Every year, there can only be ONE winner at King of the Spin. So once again at the final SHOWCASE of the year, we ran this annual contest to find out who is KING for the year till the next contest. A brief introduction to King of the Spin, Spinners sign up not knowing what they need to do in the contest until each event is announced. So this allows Spinners from different skill levels to participate and stand a chance of winning, whilst having a fun time. Tricks are not crazy technical or difficult, but the main focus is on fun and consistency. So let us take you through how the King of the Spin 2016 went down!
At the start, there were 28 participants that signed up for King of the Spin 2016:
1) Chris Lee
2) Chia Meng Leong
3) Brandon Sommer
4) Koh Yang Jie
5) Jeremy Tan
6) Muhd I’zzun
7) Thawhir Iqbal
8) Masanobu Iwata
9) Karthik Devaraj
10) Jia Wei
11) Kent Lim
12) Joseph Wong
13) Kai Wei
14) Wayn Ooi
15) Muhd Yasier
16) Darius Lim
17) Preston Lim
18) Hafiq Hairuddin
19) Colin Wan
20) MC Cheng
21) Brian Low
22) Chong Yichen
23) Sean Hung
24) Lim Aik Hwee
25) Zen Lim
26) Ryan
27) Ian Loh
28) Cheong Meng Wei
For the first round of battle, we did a quick warm-up round whereby all 28 competitors had to throw a long Sleeper and keep it spinning as long as possible whilst trying to prevent other competitors from stopping their yo-yos! It was a fun and exciting warm up and everyone was then ready for the Consistency Rounds!
First Elimination Consistency Round was to do the first few Spinworkx Challenge tricks (Gravity Pull, Forward Pass, Rock the Baby, Trapeze, Shoot the Moon) but the catch was they only had ONE attempt at the trick, and they are not able to test the yo-yo before attempting the trick. During this first round, quite a number of players managed to survive and move on to the next round without much difficulty, but the majority were cut off on the Trapeze and Shoot the Moon.
Competitors moving on were:
1) Jun Wei
2) Jeremy Tan
3) Chris Lee
4) Lim Aik Hwee
5) Joseph Wong
6) Chong Yichen
7) Thawhir Iqbal
8) Masanobu Iwata
9) Colin Wan
10) Sean Hung
Following this tough trick, the next Elimination Consistency Round was a weak-hand Challenge Round. To progress, competitors had to hit 3 different tricks on their weaker hand (Braintwister, Trapeze and Eli Hop). Clearly the 3A players had a slight edge for this challenge but even then, it wasnt a walk in the park. Weak-hand tricks are always fun to do to challenge yourself on how well you understand the trick, and this is exactly what went down. Following this, more players were eliminated. Sean was knocked-out on Weak-hand Trapeze and Jun Wei was eliminated on Weak-hand Eli Hops. Colin (2-time King of the Spin) was also eliminated on Weak-hand Eli Hops, and the remaining competitors breathed a sigh of relief at the elimination of one of their most formidable opponents!
From here on out, every trick that the competitors did, they only had ONE attempt!
Competitors remaining:
1) Jeremy Tan
2) Chris Lee
3) Lim Aik Hwee
4) Joseph Wong
5) Chong Yichen
6) Masanobu Iwata
7) Thawhir Iqbal
Next trick for the Consistency Challenge was yet another different style of play, Offstring! Trick was the Offstring Whip, yet another familiar trick from past years. This time, the Offstring Whip knocked out yet another 2 strong competitors, Joseph Wong and special guest, Masanobu Iwata.
Competitors remaining:
1) Jeremy Tan
2) Chris Lee
3) Lim Aik Hwee
4) Chong Yichen
5) Thawhir Iqbal
Next Elimination Consistency Round was the Fixed Axle Trapeze on a Duncan Ignite. Tough trick that has recurred almost every year for King of the Spin. After this trick, only 1 player was eliminated.
