The Golden State Warriors’ game on Monday night, Jan. 15, was tied in the fourth quarter, but most of the attention at Brewcade on Market Street was focused on the “Super Smash Bros.” battle taking place near the back of the bar. Super Trashed Bros. (a drunken real-life tournament of the aforementioned video game) was under way, with a mostly male lineup of 16 contestants cradling frosty mugs of beer.

Brewcade is an arcade bar, meaning that in addition to alcohol, it also serves up a wide variety of console video games. It’s dark inside, lit mostly by flashing video game lights, and it’s loud. Music over the loudspeaker competed with dozens of video game theme songs and sound effects. An entire wall was covered in colorful alphabet magnets proclaiming things like, “Vader did nothing wrong,” and one of the many paper flyers plastered around suggested that hungry patrons order food from the restaurant next door on their phones. At 39 years old, it’s likely I was one of the night’s most ancient visitors.

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (the game of choice for the Super Trashed Bros. tournament) is a version of “Super Smash Bros.” It was released in 2001 and features characters from video games like “Mario,” “Zelda,” “Pokémon” and others. (I Googled this information while watching the contestants play because I had no idea what was going on, and I felt really old.) Basically, contestants pick a favorite video game character, and, using a bracket system, battle a series of challengers until a winner in determined. This gathering fits into the popular genre of 1980s and 1990s nostalgia events I’ve covered in this column before, like the “Simpsons” trivia night and the “Star Wars”-themed lightsaber battle.

“It’s the Bay Area. No one grows up here,” said Calvin Albright, one of the evening’s hosts. Albright, Derek Lipkin and Ben Spoon acted as the night’s witty sportscasters, calling out the Super Smash/Trash melees as they occurred. All three (along with two other regular hosts) participate in the Bay Area comedy scene.

Each wore a headset and cracked jokes as contestants — two at a time — played against each other. Players followed a series of made-up rules in which they’d have to gulp down beer every time their character died. Albright, Lipkin and Spoon simultaneously managed a laptop that kept track of the winners and live-streamed the entire tournament, including video of players in action, onto Twitch, a website in which people watch others play video games.

“Oh, people love Twitch. It’s huge,” Albright announced, although he confessed that he doesn’t watch it himself. Through the site, the Super Trashed Bros. crew actually makes money by charging for subscriptions, scoring monetary tips and earning revenue from ads. As the tournament heated up, Lipkin, a lawyer by day, read off comments from online viewers.

It’s through Twitch that Lipkin, Albright and Spoon plan to expand their themed evening into a weekly event watched by gaming fans all over the world. One of the founders now runs a version in New York City, and the San Francisco crew has expanded to host monthly “Drunkathon” video game competition at the Tenderloin’s Pianofight.

For the folks who show up, the event’s not just about scoring points and swigging beer. Over the past two years, Super Trashed Bros. has formed into a rather jovial community of friends. A lot of young San Franciscans are transplants, drawn here by the technology industry and the economy it’s created. And a lot of those people played video games growing up. A free, weekly gaming tournament has become a great way for folks to make friends in the big city and, unless they’re watching on Twitch, get out of the house to try something that’s both new and familiar.

“It’s a good mix,” Albright said of the crowd. “Everyone gets along here, too. It’s a nice community.”

Indeed, Monday night’s competition was friendly, above all else. Players clinked beer mugs and shook hands after every game, losses and wins alike were met with sheepish smiles. After all, the night’s grand prize was a free beer. No one was going to be a jerk about it — and none of them got that “trashed” anyway.

The Warriors ultimately beat the Cavaliers, but few at my end of the bar seemed to notice. They were busy with “Princess Peach” and “Pokémon.” The NBA might have a bigger TV audience — for now — but to fans of low-stakes video game competitions and high-end beer, Super Trashed Bros. makes for a rather perfect Monday evening.

Beth Spotswood’s column appears Thursdays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com