Wanting to reawaken this thread with ridiculous tournament stories because I’m really missing tourneys right now.
This is one that I was a part of that made for an extraordinary result. Keith Elwin was two finalists in a four-player final in 2009 and took both second and third places! https://www.pinballnews.com/shows/ppe2009/index3.html
Keith had secured two finals slots because there was an opportunity to qualify for the final four on four machines, and a single player was allowed to qualify for the finals multiple times. Keith almost qualified on three of the four games, but Neil Shatz beat him to secure a finals slot!
One of the Keiths was doing well in the finals against me and NES. In the final game of four on CFTBL, the Keith that was not doing as well started doing well on his game, and I began to root for this Keith because I knew he could slow down the Keith that was doing better. As a result, I ended up taking first, but Keith got 2nd AND 3rd place! I’m not sure if this sort of thing has ever happened before, but it was a very unique result.