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With
GMT East being the same weekend as Enlightenment,
attendance slipped to 19 players for
the first three rounds and 17 for
the final round on Sunday. The
players were, however, truly enlightened
for the weekend as they were
blessed with singing from the neighboring
Baptist conference. Not quite the ambiance
we expected, but we soldiered on nonetheless.
Round
1 got underway Friday evening with 19 players
participating for an unfortunate split
of three 5-player and one 4-player game.
In
the first game finished, three-time
Enlightenment champion Bill Crenshaw was matched with previous
champion John Coussis as well as
Kevin Sudy, Pierre LeBouef, and Rodd Polsky. Rodd's Venice
managed a 36 point victory by leading
in Advances over John, followed by
Kevin, Bill and Pierre.
In
the second 5-player game, defending
and two-time champion and reigning Caesar Jeff Mullet would begin
his journey to try and become the first back-to-back winner with
Venice. Jeff was matched
against perennial contender Ken Gutermuth, Pete Staab, former Caesar
Arthur Field, and Thomas Browne. Jeff managed the most advances
and least misery to a 44 point win
over Thomas followed by Ken, Pete and
Arthur in that order.
In
the third 5-player game, former champion
Chris Byrd was matched with perennial contender Carl Damcke,
Greg Stripes, Kathy Stroh, and Mark
Neale. Carl's Paris rode
a large ending payout and most advances
to defeat Greg's Barcelona, followed by Chris, Mark, and Kathy
respectively.
The
4 player game saw Ted Mullally, Mark
Smith, Eric Eshleman and Terry Coleman vie for the fourth win of
the evening. Despite
leading in misery, Mark Smith's Venice
had enough of an advance lead to
hold off Eric's Barcelona, Ted, and Terry.
Saturday
morning dawned with all 19 players
returning to thefray, leaving us at the odd number still requiring
a 4 player game. On the winner's table, misery became the main topic of conversation
as defending champion Jeff Mullett chaosed out of the game and made
his road to to a title defense very tough. Carl Damcke, with
a misery of 300, pulled off his second win in as many games and became
the target for the rest of the weekend, winning for a second time
as Paris. John Coussis kept up his string of brides maid finishes
followed by Mark Smith, Rodd Polsky,
and the fallen Jeff.
In
the second game to finish, Chris
Byrd became the first person over 2000 in advances to win over
Tom Browne's Barcelona. Eric
Eshleman took third followed by Kevin
Sudy and Eric Eshleman.
The
third game saw the closest contest
of the weekend, Pete Staab took an 11-point victory over Tedd Mullally
and 23 points over Ken Gutermuth. Bill
Crenshaw was 4th and Mark Neale finished
5th.
In the 4-player game, Arthur Field became the first person to buy
all the advances and took Barcelona to a win over Pierre LeBeouf,
Kathy Stroh, and Terry Coleman.
Heading
into Saturday evening, Carl led the
way on the winner's table as the only double winner. He was joined by Arthur Field,
Ted Mullally, Carl Damcke, Pete Staab, and Chris Byrd. Ted built
a large advance lead and held off strong end game payouts by Arthur
to earn his first win of the weekend and keep his hopes alive. Carl
finished with an 83% third to place him in good position to guarantee
a plaque, followed by Pete Staab and Chris Byrd. This game was
the only one in the tournament to exceed
the 5-hour time limit and thereby incur
a time VP penalty.
In
the next game, Ken Gutermuth got
to play his favorite Barcelona and used most advances and lowest
misery to take his first win of the weekend and keep his hopes
alive. John
Coussis once again finished second
followed by Pierre LeBeouf, Kathy Stroh, and Thomas Browne.
Rodd
Polsky joined Carl Damcke with two2
wins as he edged by previous WBC champ Mark Smith. Eric Eshlemen
finished third, Kevin Sudy 4th, and three-time champ Bill Crenshaw
once again finished well behind the
leader in what was rapidly becoming a rare off-year for the AOR
guru.
In
the highest scoring game of the weekend,
Jeff Mullet rebounded from his chaos performance as Genoa to buyout
all advances and score 3319 points en route to a win over Greg
Stripes who also bought out as Paris but could manage only second
with 2735 points. Mark
Neale finished third and Terry Coleman
fourth.
Bill
Crenshaw and Kevin Sudy decided to
head home on Sunday morning, leaving the field at 17 for the final
round with one 5-player game and
our first two six-player games of the weekend. Eight of
the 17 remaining players had over 190 points for their two high games
to remain in contention for the title and the six plaques to be awarded. Rodd
Polsky, Carl Damcke, and Jeff Mullett
each had two wins, Ted Mullally, Mark
Smith, and Ken Gutermuth had a win and a 95% or better score, and
Arthur Field and Chris Byrd had a win and an 85+% score.
