Joey “Lucky” Aldama won Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles at Hold That L #3 in Chicago, Illinois on June 29. He was the only major invader from outside the Midwest to attend the tournament. None of the local players managed to defend their home turf against SoCal resident Lucky.
Lucky seamlessly advanced into top 8 on winners side, defeating Joseph “Parzival” Kreindler, Joe “JustJoe” D, and Daniel “DannyPhantom” Schultz. In Winners Semis of Hold That L #3, Lucky earned a 3-0 victory over hometown champion Kelly “Kels” Smith. Kels has notably been ranked No. 1 on the Chicago Melee PR since the rankings began in 2010.
Lucky dropped his first games of the tournament in Winners Finals to Avery “Ginger” Wilson. Lucky won their first set 3-2. However, Ginger retaliated with a 3-1 victory in the first set of Grand Finals. Ultimately, Lucky overcame Ginger in another 3-2 set to win Hold That L #3.
Anees “Free Palestine” Assaf & Matt “Polish” W won Super Smash Bros. Melee Doubles at Hold That L #3. They defeated teams like Michael Rollberg & Andrew “Unsure” Bisciglia and Chris “ORLY” Brittain & Jeff “JeffWa” Wallace.
Hold That L #3 and the Summer Rankings
Since it was only a small regional, Hold That L #3 will not have a huge impact on the upcoming Summer 2019 MPGR. Even so, it may have some bearing on the final placements of certain players on the Super Smash Bros. Melee rankings.
Lucky did not have the strong start to this year that he had at GENESIS 5 in 2018. Still, he has solid wins over an array of players including Johnny “S2J” Kim, Zachary “SFAT” Cordoni, Armand “ARMY” Del Duca, Weston “Westballz” Dennis, Shephard “Fiction” Lima, and Griffin “Captain Faceroll” Williams. Additional wins over Ginger will certainly add to Lucky’s already respectable résumé for the year.
Ginger’s one win over Lucky may seem nice on paper. However, the two losses effectively undid the win he already had on Lucky this year. As a result, he went from a 1-0 winning record to a 2-2 tied record against Lucky. Ginger did at least score a win over Michael at Hold That L #3. In addition, he has plenty of good wins in 2019 to help him out on this summer’s rankings. Ginger has beaten S2J, Captain Faceroll, Cody “iBDW” Schwab, Kalindi “KJH” Henderson, Aziz “Hax” Al-Yami, and Kurtis “moky” Pratt.
