Usually when I accidentally get into things, it's either the men's room or the Paris protests over the French retirement age (don't ask). In Erin Roden's case, it was a Candy Crush tournament where she had the chance to become one of the best players in the country and win a share of the $250,000 prize pool.

The 48-year-old mother of three told Kotaku (opens in new tab) that she has been playing Candy Crush for about 10 years after quitting her life of "smashing" opponents in competitive PvP games. She said she settled on the colorful match-three game as a way to "keep her mind occupied and focused," adding that it "satisfies the urge to win without doing anything to anyone else or causing anger." The [Candy Crush All Stars (open in new tab)] competition was actually so vague and "impenetrable" that she did not realize she had entered it. This is an in-game event in which players qualify by finishing at the top of the leaderboard in each round. The finals will be broadcast live in London next month, but everything else will be done through the app.

There will be no direct player-versus-player matchups as seen in other esports competitions. Roden told Kotaku, "You won't know your rank or the region you are playing in until the very end." She went on to say that as a free-to-play player, she usually ignores the game's various pop-ups. "I'm clicking [the exit button] and not paying attention. And apparently I clicked "yes" instead of "no." A week later, it went like this: you are eligible to compete. I thought, 'That's great. I didn't even know I was a contestant.'"

Despite this, Loden did well for herself. This allowed her to skip several stages of the tournament, including the wildcard round. After her accidental rise to esports stardom, Loden turned to a family member familiar with the esports lifestyle, her son Zane. A competitive player of Super Smash Bros. and formerly one of the best Meta Knight players in the Midwest, Loden asked him what the hell was going on.

Xane tweeted about the situation and since April 12 has received over 55,000 likes likes, and according to Kotaku, he took on all of Loden's chores over the weekend so that Loden could focus solely on climbing the Candy Crush ranks. He said that this was in exchange for the number of times Loden sent Zaneh to out-of-state Smash tournaments.

Sadly, Zane revealed that his mother lost in the semi-finals (open in new tab) and lost her chance to go to London and win the prize money. In his reply, he said that his mother had won an "in-game reward" for placing high. Roden was able to win so far relatively easily without spending a penny.

I think Candy Crush has garnered a misguided reputation over the years as a lame experience designed to trick older people who traditionally don't play games into spending a lot of money. But as Roden points out on Kotaku, it takes a lot of strategy to play each level. Aside from Rhoden's 11,000 levels to complete, I have little patience to complete a handful of match-three levels. I salute her efforts, and it is possible that next year she will make a great comeback and take the number one spot.