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Enlightenment VII



With Spring in the air at Hunt Valley, MD, 31 Age of Renaissance players gathered at the Marriott for Enlightenment VII. With 14 of the top 30 ranked players in attendance, including the previous 3 champions, the weekend promised to be entertaining.

The first round started Friday evening with two 6-player games and three 5-player games. Tom Browne, Jason Levine, Jeff Mullett, top ranked Bill Crenshaw, and 2002 champion John Coussis emerged victorious. Tom's 6-player game provided the best capital bidding of the tournament as two players bid 5 and the others all bid 4. That left Terry Coleman holding the bag with Hamburg for 4. He came all the way from British Columbia for this?

The second round Saturday morning contained six 5-player games. Unlike the previous night, where no one was able to purchased all the advances, five managed the feat in Round 2. Greg Stripes, Eric Eshelmann, Ted Mullally, Carl Damcke, and Ted Simmons joined the winners' list while Jason Levine rose from the winner's game to become the target for round 3 as he edged out Jeff Mullett by $6 or .3% to become the only double winner..

The third round once again had six 5-player games. This round provided both the closest win ($1) and the largest - 33.4% better than the runner-up. Ted Mullally and Jeff Mullet joined Jason with their second win of the weekend while Mark Neale, Harald Henning, Ken Gutermuth, and Kevin Sudy were admitted to the winner's table for the first time that weekend. Jason Levine learned the meaning of "target" as he was hammered into a 5th place finish.

Entering the final round Sunday morning, three players still had a chance to take top laurels for the weekend. Jeff Mullett entered the round as the leader with two wins and a close second. Two-time victors Jason Levine and Ted Mullally were still in the hunt. Ted needed a 95+% to overcome Jeff, who was at his table. Jason needed a third win at the 5th place table which two-time champ Bill Crenshaw in a rare appearance in the low rent district and Tom Browne - both winners of earlier rounds.

All 30 players from the previous day returned for the final round, the best turnout yet for a Sunday morning. This proved to be the closest round of the event as three winners eked out wins by less than 1%, five by less than 2.5% and all were within 8%. At the 1st place table, Ken Gutermuth edged out Kevin Sudy and Harald Henning for his second win as Ted Mullally and Jeff Mullett vied for 4th. Tom Browne joined the double winner club on the 5th place table, thereby ending all hopes of our early leader Jason Levine while Ted Simmons also notched his second win. Rodd Polsky, Sean McCulloch and Dennis Nicholson also joined the winner's circle as the weekend ended.

As the final scores were tallied, Jeff Mullett's close second proved to be the difference as he beat out Tom Browne by 4.6 points to win top laurels - thereby vaulting him momentarily into the lead in the Caesar race. Bruvce Reiff's sidekick may need a new nickname ... "loser boy" doesn't seem so fitting any more. Carl Damcke finished third, Bill Crenshaw fourth, Ken Gutermuth fifth, and Ted Mullally 6th.

Congratulations to all for a great tournament and especially Nick Smith for once again traveling the farthest to participate ... although we have have to check our atlas on that one since Terry Coleman's trip from British Columbia wasn't exactly short.

There were 17 different winners during the weekend, 55% of the field. Ken Gutermuth scored the most overall points for all four games with Mark Smith gathering the most game points without receiving wood. Nick Anner placed the highest, 11th, among those not winning a game during the weekend.

In the 5-player games, Genoa and Venice players led the way with five wins each while Barcelona and Paris recorded four each and London three. In the 6-player games, Genoa surprised the field, recording the only two wins.The average capital bids for the weekend fell from 1.8 last year to 1.3 with the following distribution:

 Bid

0

1

2

3

4

5

#

53

12

 14

19

13

6

The average bid by country was: Barcelona 3.1, Genoa .5 (definitely the bargain real estate recording the most wins with seven), Hamburg 2.0, London 0.9, Paris 1.5, and Venice 1.8.

We saw more slow play than usual on Saturday as six of the 12 games ran past the five-hour time limit and incurred penalties. In contrast, the Friday and Sunday rounds saw all games finish within the time limit. We also had our fastest game ever recorded as one table finished their game in 2hours 45 minutes.

Only one chaos happened the entire weekend and it occurred Friday night. Seven players managed to buy out all of the advances in their games with only Champion Jeff Mullett managing this feat twice.

Laurel Winners:

                    

    1st: Jeff Mullet, OH             2nd: Tom Browne, PA           3rd: Carl Damcke, IL

                      

      4th: Bill Crenshaw, VA       5th: Ken Gutermuth, TX          6th: Ted Mullally, CT        

 Rank

Name

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Total

Score

 1.
Jeff Mullet

102

99.7

104

68.1

373.8

305.7

2.
Tom Browne

105

91.1

53.1

105

354.2

301.1

3.
Carl Damcke

95.8

99

80.7

99.9

375.4

294.7

4.
Bill Crenshaw

104

92.8

50.1

97.6

344.5

294.4

5.
Ken Gutermuth

83.9 

87.6

103

102

376.5

292.6

6.
Ted Mullally

80.8

105

105

68.9

359.7

290.8

7.
Harald Henning

-

90.3

102

96.8

289.1

289.1

8.
Eric Eshlemann

92.9

99.0

60.6

96.0

348.5

287.9

9.
John Coussis

101

78.3

96.3

89.5

365.1

286.8

10.
Ted Simmons

83

102

72.4

101

358.4

286

11.
Nick Anner

94.4

90.5

53.3

96.9

335.1

281.8

12.
Mark Smith

84.6

95.9

95.9

89.4

365.8

281.2

13.
Sean McCulloch

90.9

67.1

81.9

106

345.9

278.8

14.
Greg Stripes

70.6

104

81.1

92.3

348

277.4

15.
Steve Simmons

77.4

90.7

86.3

99.3

353.7

276.3

16.
Dennis Nicholson

80.5

91

63

104

338.5

275.5

17.
Chris Byrd

-

90.9

88.6

91.1

270.6

270.6

18.
Jason Levine

103

101

65.3

66.3

335.6

270.3

19.
Kevin Sudy

-

74.1

96

99.6

269.7

269.7

20.
Kathy Stroh

95.3

60.7

88.2

82.5

326.7

266

21.
Joe Lux

91.4

95.9

71.0

75.7

334

263

22.
Rodd Polsky

63.7

64.1

93.0

103

323.8

260.1

23.
Nick Smith

77

89.5

62.6

91.9

321

258.4

24.
Peter Staab

80.9

77.5

65.8

98.2

322.4

256.6

25.
Mark Neale

7.1

77.3

97

76.4

257.8

250.7

26.
Paul Haynes

77

83.3

36.4

84.7

281.4

245

27.
Lyman Moquin

69.2

88.1

55.9

82.2

295.4

239.5

28.
Terry Coleman

66

45.3

77.1

95.8

284.2

238.9

29.
Pierre LeBeouf

50.1

54.3

91.1

70.5

266

215.9

30.
AJ Sudy

-

61.1

55.1

84.9

201.1

201.1

31.
Kurt Miller

73

-

-

-

73

73