Competitors remaining:
1) Jeremy Tan
2) Chris Lee
3) Lim Aik Hwee
4) Chong Yichen
Down to the wire, the top 4 remains and the tricks arent getting any easier. The next trick was a classic trick from Hyper yoyo days. 30x Loop the Loop. Seeing how the remaining 4 players are all veterans in the freestyle contest scene, this trick shouldnt be too tough. Yet, this trick knocked out old-school player Yichen and Hypebeast Jeremy Tan, leaving the FINAL 2!
Finalists:
1) Chris Lee
2) Lim Aik Hwee
For the very last trick, it was going to be conducted in a ‘Penalty-Shooutout’ style. 5 tricks each player and the player who hits it the most times wins. The trick was to do a simple Trapeze, with a responsive yo-yo, blindfolded with Flyaway Dismount. Chris VS Aik Hwee.
First 4 Blindfolded Trapeze for both competitors, no problem. Both of them hit the trick clean and the score was 4-4.
But on the last Blindfolded Trapeze, Chris hit the trick but failed to catch following the Flyaway Dismount.
Aik Hwee, with nerves of steel, hit the trick clean as if it was just a regular stroll through the park. Real close final battle (5 – 4) between Chris and Aik Hwee. Yet another exciting King of the Spin finale this year.
And there you have it, the 2016 King of the Spin, yo-yo legend and superstar, Lim Aik Hwee!
Congratulations Aik Hwee for winning the King of the Spin contest, and thank you to all the competitors who took part. Hope everyone had a great time!
The final SHOWCASE of the year is always the most fun because it also features the King of the Spin competition. For this contest, Spinners sign up not knowing what they need to do in the contest until each event is announced. This allows Spinners from different skill levels to participate and stand a chance of winning, whilst having a fun time. So this is how the King of the Spin 2015 happened!
At the start, there were 27 participants that signed up and here is the preliminary battles
1) Quay Xue Han VS Karthik Deveraj
2) Wee Teng Ee VS Brian Low
3) Ian Loh VS Jeremy Tan
4) Ee Heng VS Marcus Koh
5) Muhd I’zzun VS Ian Chia
6) Zen VS Kian Chew
7) Sam Guan Ting VS Muhd Hafiq
8) Koh Yang Jie VS Lee Wei Ting
9) Ethan Liew VS Ryan Lim
10) Alton VS Brandon Sommer
11) Sciran VS Kenneth Bay
12) Michael Lim VS Zhen Yi
13) Chen Kun VS Chan Yu Hong
14) Colin Wan (Receiving a bye for being past King of the Spin Champion)
For these battles, there was a fixed list of tricks and one trick would be randomly chosen for each battle.
The trick list is:
1) Most number of Eli Hops (1A)
2) Most number of Iron Whips (1A)
3) Most number of Offstring Whips (4A)
4) Most number of 2 handed Loop the Loops (2A)
5) Most number of Shoot the Moons (1A)
6) Longest Sleeper with a Fixed Axle yo-yo
7) Yo-Yo Bowling (Furthest Distance)
8) Most number of any type of Whip (1A)
9) Most number of inside Loops with string tied around the wrist
10) Most number of inside Loops with string tied around the Pinky Finger
11) Most number of Suicides (1A)
12) Longest horizontal fingerspin (1A)
13) First person to hit a trapeze on wooden fixed axle Yo-Yo (YYF Legend)
14) First person to hit a Double Trapeze (3A)
15) Most number of Eli Hops for both Left and Right hands (1A)
16) Most number of Cross-hand Milk the Cow (2A)
17) Most number of Offstring Boing-boing (4A)
18) Most number of Butterfly (5A)
19) First person to hit a Braintwister on a Fixed Axle yo-yo
20) Most number of Loop the Loops on a Butterfly-shaped yo-yo
21) First person to Rocket into the Pocket
22) Most number of Outside Loops with string tied around both wrists
And after the first round of battles, the competitors that made it to the next round were:
1) Karthik Deveraj
VS
2) Wee Teng Ee
3) Ian Loh
VS
4) Marcus Koh
5) Muhd I’zzun
VS
6) Zen
7) Sam Guan Ting
VS
8) Lee Wei Ting
9) Ryan Lim
VS
10) Brandon Sommer
11) Kenneth Bay
VS
12) Michael Lim
13) Chen Kun
VS
14) Colin Wan
The random tricks still applied to this round of battles and following this, the remaining competitors were:
1) Wee Teng Ee
2) Marcus Koh
3) Muhd I’zzun
4) Lee Wei Ting
5) Brandon Sommer
6) Michael Lim
7) Colin Wan
For this, the Quarter-final match-ups were:
Wee Teng Ee VS Marcus Koh
Mohd I’zzun VS Lee Wei Ting
Brandon Sommer VS Michael Lim VS Colin Wan
For the first match, Teng Ee against Marcus, the trick that was drawn for them to do was trick number 17 to Teng Ee’s advantage. Horizontal Boing-Boing. Marcus does do a little bit of 4A but that was not enough to stop 4A powerhouse Teng Ee from taking this battle and moving on.
