This is a writeup of the 2005 tournament, which unfortunately was a
bit of a comedy of errors for me. I need to get a bit more practice in
between tournaments; it's obvious I've fallen back to the stage of
making stupid mistakes, but managed to pull off a couple of ascensions
because I still have a wide tactical repertoire.

I had one of each alignment last year; I originally aimed for one of
each race this year, but eventually got only one of each gender. My
original plan was a gnomish archaeologist, since my only A ascension
to date got an early wand of wishing and I would quite like to ascend
one without such good luck; an elven priestess, since of the
permissible elf classes I have done wizard and ranger more recently,
and elf priestesses evaded me in the 2004 Tournament owing to
stupidity on the Quest (a recurring theme, alas); a dwarven cavewoman,
since I haven't done a C since 3.3.1; and a human samurai, since I
haven't done an S since 3.2.2. A nice plan, but...

I started with a priestess, who got Sunsword but then died (large
kobold, helpless.) Still, you've got to get back into the swing of
things, right?

Next up was a samurai, who ascended - and did it in fewer moves and
kills than any other ascension I have notes for. At this point I was
feeling pretty confident, especially as I'd voluntarily chanced using
the Tsurugi and done very well with it.

Then, in rapid succession, an archaeologist, who managed to just get
into the Mines, commit cannibalism, and die by not being able to hit
anything, killed by a bat; a barbarian (killed by a hobbit on DL 2,
and goodness knows how I managed that); a cavewoman - got 14 levels
down to be killed by an Olog-Hai, or rather by overconfidence of the
person behind the keyboard; a priestess, who carefully sacrificed up
Jubilex and Yeenoghu, left them in the Mines, went back to their level
for something, and smacked Yeenoghu with Stormbringer.

My earlier confidence was now a little dented. However, the next
character was a barbarian, who ascended without any serious
difficulties, and I was feeling a little better about the prospects of
getting a few more in.

An archeologist went down almost immediately to a coyote, while
helpless, but then a cavewoman looked to be a good prospect, reaching
the Quest. Now when I first ascended a cavewoman in 3.3.1, I blew away
the previous game owing to overconfidence against the Chromatic
Dragon, so you'd think I'd learned that lesson. Apparently not;
another ascendable game down the pipe to join the one that fell to an
Olog-hai, and I switch my objective to one of each alignment and
decide to stick to archaeologists.

Another pair found early deaths by sewer rat and by Green-elf (while
helpless - there seem to be a lot of these, and I'm not sure why
because I cured myself of floating eye carelessness long ago).
However, just when I am despairing of actually working out the opening
game with an archaeologist, one gets away without any serious problems
all the way to the Quest.

I imagine you can see where this one is going. I might just have
pulled it off, although I was underprepared, but a succubus stripped
me at an inopportune moment. I got my magic resistance back on without
any adverse effects, but the loss of tempo finished me off.

There were now about ten hours remaining in the tournament. You have
to ascend a neutral character in ten hours; what's the answer? Valkyrie.

She went off on a desperate banzai charge, and very nearly made it. Finding
the Fire Brand on DL 2 was a stroke of luck; a Valk bones on DL 6 provided
nothing special, but extra Stuff never hurts.

Because of the time constraint, I found myself moving my entire stash
down the dungeon in one go to an altar just above Medusa; not only
would I have analysed and used most of the stash, I had gray dragon
scales courtesy of a brief excursion into Ludious - obviously I wasn't
going to try and clear the whole level, but it was a good chance of
getting a DSM. I'd also have fixed the completely rusty corroded
nibbled Fire Brand, maybe got Mojo, would have been able to easily
take the stupid air elemental, push over Lord Surtur, and... well,
probably not have cleared Gehennom in the time available, but it would
have been glorious.

The final score table on the German server contains this momument to
mistakes;

 41     303474  damerell-Arc-Gno-Mal-Neu died in The Quest on level
                17 [max 24].  Killed by the invisible Minion of
                Huhetotl.                             - [136]
 42     290294  mormegil-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law choked on her food in The
                Dungeons of Doom on level 27 [max 28].  Choked on a
                black dragon corpse.                132 [136]
 43     256132  damerell-Cav-Dwa-Fem-Law died in The Quest on level
                17 [max 20].  Killed by the invisible Chromatic
                Dragon.                               - [131]
 44     255551  mercury5-Bar-Hum-Mal-Cha died in The Dungeons of Doom
                on level 25.  Killed by a master mind flayer, while
                helpless.                             - [143]
 45     252640  damerell-Val-Hum-Fem-Neu died in The Dungeons of Doom          
                on level 17 [max 24].  Killed by an air elemental.
                                                      - [103]

"mormegil" is a friend of mine IRL who I know was kicking himself
after that one, and I imagine mercury5 was not entirely overcome with
joy by that death, either...

And that was the 2005 Tournament. Bah.