Since I started playing STCCG in 1997, there is only one player who has continually confounded me. Alex Free showed up one afternoon in 1998, just a kid then, all of 15. He had an ebullient smirk, an irreverent demeanor and was one of the worst players around.

The tourney scene in Calgary was always Sealed Deck oriented; I suppose that's why I became interested in the game. David Hyttenrauch was the ambassador at the time. He would run a sealed deck tourney and get 16 people out to it. Constructed was rarely sanctioned.

Within six months and eight tourneys, Alex Free was defeating me on a semi-regular basis. Before him, I'd gone unchallenged in my local supremacy. Soon he was fifty points ahead of me in the sealed deck ratings.

By regionals '99 he was recognized as the best sealed deck player in Alberta--and one of the top constructed. I was still better at constructed. I faced him in the fifth round. Off the bat I made one of the worst play mistakes of my life. I didn't see one of Alex's missions-- he has put it at the end of the spaceline, with a full 8 inches between it and the rest of the spaceline, so during dilemmas, I didn't see it, he proceeded to (as the last card seeded in the phase) seed a Horaga'hn there. He took the mission on the first turn for 55 points.

Alex should have won those regionals, as it was (due to cheating that I won't go into here) he ended third.

I moved to Edmonton, which some said would be the death knell of the game. People stopped showing up to tourneys and the game faltered. Alex moved on to other things, died his hair blue, goes to the University near my house and I see him occasionally. Really good guy.

He played one last tournament; Regionals 2000. Alex hadn't played the game in almost a year, borrowed cards to build a Cardassian freighter armada the morning of the tournament. He was seventeen, irreverent, iconoclastic, the picture of happily angry youth. No one touched him. He walked through opponent after opponent, crashing to a halt in the finals. A misplay in the finals lost it for him.

I know that if Alex returns to the game, I'll have to fight to keep my #1 status.