As you may or may not have read on my Facebook, last weekend I won a Magic tournament. Well actually I split first with another player. After 7 hours of magic you're just about ready to mentally collapse and splitting first and second place prizes up between the finalists can be a welcome event. I beat the other guy earlier in the tournament but I was ready to go home.
Between first and second the prizes were:
$250
3 SCG Open points
24 booster packs
1 entry to an SCG Invitational in Atlanta or LA

Now Atlanta and LA are a long ways away and neither of us were really planning on going. I offered him $150 of the $250 if I got the invite/extra point and he agreed. 25 bucks for a unique prize like that seemed worth it even if I was iffy about going.

This is what I'm getting myself into by the way
http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/open_series/#invitational

Now I'm here with that invite burning a hole through my magic bag and I have to wonder how I could not go? As yet I haven't gone to a giant tournament like that and I've been putting off the experience due to work and other commitments. Now I have more excuses than ever: money, time, vacation days but more than ever this seems like one of those cases where you can do nothing or you can do something. I doubt that nothing is ever the correct action.

I'd like to book my ticket soon but I do have one thing holding me back. I don't want to do all this by myself. An all day magic event like this is draining and it'd be really nice to have an ally there with me. I'm fairly sure I can get Brendan to go but I've yet to get a firm commitment.

64th place is $250 which is probably enough to cover the trip. I might as well just win if I'm going to make the trip though, y'know? 1st place is $15000, if I win it all I might be able to justify all the money I've spent on this game up until this point. Sounds good.