Vegas Knight mixes rock climbing, poker

In the Vegas Knight rock climbing competition, it's not the most skilled or adept climber who wins: It's the best poker player.

A straight flush and a full house were enough for sophomore mechanical engineering major Randall Lay and junior nursing major Maggie Lee to beat 30 other students in the competition Sunday at the UCF Recreation & Wellness Center.

Vegas Knight is part of the RWC's two-part tower competition series occurring every fall and spring. The competition aims to introduce climbers to competition by creating an environment that's more about strategy than skill.

"I'm not the best climber here, but I won because I didn't climb the highest routes," Lay said. "The more you climb, the better your chances are at getting more cards."

Vegas Knight's first competition began in fall 2006. The poker game twist was created to establish a less intimidating competitive atmosphere, Outdoor Adventure coordinator Roberta Nogueira said.

The competition introduced several new climbing routes to competitors.

The 41-foot climbing tower was sectioned off into 25 top-rope routes and five bouldering routes. Top-roping is when a climber is strapped in by rope while climbing. A climber who is free climbing without a rope is bouldering.

The level of difficulty was determined by letters A through F, easy to difficult, with several routes falling underneath each letter. Each climber was given a score sheet that listed all of the routes and contained 14 slots for card choices. Every time a competitor completed a route, he or she picked a card out of the envelope with the subsequent letter on it.

The cards in the envelopes were randomly placed and not based on the level of difficulty of the letter. For Corey Paul, this created a more comfortable environment for his first competition.

"I'm climbing around my level, and to me, this competition means I get to climb with people who are better than me and still be able to beat them," Paul said. The junior music performance major finished the competition in second place, with a four-of-a-kind.

Another first-time competitor, sophomore journalism-pending major Melissa Hockman saw the Vegas Knight competition as a way to further her enjoyment of climbing.

"I'm competing just for fun," Hockman said. "I climb a couple of days a week, but I don't think I'll do that well because there's not a whole lot I can climb."

Vegas Knight ended around 6 p.m., and prizes followed shortly after. Winners Lay and Lee were not given official awards because of the friendly nature of the competition. Instead, their names were entered in the raffle more often than the other competitors.

Raffle prizes included T-shirts, chalk bags, a backpack, water bottle, a pair of climbing shoes and a climbing rope.

Although Lee trains to compete, she said her win was because of the luck of the draw. And for her, winning wasn't the reason to compete.

"I really don't know much about poker, but the fact that inexperienced climbers can compete against experienced ones and do well is great," Lee said.