On Thursday, Jan. 30, Coral Gables Senior high’s Wizard Club held the CGHS Smash Invitational. This was a tournament revolving around the popular Nintendo fighting game, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, where students could come, sign up, compete for prizes and have a great time.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is a cross over fighting game that brings together iconic characters such as Mario, Mega Man and Pikachu in a fighting arena to try and best each other in a brawl until the characters run out of lives.

This all started when senior Kevin Monjarrez approached the Wizards club with the idea of hosting a grand tournament in the highly competitive video game. The Wizards club loved the idea and ever since then, they had been working hard to ensure that the event would not only be a complete success for their club, but also for their students to enjoy.

“Regardless of whether we lost or won games, we were all just having fun playing a game we all enjoy,” senior Kevin Monjarrez said.

As the day of the tournament neared, Monjarrez and the Wizards club did not expect the amount of participants that it received. They ended with a total of 69 competitors all striving for glory. The Wizards club had seven tournament-ready setups that day to make the transition between games and rounds as smooth as possible.

The tournament was set up in brackets which were randomly seeded, with the place system being very straightforward as they did not include a losers bracket, and the winners and losers of each round were immediately given a place. Tied games played a tie breaker game that decided their final place.

Throughout the the next four hours, those 69 participants battled rigorously for the first place prize, which was a trophy and $40 dollars. As the tournament was reaching its end, the last two competitors were Kevin and Daniel Villas. Kevin had been playing Ness throughout the tournament and intended to use the character that brought him this far for the final round. As for Daniel, he used Roy in the Championship Round which was a best of three.

Kevin was a little nerve wracked since he has had trouble with this matchup in the past but tried to keep his composure during the match. He was behind for most of the first game but managed to sneak by and win by a very small margin. After this game, Kevin felt more confident and ready for the possible deciding game. He went into it and dominated, ultimately being the champion of the CGSH Smash Invitational.

“Even though the champion was so good at playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate it was still fun to watch him win and completely wipe out the competition,” sophomore Aaron Nogues said.

Although Kevin had the initial idea to host a Super Smash Bros tournament, he gives full credit to the Wizards club for being able to execute a flawless, all-around enjoyable experience for the students at Coral Gables Senior High.

“I got to play against a lot of my friends who I didn’t even know played Smash Bros competitively. I also got to make a couple new friends on my way to the finals and I am sure to not forget the experience any time soon,” senior Kevin Monjarrez said.