I took a cruise through the remainder of the msg forums. Kind of a post hurricaine Hugo devastation survey. I found the yahoo spades forum whiped into the sea and the zone spades forum leveled. The forums intact were Mplayer, Won, and Funcom spades. So, I visited these forums to see what is up at these sites.
I was pleasantly surprised to see my old buddy, the quintessential sportsman, Trollpop, ranked #9 at Funcom and still posting away. I was disappointed however not to his standard line "happy spading" closing his post. I went to see what was up at funcom. I found 33 people during prime time in a tournement and 7 people in the ladder room. Hmmm, 40 players on a Friday night. Not exactly hopping. The other sites didn't even have posts in thier forums for the month of October. The posts dated all the way back to August there were so few.
When I first joined Cases ladder as a spades player the advertisement on yahoo read, "So, you think you're good?" I not so humbly said back to the ad, "Yeah, I'm good." I remember how exciting those first 100 or so ladder matches were. I looked at the top 50 as an impossible dream. Cases Spades Yahoo had well over 3000 members and 2 full ladder rooms with over 300 players on at a time. Being top 50 really ment something. The top 10 was an elite group that included some of the finast players and fine sportsman I have ever seen: Trollpop, Corflu, Omar, Loonies, Nightwind, Angelstar (no posting allowed if I missed you and you think you belong here).
Nightwind is still at yahoo doing his late night games. Trollpop I found at Funcom. Corflu, Loonies, Angelstar, and countless more names I omitted are sadly no longer involved in cases ladder, but play on sites far far far less devoted to high standards of sportmanship than cases ladder.
Yahoo has dwindled down to a handful of diehards (like Amiot and Nightwind) that refuse to leave. I currently play on Cases Spades Zone. According to the players there, that sight was once teeming with eager wide eyes like myself. Zone is not exactly hurting for players with an average of over 100 players on at any given time and a hopping lobby, but it is hardly the site the old timers there say it used to be.
I suggest that we combine all the cases spades players to one site. I will not hold back my bias for Zone. The graphics blow away yahoo. The games are much much faster and overall the level of competition is awesome. System ops for MSN gaming keep the lobby trash down to a mininum. You don't find nicks like "stfu...." because MSN gaming does not permit that crapola.
I ask this question of all cases players that play spades, "So, you think you're good?" If you can answer "Yes," then come and try out Zone Cases. Bring your best partner. Bring the best players your ladder has to offer and REALY see if you are good enough to be ranked top 50 when the top 50 means something again.