I am still wondering if we will be able to play Luigi instead of Mario.  
There is no gameplay difference or advantage at all to do so.  

Is there some way to play as Luigi instead of Mario? Pardon my ignorance.
 

You start as 2 players. P2 will be Luigi.
So you kill Mario off and play Luigi with the P2 controller.

Ah I see. Rule #1 states "1 Player Only" so I imagine this would not be allowed.

That's stupid, but we're going for a Mario only run this week.

Oh well. Red Luigi, the inferior brother, it is then.  

I can't wait to get home and put in my first run together, though. I have almost everything calculated for a 1,260,000 or so run. Squeezing the last 40K to get 1.3 millions will prove difficult.

My only time one-lifeing this game was as Luigi in 2-player mode. I will do it again this week as the other brother.  

I am not good at jumping on turtles.

This week will be awesome!
I bet everyone will post their scores as they get them!  

Well now you're asking for a miracle lol.

We got to think positive!  
I will show my first hand tonight shortly after I get my run together! Set an example and whatnot.  

I didn't take a photo, but I got around 150k and then died in 2-1 or 2-2, I don't recall. Setting the bar high!  

I gotta say, I'm really excited to play some Super Mario Bros this week!

Got 500k or so on my first attempt. I dunno if I even want to bother with turtle tipping and such, like Gloves I think I'd rather just see if I can 1-life the game. I think I got to 8-2 last time.

I got 172,500 in my one attempt at SMB. Stupid death in level 3-1. So I did about as well as Gloves.

I died farming a turtle. Just trying to get the hang of it, really, to see if it's plausible for me to bother doing.

At this point I don't wanna be too concerned about a first place win in this as I imagine I'm up against a behemoth or two when it comes to this game. As has been said if it were a shooter I might have stood a chance at a win, but for now I'm just happy to be participating.
 

I'm taking arnpoly this week.

The scores will likely be lower because the 1up trick is forbidden for the Tournament, where a big chunk of the points can be earned. I'm sure we'll be completely impressed with some socres done even with that rule though, it will certainly be interesting.

The master of SMB in NA history is 2Legit29Bit, he did 1,844,700 in 2012, Robin Mihara actually asked him for video proof when he saw his score, lol.

Fun fact, the 2012 SMB contest was the first entry of Tom Votava in NA contest  

I missed this.  You're saying turtle tipping on stairs is forbidden?  Maybe this should be spelled out very specifically.

 

I believe the 1-up trick was also forbidden on the 2016 contest.
Still, a high 1.2 millions score is pretty doable without using the 1-up turtle trick. 1.3 million will require something short of a miracle to pull.
It should be possible, but I have run through my notes and I just can't find where to squeeze the points for that yet.

I was wondering about this too.  I think how you phrased it above is the intention.  At least that was how I was planning on playing.

 

If it's the trick I'm talking about it definitely wasn't forbidden

 

Now there are three members of Team arnpoly:
skinnygrinny
Murray
BriGuy82

Anyone else?   
 

The 3-1, 4-2 and other few stages where you hop on a turtle/beetle and keep on going for extra lives. Or stop and restart after a bit for points. Seems I misread the 2016 thread. I assumed that the 1-up loop was fully banned, but it seem stopping before reaching 1-up was allowed.
Yeah, I am not counting on this one. I assumed that the phrasing here means it is banned.
 

+1 for arnpoly. Sorry gloves but I'm not too confident in team canada this time around.