Donald Hayes and the Amazing 13 Tournament Win Streak

The following is a guest submitted article by Paul "OOO" Hornitzky for use by Twin Galaxies Editorial.

On June 1st 2025, Donald Hayes from Windham New Hampshire completed one of the greatest tournament win streaks in video game history. Competing against 91 gamers from 15 countries over three years, he won 13 consecutive MGL tournaments to enter the hall of “greatest performances of all time”. In fact in any sport, his run is one of the best of all time.

Several times he came ultra close to losing the tournament in that streak. Only clutch plays and great gaming pulled the wood out of the fire and into the jaws of victory. Rarely can anyone perform so brilliantly for so long that the competition is settled in their favor, time and again, for lucky for some, 13 amazing straight wins. When asked what's it like playing for a marathon 767 days against the best arcade gamers in the world, Hayes paid tribute to his opponents.  “The competition has been great over the past three years. I am fortunate to have the time and energy needed to continue playing the MGL contests. Each one can be a bit of a grind but there's also the anticipation each week of the next game being announced. Looking back, it almost doesn't seem real to have been able to complete the 3-peat of grand slams."

One example of great plays is Hayes dug very deep to make a tremendous comeback in MGL59. Down by 5 points after 6 games, he played extraordinarily well for narrow 1 to 2 point wins for the last 6 games to clinch the tournament. “Looking back at the scoreboard, I was down 10 points after Rygar but was able to make up a good part of that on Super Pac-man. A couple of games that came up just after that looked to be good for me to gain some spots, but Shahbaz kept the pressure on with excellent scores on each game. I was not very confident that my scores on the last couple of games would be good enough, but it turns out it was just enough”.  It seems if you play to the very end of game time and try your very best, good things can happen, and this time did happen, as Hayes won the tournament by a narrow 2 points, and kept the win streak alive.

DBH has been playing arcade games for over 30 years. World champion on the classics like Centipede and Dig Dug, he continues to play at the highest levels possible. These arcade games number in the thousands, as the golden age of arcades and the onslaught of titles beyond created the forbears of the games we play today. It would be fitting to see Hayes appear in an arcade scene at the movies. Whether it would be like dropping a few quarters at Flynn's arcade in Tron, or side by side repairing machines with Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-man, in Pixels. Perhaps he should drive one of the Mini ghost cars to take out Pac-man, like Sam Brenner does played by Adam Sandler, as Hayes holds the joint world record on Pac-man with 3,333,360 points.    

It took a former world champion of esports to end the win streak, with masterful and determined plays by Daniel Larsen from Denmark. Down by 1 point after 7 games, in what looked like the streak going to 14 titles, "every point counts" was the cry as DaLar won 2 of the last 3 games that made all the difference on the scoreboard in MGL64. There is a time and a place for Hayes in the annals of sporting greatness. Dollars and cents are often the measure, like the size of the prize and who promotes best, however this is one of the best ever, when it comes to tournament win streaks.

Here is the Top 10 on - The Donald Hayes Amazing 13 Tournament Win Streak

1. Won 13 straight arcade gaming tournaments from MGL51 to MGL63. The previous best streak is 6 straight by Robert Macauley from Australia.

2. The undefeated run started from 27-Mar-22 to 1-Jun-25, for just over 3 years.

3. Won 3 World Championship of eSports during the streak. Has the most WCE titles by any gamer. Next best is Patrick Stanley from Athens Georgia with 2 titles.

4. Won 45 games with the highest score. Was runner up 39 times. That's 1st or 2nd place 55% of the time.

5. The lowest win margins were 1 point from Terence Wong in MGL55 (amazing finish), 2 points from Shahbaz in MGL59 (another pearler), and 4 points from Boy in MGL62. Greatest tournament win margin was 43 points in MGL53.

6. The top 3 rankings during the streak:

MGL     Winner       2nd                     3rd

51           Dbh         Pessimeister       Ivanstorm

52           Dbh         DaLar                  Creech

53           Dbh         Terencew            DaLar

54           Dbh         Pessimeister       DaLar

55           Dbh         Terencew             Zerst

56           Dbh         DaLar                  Terencew

57           Dbh         DaLar                   ZNC

58           Dbh         DaLar                   ZNC

59           Dbh        Shahbaz               DaLar

60           Dbh         DaLar                   Shahbaz

61           Dbh        Shahbaz               DaLar

62           Dbh         Boy                      Pessimeister

63           Dbh        Shahbaz               DaLar

7. Played 150 different games in the total of 152 during the win streak. Games played twice were 1942 and Commando.

8. Lowest ranking was 10th place in MGL51 for Game 1 - 1942, and Game 4 - Rainbow Islands. This would be the first tournament he won during the win streak.

9. Led at the half (after 6 games) 12 times out of 13, and won them all. Came from behind at the half to win one time in MGL59 (down 5 against Shahbaz from Pakistan).

10. The win streak compared to other greats:

- Byron Nelson won 11 consecutive PGA Tournaments. The streak in 1945 started in Charlotte North Carolina and ended in Memphis Tennessee.

- Richard Petty won a record 10 straight auto races during the 1967 season. His streak came to an end when he did not finish due to engine issues.

- Final Boss was a professional esports team that competed in Halo competitions. They hold the record for the longest consecutive event winning streak, with 8 straight tournament victories from 2005 into 2006.

- Boston Celtics won 8 consecutive NBA championships from 1959 to 1966.

- Rafael Nadal won 5 straight French Open titles from 2010 to 2014. He won a total of 14 French Open titles. Roger Federer and Bjorn Borg have each won 5 consecutive Wimbledon titles.

While this extraordinary streak at 13 is now over, Donald Hayes continues to lead in the World Championship of eSports for 2025. There are 2 more tournaments to go to complete this thrilling season.

For more details on this story, the MGL, and WCE9, please visit https://twingalaxies.com/ooo