit safer by passing Julien Boisiaud. Andrew says that he will chip away at the 6 French players ahead of him and try to reach top-70 and the next Titan rank. Being 74th instead of 75th is a good thing for Andrew because #88 Jamie Disley is made some progress toward the same barrier. Jamie passed #89 Marvin and is only a few PRs away from joining the Titans club. #123 Joost Coenen reached the corresponding barrier by claiming 75th place in 60Hz. He pushed Pierre Checa out of the 60Hz top-75.

#282 Timur Ahmad was back, armed with a 45pt AF cut and easily making the top-300. He scored 19 PRs, mostly Expert times, leaving him with only 9 Advanced times left over. In the same area of the ladder are #304 Jordan Haack, the young newcomer who scored a 39pt cut to keep up with Timur's moves, and #315 Nick Welch, who scored an even bigger 55pt AF cut to catch up to both of them. Timur rose to Expert C level while Jordan and Nick both got promoted from Advanced to Expert D.

#500 Lorenzo Fasoli, in his own words "worked A LOT" this week, and it showed. His 119pt AF cut propelled him to the top-500 overall (up 121 places) and to 385th in 60Hz (up 89 places). He now joins the Advanced D players after jumping over two titles.

New Records

No new records.

New Players

Welcome to...

Dennis Hoffmann, Germany (Newbie, ~1007).

It's so quiet... are they fighting or not?

Alex @ Sunday, August 8th 04:35AM [link]

Movement

What's this? Both #1 Richard Karlsson and #2 Kouider Benarioua didn't make any cuts this week, so their positions and stats remain the same as last week. Oh well! But Kouider did get around to playing more 60Hz, where he raced 9 PRs and two new records. He passed Aron and Hendrik on the 60Hz ladder to reach 3rd place and is now 0.4pts behind silver medallist Andrew. However, the 60Hz champion Marijn still has an AF score of 1.8, which is a long way ahead of Kouider's score of 4.5. It might take a while for that gap to be shrunk down.

#89 Jamie Disley made a brief appearance, racing 5 PRs to pass Scott Abbey. He's now ranked as the third-best Hero, which means he's getting close to joining the Titans. In 60Hz, Jamie moved up to 47th place by passing Rickard and Scott. Another player making an awaited return was #125 Joost Coenen, reporting 9 PRs to gain 3 positions.

#376 Nick Welch improved all 32 of his times on a 60Hz PR spree. He amassed a huge 94pt cut in AF, almost reaching the elusive 100pts. On the 60Hz charts, Nick jumped 75 places to 282nd and is now in the company of luminaries such as Ashley O'Hara, Kevin McAteer, Mickael Smolen and Mark Jones. Stealing some of Nick's thunder was #351 Matthew Ord who himself raced 14 PRs to advance 50 positions, break the top-400 and pass Nick and the others. In ARR both Nick and Matt became Advanced A and may soon join the Experts.

#450 Jean-Francois Schepers gained 9 places and could have a rival in newcomer #487 David Demarest, who debuted just outside the top-500 but has already PRed enough to go under. Although Jean-Francois leads 23-9 head-to-head, David leads him by several seconds in some courses.

Also active were #541 Chuck Foster and #621 Lorenzo Fasoli, gaining about 15 positions each. Chuck narrowly made it over the line to become Advanced D, leaving the Intermediate ranks behind.

New Records

Kouider improved the 60Hz Bowser's Castle records to 2'17"902 and 45"028. These were 0"36 and 0"04 faster than Marijn, and Marijn doesn't get beaten easily.

New Players

Welcome to...

Jordan Haack, USA (335th, Advanced A).
Alan Solon, France (338th, Advanced A).
David Demarest, USA (487th, Advanced C).

Jordan is 13, Alan is French and David has just started barrel training, so perhaps all three newcomers will be smashing their times by next week.

There can be only 1!

