I finished 19th in A out of 800 players. Not as good as last year when I finished 14th but still a decent haul of Whoppers and cash. Trent and I got screwed having to play a tiebreaker on a malfunctioning Hobbit game that throws balls off the ramp and into the outlane, but everybody has a story like that.
The important thing is to learn from your mistakes in a top tournament like this, and learn from playing with people who are better than you. That's one of the things that is completely lost on people who are trying to beef into a lower division, or are obsessed with how many divisions there are, who belongs where, etc. It's extremely valuable to play with top players. I can learn from playing with Raymond Davidson and Trent and you can learn from playing with me, even if at the end of the day you wish your finals had lasted longer.
In my case, I realized I finally have to deal with a serious deficiency in my game, drop catching. And honestly, after all this time, it's going to take me like a week to make that a serious part of my game. I think it's going to improve my game dramatically, and i'm almost embarrassed that 2.5 years into my pro career I've let this slide because I was too lazy to deal with it or didn't realize how it was affecting my game. So now I'm gonna work on it (already started last night and thrilled with the results). I'm excited about it. I'm not pissed that I was "forced" to play with -and lost - to better players.
So stop beefing people, unless you really have no ambition to get better. And congrats to Colin who showed everybody you don't have to be a "favorite" to win something like this. You just have to work on your game, stay loose, and have fun.