On
the winner's table, Ken Gutermuth
bid 4 to play his favorite Barcelona in the only game where everyone
bid at least 1. Rodd
Polsky chose Venice, Mark Smith Genoa, Ted Mullally Paris, and Jeff
Mullett was left with London. Early fueding between London and
Paris and Genoa and Paris let Rodd build an early lead with Ken staying
close behind. A late push by Tedd left three players in contention
as the game entered the last turn. Ken bid 51 to ensure going
last while Rodd and Ted managed payouts to edge ahead of Ken in advances
but three Spice cards remained in play. As Ken entered his expansion,
he held just one spice with industry and would need a strong expansion
to pull off the victory. He managed another of his patented
last turn heroics with the dice by winning three straight competitions
for Spice - allowing him to collect over $600 in Spice payouts to
earn the surprising victory. Ted finished second, Rodd third,
Mark fourth and Jeff 5th.
In
the second game, Carl Damcke's 3
bid was only good for second pick and Venice in our first 6 player
game. John Coussis took
Barcelona, Arthur Field Genoa, Pierre LeBeouf Hamburg, Greg Stripes
London, and Eric Eshlemen Paris. Three players ended within
10 points of each other in advances and 50 points of misery. Arthur
managed to keep his hopes alive by garnering his second victory over
John Coussis with yet another 2nd place finish. Eric was 3rd,
Carl 4th, Pierre 5th, and Greg 6th,
leaving the final standings up in the
air as no one would manage three wins.
In the final game, Chris Byrd's Venice held on over Thomas Browne,
Kathy Stroh, Terry Coleman, Pete Staab, and Mark Neale to earn his
second victory and remain in contention.
As
the final scores were tabulated,
the three Sunday winners finished 1-2-3 as Ken Gutermuth finally
managed to win his elusive Enlightenment title. Ken also had the highest four-game score (an honorary
benefit only as Enlightenment scoring takes only the top three scores).
Chris Byrd finished second, Arthur Field third, Carl Damcke fourth,
Ted Mullaly fifth, and Rodd Polsky sixth. Ted was the only plaque
winner without two wins. Defending champion Jeff Mullett was
the only two-game winner not to place
in the top six while John Coussis managed
7th with four(!) 2nd place finishes.
2007 Enlightenment Laurelists
|
|
|
1st:
Ken Gutermuth, TX
|
2nd:
Chris Byrd, CT
|
3rd:
Arthur Field, SC
|
|
|
|
4th:
Carl
Damcke, IL
|
5th:
Ted
Mullally, NJ
|
6th:
Rodd
Polsky, PA
|
A total
of 15 Age of Renaissance games were played during the weekend with
ten 5-player, three 4-player and two 6-player games.
Barcelona,
Genoa, and Venice led the way with
four wins each while the other three went to Paris. Barcelona
was the strongest nation of the weekend with seven 2nd place finishes
to go with the four wins. We had nine different winners with
Champion Ken Gutermuth, Chris Byrd (2nd), Arthur Field (3rd), Carl
Damcke (4th), Rodd Polsky (6th) and Jeff Mullet (10th) each notching
a pair of victories. Ted
Mullally (5th), Mark Smith, and Pete
Staab shared the other three wins.
Bidding
for capitals continued its downward trend as everyone is becoming
more comfortable with playing all of the country's. Out
of the total of 74 bids made, 39 of them were for 0. Only one
5 bid and and two 4 bids were made all weekend. The average
bid overall was 1.0 with only Barcelona
(2.6) averaging over1 and Venice (1.8)
averaging 1.
Only
two games had someone buy all of the advances and they were both
4-player games (Arthur Field, Jeff Mullett, and Greg Stripes) and
one of those individuals (Greg) did not win their game.
Final Standings were as follows:
Name
|
1st
Round
|
2nd
Round
|
3rd
Round
|
4th
Round
|
Total
Score
|
Overall
Score
|
Ken
Gutermuth |
85
|
98
|
108
|
108
|
399
|
314
|
Chris
Byrd |
88
|
109
|
67
|
107
|
371
|
304
|
Arthur
Field |
66
|
107
|
86
|
106
|
365
|
299
|
Carl
Damcke |
109
|
108
|
76
|
74
|
367
|
293
|
Ted
Mullally |
87
|
99
|
100
|
91
|
377
|
290
|
Rodd
Polsky |
108
|
38
|
106
|
75
|
327
|
289
|
John
Coussis |
98
|
84
|
87
|
99
|
368
|
384
|
Eric
Eshleman |
94
|
72
|
87
|
99
|
347
|
275
|
Mark
Smith |
106
|
57
|
95
|
69
|
327
|
270
|
Jeff
Mullet |
107
|
-8
|
109
|
53
|
261
|
269
|
Thomas
Browne |
97
|
78
|
58
|
91
|
324
|
266
|
Pete
Staab |
69
|
106
|
72
|
81
|
328
|
259
|
Pierre
LeBoeuf |
53
|
96
|
74
|
70
|
293
|
240
|
Terry
Coleman |
85
|
72
|
50
|
83
|
290
|
240
|
Kathy
Stroh |
50
|
82
|
67
|
90
|
289
|
239
|
Kevin
Sudy |
93
|
67
|
77
|
xx
|
237
|
237
|
Greg
Stripes |
88
|
62
|
82
|
45
|
277
|
232
|
Bill
Crenshaw |
86
|
78
|
67
|
xx
|
231
|
231
|
Mark
Neale |
67
|
71
|
54
|
74
|
266
|
212
|
|