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A field of 28 entered the Fourth BPA Gettysburg PBeM tournament. Ted Drozd, seeded 13th, defeated #3 seed Jim Tracy in the Final. Jim took the South for a bid of 5.0, but one-sided dice led to an early North victory. The Confederates attacked on their opening turn and suffered a double loss, and matters proceeded to get worse thereafter. The Union was able to hold McPherson's Woods throughout July 1st, thus preventing the Confederates from uniting the two wings of the Army of Northern Virgina. The Union was thus able to defeat Ewell's II Corps in detail, drawing a surrender on Turn 7.
Third through sixth place laurels were awarded to Mike Pacheco, Andy Choptiany, Dan Overland and Allen Kaplan respectively.
The Union dominated play in the opening rounds, winning 13 of 20 contests, and 15 of 27 overall. The average bid was 3.43 for the South.
For more details see the tourney website at http://wargameacademy.org/G88/G88-BPA-PBEM-IV/Index.html.
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Mike Pacheco has won the 3rd Gettysburg '88 BPA PBeM Championship. Mike won five in a row as the South and defeated the pride of Austin, TX, Bill Thomson, in the final match. Mike entered the Final as the #8 seed with Bill at #6. Mike bid 5.5 for the Rebels. The South held only a slight edge as July 3 dawned, but pulled steadily away until the North resigned on Turn 21; the Union stil held LIttle Round Top and hex I11, but their losses were too great to overcome. The final tally had the Rebels with 61 Victory Points (kills 48, flips 5, and territory 8) and the Federals with 39.5 (kills 22, flips 4, territory 8, and bid 5.5). Mike is no stranger to the top ranks of PBeM play, having turned in a 2nd place finish in our first PBeM tournament. For his part, Bill recorded his highest ever finish in tournament play with a 4-1 log. Competition is obviously keen in this event as there have been three different winners in as many tournaments.
Other laurelists were 3rd, Dan Overland of Flint, MI (3-1), 4th, Ed Menzel (Fullerton, CA (3-1), 5th, Dennis Nicholson (Pawling, NY (2-1), and 6th, Tom Gregorio,(Blue Bell, PA (2-1), His 3rd place finish marked Dan Overland as our Rookie of the Year. Mike Pacheco's aforementioned 5-0 tally as the Grey earned him Best Confederate Player, and Dan Overland's 3-1 record as the Blue resulted in Best Union Player honors. Four of our top five, #1 Mike Pacheco, #2 Bill Thomson, #3 Dan Overland, and #5 Dennis Nicholson, turned in their best ever tournament finishes.
The CSA took 22 tournament contests to the USA's 11 (two games involved a withdrawal that took place before sides were chosen), but went only 4-3 in the last three rounds. Bidding stats were as follows: 28 games with a Confederate bid; zero games with a Union bid; and seven games featuring no bid. Bids ranged up to 6.0. The average bid was 2.91 for all games and 3.64 for games in which there was a bid. The higher seeded player won 20 contests and lost 15.
Thanks go to Ed Menzel and Ted Drozd for volunteering as Assistant GMs for this event. Also, Bill Thomson's website contains the results of our event plus assorted other Gettysburg goodies. Thanks, Bill. Check it out at: http://www.wargameacademy.org/G88/2009-PBEM/index.html
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BPA PBEM Championship II has now been completed, which means that BPA PBEM Championship III will be kicking off in the near future! I'll send details in a forthcoming e-mail.
As for the current tourney, your GM proved the oldest maxim in gaming, that it's better to be lucky than good, by defeating Ed Menzel of Fullerton, CA in the Final. It was a tale of two different days; Ed's Confederates, bidding 5.0, looked unbeatable on July 1, but it was all Union on July 2. At the end of turn 8, the Rebels had knocked the Federals off both Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, losing only Pegram (with McIntosh flipped) in the process. The Union had retreated to the Peach Orchard-H7 line, down two infantry, two artillery, and two cavalry divisions, with another four infantry divisions flipped, including Wadsworth, sitting forlornly on McPherson's Woods, surrounded by Confederates. Truly, things looked grim for the Union. The sole bright note for the North was that they had taken the chit from the South by attacking a 10-stack at even odds and rolling a 7-1. The reroll resulted in no losses for the Confederates, but the loss of that chit was to exact a heavy price on July 2.
From Turn 9 through Turn 12, the Confederates launched 12 attacks, winning only three. They lost two +5 attacks, a +4, a +3, and two +2s. The combined dice were 48-70 against them. Meanwhile, the Union made five 10-10 attacks on Turns 9-11, scoring a double flip on four of them and a single flip on the other! For good measure, they scored a double flip on a 10-8 battle on Turn 12. At that point, the Confederates surrendered with only five units left on the board.
Third place went to Bill Place of Pittsburgh, PA, followed by Allen Kaplan of Howell, NJ in 4th, Ted Drozd of Chicago, IL in 5th and Robin Chiang of Fremont, CA in 6th. Rounding out the top 10 finishers were Barry Shoults, Doug Pratto, Greg Smith, and Doug Porterfield, in that order.