Alex @ Monday, August 2nd 10:46AM [link]

Movement

There were 3 active players among the top-10 this week! Yickes. #1 Richard Karlsson and #2 Kouider Benarioua scrambled for the champions belt, with Richard getting his fingertips on it. Kouider's recent rise to the top prompted the Swede to return. Yet, despite one being active lately and the other suddenly popping in after a break, it was both players who improved their final remaining Myth time (the same one: DKM 3lap) on the same day to become 32/32 gods at the same time. Vincent van der Fluit had already reached the god standard on DKM in 2006, but Kouider and Richard now have it too -- and they broke Vince record. Richard raced 2 PRs for a 0.3 cut, taking him to an AF score of 2.72. Kouider also raced a couple of PRs for a smaller 0.1 pt cut, reducing his AF to 2.81. This means that Richard leads by 0.1, which is a small lead that can be overturned by one or two lucky (or skillful) PRs from Kouider. Kouider retains pole position in ARR score (-0.45 vs -0.43) and in PRSR score (99.81 vs 99.76), but Richard has the lead in AF and in total times. Not wanting to miss out on the DKM flavour-of-the-week buffet, #10 Andrew Math also raced a new PR there. Andrew is now tied with Hendrik for second place in 60Hz ARR, so it was a fruitful hike in the mountain.

It seems hard for one to lose their "mad MKDD skillz" over time because Richard and Andrew were not the only players making quick comebacks after a long period of inactivity. #133 Liam Stanton raced his first PRs of 2010 and passed Juergen Gerads (overall) and Sam Hoar (in 60Hz, where he's now 83rd). #370 Mickael Smolen, who's been vacating in MKW-land and other kart games for the past two years, also made a surprise return with 2 PRs to jump 8 places. #488 Jacob Goldfinger similarly reset a two-year absence with 26 fresh PRs that were raced over the week. The resulting 74pt AF cut pushed Jacob inside the top-500, and in ARR he left behind the Intermediate levels to progress to Advanced C.

#554 Chuck Foster was once again active, moving up 31 places. He's been scoring loads of Advanced times in the second half of the month to replace his Intermediate ones, but he'll have to hold onto that Intermediate A rating just a little bit longer.

New Records

Kouider improved the DKM record to 1'43"13, but hours later Richard sent in his email in ages, with a new DKM time, and it was slightly faster: 1'43"053. Not far from the sub, either! The previous record was 1'43"22 from Vince. Hendrik, who is missing this track in his 31/32 collection of god times, has 1'43"26.

New Players

Welcome to...

Lorenzo Fasoli, Italy (635th, Intermediate B),
Hylbren Rijnders, Netherlands (801st, Beginner D).
Bob Holden, Luxembourg (~937, Beginner D).

New #1! And it's his first time!

Alex @ Friday, July 23rd 12:17PM [link]

Movement

#1 Kouider Benarioua makes most of the news this week. He didn't set any new WRs, but he improved 6 of his lower-ranked PRs in an effort to reduce his AF score. And reduce it he did, by a big 0.28 points, down to an AF of 2.91. This means that Kouider is the new champion! #2 Richard and #2 Hendrik both fall down to equal-second place. Kouider also reduced his ARR to -0.3875, slightly lower then Hendrik's long-standing record low. Both he and Hendrik have 31/32 God times and both are missing DKM 3lap, so there's unfinished business. Currently Kouider is first in AF, ARR, PRSR, WR tally, Lap total times, and Combined total times, but he is behind Richard in Course total times. You can check the rivalry here.

Also active were #459 Jean-Francois Schepers and #461 Nick Welch, who are now neck and neck. Jean-Francois reported 13 PRs after spending a month away (no doubt involving vuvuzelas) while Nick's 9 PRs came after several years vacation. But it was Nick and his fewer PRs that made the bigger cut, gaining him 25 positions compared to Jean-Francois's 14. There was no change in ARR rank, where both are still Advanced C, but J-F is getting close to a promotion.

Another significant mover was #585 Chuck Foster, making a 62pt AF cut to pass 61 players. He is now 446th in 60Hz (up 44), and in ARR he skipped the Intermediate B ranks to go from Int C straight to Int A. Given that Chuck has been playing quite regularly, perhaps we can expect him to hit the Advanced ranks soon?

