Right now, 22 of the world's best are dodging barrels, grabbing hammers, and hoping to save the princess—all in the name of a high score and potential world record.

The third annual Kong Off ("Kong Off 3") is currently taking place at Denver's The 1Up arcade. Partially inspired by the King of Kong documentary, this competition invites the top Donkey Kong players from the official Twin Galaxies world rankings to face off with other highly qualified gamers and enthusiasts. Twin Galaxies owner Jourdan Adler told The Denver Post he expects 2,200 people to be in attendance.

This year all of the competitive Kong scene's best are there. Both Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell—the main duo highlighted in the The King of Kong—are participating, as is current world record holder Hank Chien. But the end is near, and it's Jeff Willms who currently has the event's high score: 1,096,200. That finish would be good enough for fifth-best in the World Record rankings.

Willms is the event's defending champion, winning the Kong Off 2 with a score of 1,105,400—good enough for fourth in the World Record standings. What's more impressive than his total, however, is the fact that Willms isn't even a Kong competitor by trade. The official event history describes him as a professional chess player who "rarely played the arcade version. Instead, he learned his skills on a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME), a computer program that generates an emulation of various arcade games."

"Last quarter" begins at 6pm local time, with the competition officially ending at 7:30pm. Scores and standings will be constantly changing until then, but the action is all being broadcast on Twitch.Tv. Periodic updates can also be found on the Donkey Kong Blog. The individuals who made it to this point must either be among the top 12 ranked players in the world (according to Twin Galaxies as of October 25) or be one of the top 10 finishers from the Friday and Saturday wildcard qualifiers. Ars will continue to monitor the action and update this post if any World Record scores are set.

In addition to Donkey Kong, 15 world record attempts were planned for this year's Kong Off. Successful quarters include: Bobby Wilson setting a record for Puzzle Fighter 2 with a score of 507,860; Sam Miller becoming the best in the world at Ms. Pac-Man Turbo with a score of 947,380; and David Cruz playing a perfect game of Pac-Man to bring up the infamous kill screen.

Update: Ross Benzinger (holder of the second highest Kong score in the World Record standings) was dead last heading into "last quarter." He finished that final run with the second highest total of the tournament, meaning Jeff Willms held on to win his second consecutive Kong Off:

1.    Jeff Willms 1,096,200
2.    Ross Benziger 1,067,100
3.    Hank Chien 1,056,900
4.    Steve Wiltshire 1,053,200
5.    Steve Wiebe 1,048,800

Willms earned another pro-wrestling style Kong Off belt and is now two-for-two in Kong Off appearances. Nine competitors finished with scores above one million, and some didn't even need to hit the final kill screen in order to do it.