The next match pit I’zzun against Wei Ting in a 1A battle. Both of these guys are great in 1A and the trick was number 12, Longest Horizontal Fingerspin. These guys brought out a secret fingerspin weapon in the YYJ Lateral caps, but in the end, Lee Wei Ting took it and moved on.
The last Quarter final match was a 3-way battle that had new school 1A player Brandon, against new school 3A player Michael, against old school 2A player Colin. With the random draw being made, it was Colin who got the luck of the draw with a very simple 2A trick, most double-handed loop the loops. Colin took this contest easily and progressed on to the next round.
For the Semi-finals battle, it was Teng Ee VS Wei Ting VS Colin. Again, a random trick was drawn and lady-luck was shining down on Colin today, with the trick being a old school 2A trick, most number of Cross-hand Milk the Cows. Colin easily had the highest number but it was down to Wei Ting and Teng Ee to see who could do the most. Teng Ee with a little bit more experience with 2A narrowly beat out Wei Ting to move on to the final round against Colin.
The Finals was conducted in a slightly different fashion. It was a 30s 30s freestyle battle that had Teng Ee against Colin. Teng Ee has been doing spectacular in prelims for SYYC and AP, and the last time Colin competed was back in 2010. So each of these guys will get 2-30 second runs. With a coin flip, Colin was up first, followed by Teng Ee. But this was no simple 30s freestyle. For the first round of 30 second freestyles, the guys had to use a stock YoYoFactory ONE yo-yo that was incredibly responsive. For the second round of 30 second freestyles, the guys had to use a Duncan Ignite (Fixed Axle) for their run.
The finals was an intense battle, pitting the old school against the new school. The 5 judges, comprising of old school, new school, performers and King of the Spin 2015 competitors had to vote after the 2 runs to determine the King of the Spin 2015 winner.
Colin up first with his super responsive ONE yo-yo freestyle was very shaky at first but had some kung-fu moves added to his routine that made the judges laugh. Teng Ee opted for a more technical routine, impressed the judges with his tricks, but was unable to execute them smoothly due to the responsive nature of the yo-yo. After this round, the judges had their first impressions on both competitors, but the second round would seal the deal.
Colin started out strong with the Ignite, being very comfortable with a fixed axle yo-yo from his old-school style of play. Teng Ee put on a more entertaining routine with the Ignite, but not being used to Fixed Axle also had some problems controlling the yo-yo.
After their routines were over, the judges were given sometime to make their final decisions and then their votes were cast!
The votes were 4-to-1 in favour of Colin and for the second time, Colin was crowned the King of the Spin!
Congratulations of Colin for winning the King of the Spin contest once again, and thank you to all the competitors who took part. Hope everyone had a fun and exciting time!
The End of Year SHOWCASE Contest is always the most fun because it also features the fun and unique King of the Spin competition. Each year, Spinners sign up for this not knowing what they need to do in the contest until each event is announced. This allows Spinners from different skill levels to participate and stand a chance of winning, whilst having a fun time. So wondering how the King of the Spin 2014 went down? Read on!
The first round, there were 21 competitors and the first activity that stood before them was that they had to do a Braintwister with a Duncan Hornet that was set up for looping.
