I managed to shave off a few more frames in Eolis, and at that point am 18 frames ahead of Lord Tom.
This heads into the dungeon with the Mattocks, and while I use the key to enter the dungeon 129 frames ahead of Lord Tom, I am 236 Golds behind him. I plan on making that gold up by killing an additional two mages outside of Forepaw.
Enters and leaves Eolis. Less-than-stellar placement in the final room, so I lost seven frames during the fight and am now only 11 frames ahead of Lord Tom.
From power on to talking with the Guru, this WIP is an attempt to beat Lord Tom's excellent submission at http://tasvideos.org/1877S.html
So far, holding A at frame 1802/1803 turns the enemy on that screen to the left, getting me hit 19 frames before Lord Tom. As a result, this is, so far, a 19-frame improvement over his work.
On the 3DS's version of SMB2j, going 'down' through this pipe warps you ahead a short way through 8-1. On the FDS ROM that checksums with the published movie, it instead warps you back to the start of the level.
I apologize for the quality (or lack thereof) of this video - I wanted to remove the needless pausing at the end, but I can't read the hex output to save my life. I am sorry. (Feel free to remove it on your end.)
Game is paused right beside the second vertical pipe of 8-1.