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Enlightenment III



Enlightnment III drew its biggest field yet as 41 players gathered for the Age of Renaissance weekend at the Hampton Inn in Hunt Valley, MD on March 10-12, 2000. 36 of the 41 stuck it out for all four rounds with nine players collecting a pair of wins each as 18 players tasted victory at least once. The competition was tough as five double winners failed to place in the top six. At the other end of the scale three players were done in by Chaos out of 157 starts. Tom Taaffe emerged triumphant with a come-from-behind win in the 4th round to emerge champion of Enlightenment III.

The unique scoring system allowed each player to drop their lowest score which had a major effect on the final standings - allowing Steve Simmons to come from seemingly out of contention to take third with a strong win in the final round. Bill Crenshaw also managed to top seven double winners with consistently high performances - coming in no worse than 8% off the pace in any of the four games - and tying Taaffe in overall score.

Players earned points equal to their percentage of the winner's score in their respective games. The individual winners were then each awarded a bonus point for every other game in that round they bested in percentage of winning margin. Place behind the leader did not figure in the scoring but was used to determine seeding for the next round with all winners paired against each other, all seconds, all thirds, etc. This provided both a handicapping system for balance as well as a random mechanism for seating.

WINNING TOTALS:

# Name 1 2 3 4 Score Total
1. Tom Taaffe 99 100 81 105 304 385
2. Nicholas Anner 100 99 100 76 299 375
3. Steve Simmons 99 58 94 104 297 355
4. Bill Crenshaw 97 92 103 93 293 385
5. Harold Hanning 106 81 104 68 291 359
6. Kurt Miller 105 42 105 78 288 330
7. James Pei 79 101 106 65 286 351
8. Rob Kircher 101 88 95 84 284 368
9. Doug Mercer 104 104 39 76 284 323
10. Eric Eshleman 103 86 45 95 284 329
11. Kevin Sudy 79 48 101 102 282 330
12. Ken Gutermuth 75 102 36 101 278 314
13. Jim Jordan 57 81 93 103 277 334
14. Jim Stanard 93 77 102 81 276 353
15. Carl Damcke 66 106 45 100 272 317
16. Rodd Polsky 102 86 71 73 261 334
17. Phil Mason 98 76 86 27 260 287
18. Kevin Wojtaszczyk 86 82 X 87 255 255
19. Nick Smith 85 87 64 78 250 314
20. Ted Simmons 69 94 77 78 249 318
21. Charlie Hickok X 103 57 87 247 247
22. Peter Staab 74 96 75 55 245 300
23. Kathy Stroh 64 59 87 86 237 296
24. Tom Cannon 79 77 76 63 232 295
25. Mike Hodgkins 56 60 88 81 227 283
26. John Coussis 65 X 78 81 224 224
27. Crawford Lopez 61 79 84 - 224 224
28. Lauren Hickok 55 54 64 97 216 270
29. Scott Drane 79 67 70 45 216 261
30. Jared Scarborough 46 73 86 39 205 244
31. Dennis Mason 69 69 65 - 203 203
32. Pierre Le Boeuf 64 63 72 61 199 260
33. Ted Mullally 70 25 54 71 196 221
34. Peter Stein 72 50 59 63 194 244
35. Don Greenwood 41 105 46 35 192 227
36. Bill Navolis 84 29 39 55 178 207
37. Nick Henning 48 31 36 76 160 191
38. Mark Love 27 77 56 - 160 160
39. Mark Frueh - 89 58 X 147 147
40. Ben Knight - 62 72 - 134 134
41. John Ellmann 31 49 - - 80 80

Herewith are the title bestowals for the other noteworthy events of the weekend. Sorry, no plaques ... these titles are honorary only.

Mr. SPORT: Rodd Polsky for bearing the wrath of the Coalition without complaint. Rodd's sin was that he forged such an enormous lead, the other players banned together to wipe him from the map. It appears they did too good a job. Tom Taaffe emerged from the pack to win the game by a huge margin.

Mr. CONSISTANCY: Dennis Mason for finishing every round within a 4% target range.

Mr. OVERRATED: A tie between Jared Scarborough and Don Greenwood who proved that being the designer/developer doesn't mean you can play. Kurt Miller gets an Honorable Mention here for placing 6th and saving the design team's honor. Of course, being responsible for the artwork, he had an unfair advantage - being the only one who could differentiate between the counter colors.

Mr. COMEBACK: Kevin Sudy for winning his last two games after a mediocre start. The second win was particularly impressive, coming at the winners table over five players who could have won the tournament with a final round win.

Mr. SAGE ADVICE: Ted Simmons, for convincing his dad to stay for the 4th round, and allowing him to surge to a third place finish.

Mr. WORLD TRAVELLER: For the second consecutive year, Nick Smith was our entrant from the furthest distance - having crossed the Atlantic to visit us from England again.


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