The list of 21 were:
1) Gabriel Yong
2) Edward Soh
3) Chua Wei Xuan
4) Michael Lim
5) Kendrick Hu
6) Lee Wei Ting
7) Khoo Kian Chew
8) Muhd I’zzun
9) Norman Wee
10) Ian Chia
11) Ethan Ho Quan Xi
12) Karthik
13) Sciran
14) Colin Wan
15) Roland Tay
16) Dillion Ong
17) Marcus Koh
18) Wong Wei Da
19) Muhd Hafiq
20) Nick Yip
21) Brian Low
Each Spinner had to do 2 Braintwisters. If they failed and wished to move on to the next round, they had to do 3 Braintwisters instead. If they failed their second chance of surviving, then they were eliminated. Do note that not only is this tough because it is on an incredibly responsive yo-yo, it had to return to their hand. After a round, everyone got the hang of nailing the Braintwister and almost all went on to the next round.
After the Looping yo-yo Braintwister, the next activity that the remaining 20 had to do was a familiar one from last year. They had to do a 5A 360 using another yo-yo as a counterweight. Just like last year, quite a number of them had problems on this. The yo-yo as a counter weight threw many off and even with 2 tries, this proved difficult for some. With this, quite a few Spinners were knocked out, leaving only 12 competitors.
Now the 12 remaining contestants were split up into groups of 2 for the next challenge. They had to team up to do 10 Loop the Loops. Sounds easy right? Well, they had to loop on a metal, butterfly, unresponsive yo-yo. For this challenge, they had to work together with the team mate to see who was the stronger looper. Most of the teams managed this well and after the challenge was over, 2 more were eliminated, leaving just 10 Spinners still in the King of the Spin.
Next, the 4th challenge of the King of the Spin 2014 had the remaining 10 fight for their place in the competition with them needing to do lying down Shoot the Moon on a Duncan Butterfly.
Top 10:
1) Colin Wan
2) Wong Wei Da
3) Marcus Koh
4) Chua Wei Xuan
5) Michael Lim
6) Kendrick Hu
7) Khoo Kian Chew
8) Muhd I’zzun
9) Norman Wee
10) Karthik
They were given 2 chances to make up the total of 10 Shoot the Moons. This challenge eliminated 6, leaving the top 4 to battle it out in the Semi-Finals.
The top 4 remaining contestants were:
1) Colin Wan
2) Wong Wei Da
3) Marcus Koh
4) Chua Wei Xuan
What stood before the top 4 progressing from Semis to the Finals was one simple trick. The Trapeze. The catch is that they had to hit their Trapeze with the YoYoFactory Wooden yo-yo, the Legend. At Worlds, contestants were only given 1 try for this. This time, the 4 Semi-finalists were given 3 attempts to hit just 1 Trapeze. This proved difficult for even the most seasoned of yo-yo players, and with that only 2 contestants remained.
Finals: Colin Wan VS Wong Wei Da.
The Activity that determined the winner of the King of the Spin 2014 is this game called ‘Offstring Goal’. What Colin and Wei Da had to do was to throw an Offstring yo-yo and aim it to go in-between the 2 positioned chairs and score a ‘goal’. Both of them had 5 tries like a Soccer Penalty Shoot-out and the person with the most ‘goals’ would win.
But after 5 tries each, the score was tied at 3-3. So a Sudden Death was in order. Now, the game got tougher as the chairs were positioned even closer to each other, making the ‘goal scoring’ area even smaller.
After numerous attempts, a winner finally emerged and he managed to score the only ‘goal’ in Sudden Death. The King of the Spin 2014 Champion is none other than Wong Wei Da, beating out King of the Spin 2013 Champion Colin Wan.
Once again, congratulations to Wei Da, who narrowly beat out Colin in the final Battle.
At the premier SHOWCASE competition, we decided to hold another ‘King of the Spin’ friendly/fun contest for everyone who were in attendance at SHOWCASE Vol. 1. This mystery competition would allow Spinners from varying levels to participate in and have fun at. None of the ‘point-whoring’, string hit conventions from regular competitions. So in this blog entry, we will detail how it all went down and what the participants needed to do to be crowned the King of the Spin for 2013.