PBeM Championship II totaled 17 Confederate victories to 10 for the Union. 21 of the 27 contests had a Confederate bid, ranging from 0.5 to 5.0. The Confederates won 12 of the 21 games where they bid. Six games had no bid, with the South taking five. The average bid was 2.2 overall, or 2.8 if only the games where there was a bid were taken into account. Ted Drozd and Allen Kaplan shared Best Union Player honors with 2-1 marks, while the GM and Bill Place shared Best Confederate Player at 3-0 each. Dennis Nicholson was our Rookie of the Year in 15th Place.
I want to thank Ric Manns for maintaining our tournament website and Assistant Gamemasters Ted Drozd and Ed Menzel for their help. Fortunately, we had few if any rules disputes or adjudications.
Here is the final report for the tournament, with sides and bids:
Round 1 - All Games Completed:
- 5 Ted Drozd (U) defeated 27 Brad Jones (C, 1.0)
- 8 Bill Place (C, 1.5) defeated 25 Bob Jamelli (U)
- 16 Dennis Nicholson (C, no bid) defeated 17 Bob Menzel (U)
- 18 Lance Roberts (C, 3.0) defeated 15 Alan Heath (U)
- 19 Doug Porterfield (U) defeated 14 Jeff Lange (C, 3.0)
- 20 Greg Smith (C, no bid) defeated 13 Bruno Sinigaglio (U)
- 21 Jean-Louis Dirion (U) defeated 12 Jeff Miller (C, 2.0)
- 22 Robin Chiang (C, no bid) defeated 11 John Dietrich (U)
- 23 Doug Pratto (C, 4.0) defeated 10 Mark Gutfreund (U)
- 24 Mark Guz (C, no bid) defeated 9 Joel Ferich (U)
- 26 Bill Thomson (U) defeated 7 Tom Grode (C, 2.0)
- 28 Charlie Drozd (U) defeated 6 Jim Tracy (C, 3.0)
Round 2 - All Games Completed:
- 1 Barry Shoults (U) defeated 16 Dennis Nicholson (C, no bid)
- 2 Allen Kaplan (U) defeated 18 Lance Roberts (C, 3.0)
- 3 Ed Menzel (C, 4.0) defeated 19 Doug Porterfield (U)
- 4 Vince Meconi (C, no bid) defeated 20 Greg Smith (U)
- 5 Ted Drozd (U) defeated 21 Jean-Louis Dirion (C, 0.5)
- 8 Bill Place (C, 2.0) defeated 24 Mark Guz (U)
- 22 Robin Chiang (C, 3.0) defeated 28 Charlie Drozd (U)
- 23 Doug Pratto (C, 5.0) defeated 26 Bill Thomson (U)
Round 3/Quarterfinals - All Games Completed:
- 2 Allen Kaplan (U) defeated 23 Doug Pratto (C, 4.0)
- 3 Ed Menzel (C, 3.5) defeated 22 Robin Chiang (U)
- 4 Vince Meconi (C, 1.5) defeated 5 Ted Drozd (U)
- 8 Bill Place (C, 2.0) defeated 1 Barry Shoults (U)
Round 4/Semifinals - All Games Completed
- 3 Ed Menzel (C, 3.0) defeated 2 Allen Kaplan (U)
- 4 Vince Meconi (C, 3.5) defeated 8 Bill Place (U)
Round 5/Finals - Game Completed
- 4 Vince Meconi (U) defeated 3 Ed Menzel (C, 5.0)
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Barry Shoults of Attica, MI has won the first Gettysburg '88 BPA PBeM Championship by defeating Mike Pacheco of Oakland, CA for the crown. Barry did it the hard way, starting as seed #23, not receiving a bye in the first round, besting seeds nos. 10, 5, 3, and 2 in the process - and all while playing the Union five straight times without a bid! There was a weird symmetry between the 2005 WBC and the PBeM tournaments. The WBC was won by Jim Tracy, who lost his one previous tournament game (in this PBeM tournament) as the Union, then won five games as the Confederates to claim the WBC crown. The PBeM Championship has now been claimed by Barry, who lost his one previous tournament game (at the WBC) as the Confederates, then won five email games as the Union to claim the PBeM crown.
Overall, the Rebels won 16 of the games and the Union 9. Or, to put it another way, the Confederate record against anybody not named Barry Shoults was 16-4. The higher seeded player won only 11 of the 25 contests. One player bid for the Union while eight bid for the Rebels; in 16 games there was no bid. Curiously, the sides split the 16 no-bid games evenly, but the South won seven of eight in which it gave up a bid. Our champion, Barry Shoults obviously took best Union player honors with his 5-0 log, while Tom Grode copped best Confederate at 3-0. Also winning laurels by finishing 3rd thru 6th respectively were: Ted Drozd, Tom Grode, Vince Meconi and Bill Place.
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