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Enlightenment VI

As the spring thaw began in Hunt Valley , MD, 34 Age of Renaissance players gathered at the Marriott for the sixth annual Enlightenment tournament with four dedicated rounds. With 12 of the top 30 ranked players in attendance, as well as the most recent two champions, the weekend promised to be a challenge.

The first round started Friday evening with three 6-player games and three five-player games. Chris Byrd led the way with a crushing win, leaving top-ranked Ken Gutermuth a distant second at 68%. Other first round winners included Kevin Sudy, Carl Damcke, Jeff Mullett, second-ranked Bill Crenshaw, and defending champion John Coussis who was the only player tin the first round who managed to buy all advances.

Saturday morning brought the second round which contained four 6-player games and two 5-player games. Unlike the previous night's blowouts, the largest margin of victory in this round was 13% by Mark Frueh. Ken Rothstein, Kathy Stroh, Ted and Steve Simmons joined the winners' list while Kevin Sudy rose from the winner's table to become the target for round 3 as he edged John Coussis by 3%.

The third round once again had four 6-player and two 5-player games. This round set the tone of the event with five players earning their second win of the weekend. Led by Bill Crenshaw's win at the 6th place table, Jeff Mullett, Mark Frueh, John Coussis, and Chris Byrd gained their second wins while Greg Stripes joined the winners list. Kevin Sudy finished second in his foiled bid to become a three-time winner.

This year's Enlightenment proved to be the most wide open tournament yet as six players had recorded two wins and many games saw multiple players in the high 90%'s. Sunday saw one 6-player and five 5-player games as several participants elected to get an early start home.

As the Sunday round ended, the GM was glad he had written tie breaker rules as close games prevailed once again. Chris Byrd managed to win his third game of the weekend, but his time penalty in round 3 kept the final results in suspense. Tom Browne, AJ Sudy (our youngest player this year), Sean McCulloch, and Arthur Field managed to pick up their first win of the weekend. Steve Simmons rounded out the 4th round winners with his second win of the weekend.

As the final scores were tallied, Chris Byrd's 3 point bonus for margin of victory in the last round was just enough for him to edge out two-time champion Bill Crenshaw and newcomer Jeff Mullett by a single point. Defending champion John Coussis finished 4th, Sean McCulloch 5th, and Kevin Sudy 6th.

                    

Chris Byrd, New Milford, CT             Bill Crenshaw, Vienna, VA               Jeff Mullett, Circleville, OH

                      

John Coussis, Hoffman Estates, IL       Sean McCulloch, Delaware, OH           Kevin Sudy, Reston, VA        

Congratulations to all for a great tournament and especially Nick Smith for once again traveling the farthest to participate all the way from the UK and AJ Sudy, our young newcomer who fared quite well in his Enlightenment debut.

There were 16 different winners during the weekend, 47% of the field. The most consistent player was Jeff Mullett whose throw away game was a score of 91. Peter Stein placed the highest, 10th, among those who failed to win a game.

In the 5-player games, Paris led the way with six wins. Barcelona and Venice recorded two each as Genoa and London each garnered one. In the 6-player g294 ames, Genoa surprised the field as they recorded five wins followed by two each for Barcelona, London and Venice and one for Hamburg. Paris was shut out in the 6-player games.

The average capital bid for the weekend was 1.8 with the following distribution:

 Bid

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

#

58

12

 8

25

7

16

5

1

The average bid by country was: Barcelona 4.0, Genoa 1.2, Hamburg .3, London 1.2, Paris 1.2, and Venice 2.7.

The weekend saw only two games run past the 5-hour time limit and incur penalties. Only two players out of 132 starts chaosed out of their games, both in the first round. Eight players managed to buy all of the advances with three occurring in one game and two in another.

 Rank

Name

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Total

Score

 1.
Chris Byrd

106

80

94

103

383

303

2.
Bill Crenshaw

102

73

106

94

375

302

3.
Jeff Mullett

103

91

105

94

393

302

4.
John Coussis

101

97

102

84

384

300

5.
Sean McCulloch

97 

96

75

104

372

297

6.
Kevin Sudy

105

101

90

65

361

296

7.
Carl Damcke

104

84

87

93

368

284

8.
Steve Simmons

76

102

46

102

326

280

9.
Tom Browne

95

70

64

106

335

271

10.
Peter Stein

80

92

94

56

322

266

11.
Mark Frueh

49

 106

104

54

313

264

12.
Greg Stripes

69

92

103

41

305

264

13.
Ted Mullally

30

87

81

96

 294

264

14.
Lyman Moquin

59

 95

 85

82

321

262

15.
Ted Simmons

64

103

82

74

323

259

16.
Kathy Stroh

67

104

58

86

 315

 257

17.
AJ Sudy

68

85

64

101

318

254

18.
Marty Hoff

61

96

93

55

305

250

19.
Pierre LeBoeuf

66

72

82

95

315

249

20.
Ken Rothstein

65

105

60

76

306 

 246

21.
Ken Gutermuth

68 

95

80

61

304

243

22.
Arthur Field

39

49

92

100

280

241

23.
Bruce Young

75

82

66

84

307

241

24.
Dennis Nicholson

89

88

60

19

256

237

25.
Kevin Wojtaszczyk

40

86

82

67

275

235

26.
Jason Levine

76

62

70

80

288

226

27.
Nick Anner

0

53

90

82

225

225

28.
Scott Pfeiffer

74

60

54

88

276

222

29.
Nick Smith

92

63

64

57

276

219

30.
Eric Eshlemen

59

47

80

na

186

186

31.
Peter Staab

29

67

71

35

202

173

32.
Paul Haynes

44

58

47

51

200

156

33.
Vincent Coppola

0

50

56

na

106

106

34.
William Lentz

na

40

28

na

68

68