The first round, there were 23 competitors and all of them were forced to challenge each other at the same time with a Long Sleeper contest. Sounds simple right? The catch was that they needed to do it with the non-dominant hand.
After the non-dominant hand Long Sleeper contest, 5 participants were eliminated, leaving us with 18.
The 18 competitors were:
1) Muhd I’zzun
2) Norman Wee
3) Brian Low
4) Colin Wan
5) Brena Cheong
6) Ian Chia
7) Thawhir Iqbal
8) Hong Aun Lung
9) Kenneth Bay
10) Alexander Teo
11) Khoo Kian Chew
12) Sean Hung
13) Wee Teng Ee
14) Sciran Vikneswaran
15) Ian Loh
16) Karthikeyan
17) Marcus Koh
18) Chua Wei Xuan
From this point, it was a head-to-head elimination with (1) VS (2), (3) VS (4) and so on.
For the first battle, the participants needed to go head-to-head in a Kendama face-off. For the Kendama face-off, we had Razi (of KendamaSG) and Malcolm Chiu (of Duncan Crew Singapore) as facilitators to ensure the tricks were done right.
There were 9 matches, and for some, there were clear winners. For others, there was a fierce back and forth battle. What the participants had to do was to compete against each other in a Kendama mini trick ladder. The trick sequence was Big Cup followed by Small Cup followed by Base Cup followed by Spike followed by Cup to Spike followed by Lighthouse (If they could reach up to this stage).
Competitors had to go one at a time and accomplish the tricks set out in the ladder till one person misses and the other completes the trick. The person who missed would be knocked out.
So after a fiercely contested battle, yet fun with lots of laughter, the final 9 were:
1) Muhd I’zzun
2) Colin Wan
3) Brena Cheong
4) Thawhir Iqbal
5) Kenneth Bay
6) Sean Hung
7) Wee Teng Ee
8) Ian Loh
9) Chua Wei Xuan
Since there were only 9 remaining, and we needed 10 for a head-to-head, the ‘knocked out’ pool of participants were given a second chance to face off in this very same Kendama ladder and the victor was Khoo Kian Chew, making up the 10th spot in the Quarter Finals!
For the Quarter Finals, the participants had to do something unconventional. Before beginning, they were told to go grab a pair of looping yo-yos. Once they were done, they had to pick just one of the two yo-yos and were told that they needed to go head-to head, seeing which participant could do the most number of Braintwisters on a looping yo-yo.
So the battles were:
1) Muhd I’zzun VS Colin Wan
2) Brena Cheong VS Thawhir Iqbal
3) Kenneth Bay VS Sean Hung
4) Wee Teng Ee VS Ian Loh
5) Chua Wei Xuan VS Khoo Kian Chew
Each of the battles saw the participants share, give tips and help out each other but at the end of the day, there had to be a clear winner from each round and so the 5 that progresses to the 2nd Quarter Finals were:
1) Colin Wan
2) Brena Cheong
3) Sean Hung
4) Wee Teng Ee
5) Chua Wei Xuan
From these 5 Spinners, one needed to be eliminated to make up the Semi-finalists.
So what did they have to do? They were instructed to grab a pair of 1A yo-yos. The catch was it could not be the same yo-yo. So in everyone’s mind, the next challenge was going to be a 3A showdown. But yet another curveball was thrown at the competitors when they were told that they needed to use 1 of the 2 1A yo-yos as a counterweight. The trick they had to do was the most number of 360s with one yo-yo spinning, and the other used as a counterweight attached to that yo-yo.
This was a tough challenge that had 2 Spinners (Colin & Brena) with zero 360s done. However, Sean went on to show everyone that this could be done, with eleven 360s! After a quick tie-breaker of another 5A trick challenge (most number of Electric Fans) with 2 1A yo-yos, the final 4 were decided.
So the semi final showdown was:
1) Colin Wan VS Sean Hung
2) Wee Teng Ee VS Chua Wei Xuan
For the semi finals, the head-to-head battle was a simple, yet fun one. The participants had to use Duncan Ignites to see who could ‘bowl’ the yo-yo the furthest away from the starting line. Simple, Straight-forward and with clear cut winners.
