B
The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, October 8, 2015
the b-side
Michigan
Hosts The Big
House 5
By Jacob Rich
Daily Film Editor
enter
I heard The Big House 5 before I saw it.
It was a cold, blustery Friday night in Dear-
born, and I was running late. The world’s sec-
ond biggest “Super Smash Bros.” tournament
of all time was happening less than an hour
from my hometown, and I couldn’t miss it.
I ducked past the Royal Dearborn Hotel’s
lobby into the nearby hallway to grab my me-
dia pass. There was a low rumble in the hall as
I sauntered past groups of guys with badg-
es around their neck and GameCube control-
lers in their hands. The hall was alive with the
sound of a crowd coming from the ballroom:
cheers, chants and the occasional hoarse
“let’s go” bounced off the walls and into my
eardrums.
The second I finally set foot in the ball-
room, the place absolutely erupted. Under-
dog Massachusetts player MattDotZeb had
just pulled off an insane kill on Westballz, one
of the best Smash players in the world. It was
the SoCal vs. Northeast crew battle, and the
hype was off the charts. “The Big House” was
immediately living up to its namesake.
Indeed named after Michigan Stadium, The
Big House is an annual Super Smash Bros.
tournament organized by University alum
Robin “Juggleguy” Harn. It’s “national,”
[COPY: why put this in quotes?] which means
that the best players from around the world
are flying in to duke it out over trophies and
cash prizes.
“Juggleguy is the best TO (tournament or-
ganizer) ever. He schedules everything on
the dot. Every single Big House has run ei-
ther on time or behind by a maximum of 30 min-
utes, which you cannot say about any other
national, ever,” said University Engineering
alum James “Duck” Ma.
Duck is widely regarded as the best Smash
player in Michigan and one of the top 50 play-
ers in the world. A friend of Juggleguy’s, Duck
credits him with the The Big House’s reputa-
tion of high quality.
“He graduated IOE (Industiral & Opera-
tions Engineering), actually, so this is pretty
much what he does for work anyway. He’s the
perfect combination of being likeable and be-
ing really anal, I guess. He’s not afraid to DQ
people, which I think is huge, because it adds
to sort of, like, the respect that people give
him.”
To call The Big House noteworthy in the
Smash scene would be a huge understate-
ment. The tournament managed to attract
more than 2,000 attendees, [COPY: only fact
i’m finding is that the hotel space can hold
2,000+ people; can we verify this?] includ-
ing 1,317 entrants for “Melee” singles and 512
for “Smash 4” singles. This was also the first
Big House event to be officially sponsored by
the notoriously stingy Nintendo, the devel-
oper and publisher of the Super Smash Bros.
games.
It’s not just the size and the sponsorships
of The Big House that attracts so many play-
ers, though. The event has a distinct history
of hype moments and rowdy crowds, immor-
talized in fan videos.
Most of the attendees over the weekend
were hobby competitors, guys and girls who
just love to play Smash for fun and wanted
in on the action. Some of these guys, though,
were career Smashers professionals paid
big bucks by huge e-Sports organizations to
play the game full-time.
I ended up tracking down one of these pro-
fessionals, Kashan “Chillindude” Kahn, for a
brief interview. A veteran competitive Me-
lee player, Chillin can be seen in some of the
earliest tournament videos from the game’s
grassroots beginnings. He’s sponsored by
Team Liquid and was flown to Michigan on their
bill from his home state of Virginia.
“I think it’s amazing because there are so
many people that don’t get to do what they
love for a living, and I’m literally living the
dream right now of doing what I love to do,
which happens to be playing games. It’s also
nice just because I had a lot of people when
I was younger telling me I was wasting my time.
You know, stop playing those games, stop
wasting your time, and I’m like, oh, well now I’m
making money off of it, so that’s definitely a
cool feeling.”