New Records

No new records, but Kouider's reached some new lows in the stats.

New Players

Welcome to...

Jerome Schibler, France (~301, Expert D). A good debut position, but Jerome is missing non-shortcut scores for Waluigi Stadium that prevent him from getting a proper ranking just yet.

It's all good, guys: he bought a new controller. You can sleep easy at night.

Alex @ Saturday, July 17th 06:49AM [link]

POQ

Everyone is really crazy about Kouider, it seems. He is like the Old Spice Man. Timur and Jean-Francois had bigger percentage cuts, but perhaps they canceled each other out by being so hard to decide between. Meanwhile, Kouider did not race huge cuts but instead raced several WRs and appeared to have control over the fate and positions of those ranked ahead of him.

Movement

#3 Kouider Benarioua scored 2 PRs this week. He had recently broken his controller and gave us a scare when he said he might not play for a while, but he returned this week and said he bought a brand new controller. So it's all good again. However, somehow Kouider's PRs were not new WRs. Maybe he has to get used to the new controller first. They certainly helped his AF and ARR: he cut 0.41 in AF (now 3.19) and 0.02 in ARR (now -0.34). This means the is only 0.16 behind the champions in AF and 0.03 behind in ARR score. Perhaps he will become champion soon? He rightly points out that although he didn't gain any positions on the charts with he 2 new PRs, he just became the new leader in PRSR score (99.766%) and Total Time for Fast-laps.

For the second time in like two years, #153 Matt Vanderwouw saved up his submission until he got 32 new PRs. Many of them were small, but he really wanted to improve all of them. Well, the end result was that he passed 13 players on the overall chart and 9 players on the 60Hz chart. He broke the top-100 there, where he's now 96th in 60Hz! #100 Leandro Cavali was the unfortunate player to lose his two-digit ranking.

The big mover of the week was #646 Chuck Foster, who made submissions almost every day. Chuck moved up 96 positions with a 102pt AF cut. He still a long way to go, but considering that some of his times are ranked 500 and some are ranked 800, it seems that he needs a few more weeks to even out his timesheet and show us his real ranking. In ARR, Chuck left the Beginners, waved past the Intermediate Ds, and joined the Intermediate Cs.

New Records

No new records.

New Players

No new players.

Paul the octopus has made his choice, but in his small aquarium world he has not heard of the crazy Dutch virus

Alex @ Saturday, July 10th 04:15AM [link]

POQ

You can now vote for the Player of the Quarter here. The candidates are Andrew Johnson, Jean-Francois Schepers, Timur Ahmad and Kouider Benarioua. Andy was active almost every week since April, achieving many milestones; JFS had the biggest cuts; Timur had big cuts and was a site member for less time than the others; and finally Kouider scored a few WRs and moved closer to the top two positions.

Movement

#3 Kouider Benarioua raced a couple of scores, including a new record, and lowered his AF by 0.06 to 3.59. This puts him just over 0.5 AF pts away from the leaders. Unfortunately, Kouider says he broke his controller and doesn't have another to keep playing with. We should find him a new controller so that he can keep going!

#76 Andrew Johnson moved one step closer to reaching top-75, passing Yoann Seznec. He raced some new Titan times, leaving him with 10 Hero times left. Andrew says he'll be out of town for a couple of weeks, so maybe I get to keep my 75th place a little longer smile

#568 Stefan Glosby joined a while back but is only now starting to invest more time to time trials. He made a 40pt AF cut this week (38 positions) and reached Intermediate A level.

New Records

There was 1 new record this week. After improving the Dry Dry Desert course record last week, Kouider now improved the lap to 27"663 G+8. This was a relatively big 0"08 cut on his previous G+6 record, set three months ago. The new lap record is 0"2 ahead of second-placed Christian.

New Players

Welcome to...

Chuck Foster, USA (742nd, Beginner A)