The finalists moving on after the ‘bowling’ contest were,
Finals: Colin Wan VS Chua Wei Xuan
The winner of the Finals was told that they still had one more showdown after they won, going up against the King of the Spin 2012 – Darrell Mitchell in the final battle.
So for the finals, Colin and Wei Xuan had 3 tries to see who could get the most number of Rocket to the pocket as possible. After a quick decision to see who goes first, Wei Xuan was chosen to be the first. After 3 attempts, with a tough time due to his incredibly skinny jeans, Wei Xuan managed to hit 1 successful Rocket to the pocket. Colin was up next and only had to do 2 Rockets to the pocket to be crowned the winner for the King of the Spin 2013.
With ease, Colin managed to hit 2 Rockets to the pocket with 1 spare attempt.
So the ultimate victor of the 2013 King of the Spin tournament goes to Colin Wan!
Seeing how it is the September School Holidays and everyone needs a little break and to have some fun, the all time favorite H-O-R-S-E was played in a Tournament style, with 16 competitors, at the Spinworkx store.
The competitors were:
1) Andre
2) Marcus Koh
3) Muhd I’zzun
4) Darren
5) Darrell Mitchell
6) Jason Cheow
7) Keshvinn
8) Jarett
9) Li Tiancheng
10) Muhd. Hafiq
11) Jeremy Tan
12) Lex
13) Marcus Hoe
14) Ian Loh
15) Lee Weiting
16) Chen Kun
The sequence of the Tournament was a head-to-head battle and the first round battles had the following individuals competing to move on to the quarter-finals. A draw was made to determine the first round battles and the battles were:
1) Andre VS Marcus Koh
2) Muhd. I’zzun VS Darren
3) Darrell Mitchell VS Jason Cheow
4) Keshvinn VS Jarett
5) Li Tiancheng VS Muhd. Hafiq
6) Jeremy Tan VS Lex
7) Marcus Hoe VS Ian Loh
8) Lee Wei Ting VS Chen Kun
The first round saw some epic battles. One was the battle of the 1A powerhouses Darrell Mitchell & Jason Cheow, two of the most original players Singapore has to offer. Another ‘big’ battle pitted Lee Wei Ting, 5A extraordinaire, against Chen Kun, 3A Maestro.
In the end, the quarter-final matches were as follows:
Marcus Koh (1) VS Muhd. I’zzun (2)
Darrell Mitchell (3) VS Keshvinn (4)
Li Tiancheng (5) VS Jeremy Tan (6)
Marcus Hoe (7) VS Lee Wei Ting (8)
The quarter-finalists were more focused and geared up to what needed to be done to overcome their opponents. Marcus Koh sticking to his world-reknowned Single A bangers, Darrell switching it up and competing with mostly 2A, Tiancheng & Jeremy both sticking to one-off Single A tricks and Wei Ting destroying the competitor with his technical 5A tricks.
At the end of the quarter-finals, the following competitors remained, to show-down in the semi-final round.
Semi-finals: Marcus Koh VS Darrell Mitchell
Semi-finals: Jeremy Tan VS Lee Wei Ting
The Battle of 2 of the best Single A players in Singapore, and the battle between the new upcoming superstars in the Singapore contest scene. Once again, Darrell exploited his 2A prowess and competed with 2-handed exclusively, outwitting the 2011 World Champion Marcus Koh. The battle between Jeremy and Wei Ting was more fiercely contested, with the match being even throughout most of the battle. But in the end, Jeremy’s perseverance and determination prevailed against the 5A master, Wei Ting, setting the final H-O-R-S-E battle between:
Finals: Darrell Mitchell VS Jeremy Tan
Again, Darrell exploited his versatility with both 1A and 2A, choosing to compete exclusively with 2-handed, out-gunning Jeremy and winning the first ever Spinworkx H-O-R-S-E Tournament for the inaugural King of the Spin!
Congratulations to Darrell, who completely owned the tournament with his skills, versatility and technique.
