Denton man heads to Nintendo World Championships to settle 25 year old score

PatrickScottPatterson.com - May 28, 2015 - DENTON, Texas -- The Nintendo World Championships return this weekend after a 25 year absence. One of the eight cities with qualifiers is Dallas, Texas, the very city that hosted the very first stop on the original 1990 tour.

For 39-year-old Patrick Scott Patterson of Denton, Texas, this marks an opportunity to rid himself of the chip placed on his shoulder in the original Dallas competition a quarter century ago.

"I blew right through the first couple of rounds only to choke in the semi-finals," Patterson recalled. "A local news camera came into my side vision as I was playing. I was 14 years old and had never been on television before, so I got nervous and totally blew it. Had I played as well as I had in the first couple of rounds I'd have made it to the finals in Dallas that year."

Patterson says he took the missed opportunity in 1990 badly, eventually telling himself that he wouldn't make the same mistake the following year. Problem is, there was no following year, as Nintendo never held another World Championships event until now.

"I made myself feel better back then by telling myself 'next year'," Patterson added. "Turns out I had to wait 25 years for my 'next year'. This Saturday is my 'next year'."

Nerves from being on camera should be no issue to Patterson this time around. Today the husband and father of two makes his living as a go-to video game expert which puts him on camera quite often. He said he doesn't believe a news crew would create the same situation for him that it did in 1990.

"I'm not so much worried about a television camera this time," he added. "That doesn't mean that I won't have to deal with other nerves here, though."

The Nintendo World Championships qualifiers will take place on a three game championship mode including Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3 and Dr. Mario. In practice, Patterson's best score of 7,000,500 currently ranks third in North America on the online leaderboards. He also won a competition on this same mode in Oklahoma City earlier this year in an event not put on by Nintendo.

"I have an even better shot at this now than I did 25 years ago," Patterson said. "I'm prepared skill wise, I just need a little luck and manage to keep my cool this time. My 14-year-old self is counting on me."

The winners of all eight qualifying cities will be flown out to Los Angeles for the Nintendo World Championship finals on June 14.

The Dallas qualifiers for the Nintendo World Championships 2015 take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Best Buy location at 9378 N. Central Expressway. Patterson will be there and available for on-camera interviews throughout the event and is available for in studio and phone-in interviews on Friday, May 22. Should Patterson qualify it would be made official June 1, to where he'd be made available for media for dates to be determined.