Randy Buehler 10	Sceadeau D'Tela 4	Andrew Emerick 9	Ed Fear 0

86 teams entered the 22nd “run for the slivers” at the 2012 WBC and the big news before post time was that someone had replaced perennial favorite Nest of Spies at the top of the odds makers' list. The Happy Handicapper's seeming love affair with the three-time champs had been tarnished by the absence of heavy hitters Dave Docktor and Stefan Mecay. However, truth be told, the new girl on the block that had stolen the heart of our prognosticator was a collection of ringers sharing an unfortunate given name and now plying their trade under the nom de plume Your Name's Not Bruce. So impressed was the Happy Handicapper with the collective resume of these ringers that no others were given the chance of the proverbial snowball in you-know-where. Such was his disdain for mere mortals, that a veritable chasm existed in the odds falloff after the first two picks. So, how did his two darlings fare? Surely, they finished in a dead heat for the title? But Nooooooooooooooooooo! Neither was found in the Top Ten. The best they could manage was a 12th by the Nest—and as for the new apple of his eye, the Bumbling Brace of Bruces, they were nowhere to be found in the Top 25. Indeed, one had to extend one's gaze into the low-rent district of 49th place to find the final residence of the top ranked team despite the presence of the owner of WBC's longest winning streak...seven years down the drain under Reiff management. Sometimes life is just so damn good! But I digress...

Needless to say, it was an off year for the Happy Handicapper with only two of his top picks making the Top Ten. He improved in the also-ran range with 12 of his top 25 picks (48%) making the Top 25 cut—bringing his five-year average back to 54.4%. Those who followed his advice fared poorly in our Annual Bracket Busting Contest.

Apparently, this business of predicting winners isn't all that easy after all, so perhaps we should cut the Happy Handicapper some slack. Or maybe he just led most of you down the primrose path to suckerville. Despite an increase in entries, Mark Love's 2009 winning score of six correct guesses in our initial contest proved to once again be setting the bar too high as this year's high score was a single entry correctly selecting five teams. Even more astounding was that only two entries managed to identify four Top Ten teams! Of course, when nearly everyone begins with two incorrect guesses for Nest and the Bruces, that doesn't leave much room for error. That is especially true when long shots prevail as evidenced by the seventh place Local Yokels not being slected by a single entry. Congratulations to Andy Latto for winning a free 2012 BPA membership by correctly guessing Ski Patrol, Wabbits Wevenge, Magic Men, Wood Be Contenders and Not Age of Steam in that order. The latter was the difference with very few entries choosing the Quebec team including Eric Freeman and Kyle Smith whose entries both correctly included Band of Fools but could muster only four correct answers.

Obviously, our prognosticator needs to go back to the drawing board before making picks for 2013. His reliance on WBC resumes leaves gaping holes for skilled gamers relatively new to the WBC lists to break his odds and score big. 2012 was a big year for the long shots—with Magic Men—led by the reigning Caesar no less - overcoming 73-1 odds (?!) to take the whole shebang. Gotta like those odds. But they got even better. The EPGS team Four to Beam Up finished second despite 111-1 odds and the Finnsh delegation Ski Patrol which was likewise shown little respect at 200-1 odds proved otherwise with a fourth place finish. Even the Greenspielers, ranked 84th of 86 teams, defied their 1,000-1 odds to place 22nd. Only Band of Fools and Wood Bee Contenders performed to form with fifth and sixth place finishes respectively to salvage at least some face for the chagrined Handicapper. Band of Fools was also the only team to avoid the Weak Link syndrome, with points from all four team members, The importance of such scoring depth is best shown by Wood Bee Contenders whose first three members all scored to record 16 points. That left the fourth member who owned the current longest WBC winning streak with four straight titles in his team game and was destined to win a WBC-best four events this year. How could they lose? I don't know, Jason, how did you lose?

Shutouts decreased again to 25—comprising 29% of all entries. The highest ranked squad to post nothing but goose eggs and thereby earn the 2012 title for Most Overrated was the 6th-ranked group of Cabbies, Roll One Die. Fame is indeed fleeting, but not nearly as embarassing as that of the head Cabbie's highest ranked team's fall from grace!

The Lady Luck team won the Misery Loves Company title with 777 entrants for an average of 194.25 entrants per event. Apparently the ladies like crowds. On the opposite end of the social scale, claiming the Big Fish in the Small Pond title was KGB Comrades who dropped a 7 digit from that tally to manage just 77 total entrants in their block game focus to average just 19.25 players per event.

All in all, our 344 players selected 132 different events. The most frequently named choices for the Team Tournament was Carcassonne with nine and Here I Stand and Pirate's Cove with eight. Other top choices were Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities and Ra at seven and Empire Builder, Galaxy, Ivanhoe and Settlers of Catan at six. In all, 26 Team participants (7.55%) won their selected events. That is up from 2011 (6.5%) but down from the high water mark of 9% in 2009. The percentage remains consistently in the 6-9% range.

2012 Teams, in order of finish Click on the graphic to see a larger version. Unofficial team logos courtesy of Dave Dockter and Kaarin Engelmann. Some logos provided by the teams. NOTE: Points=Points (number of points earned).Entrants (total number of entrants in all of team's events) Red numbers indicate that a bonus point is included for earning team points in a game they have not won previously
1	2	3	4	5
Name: Magic Men Rank: 33 Odds: 72-1 Points: 23.360 Randy Buehler/SPG/10, Sceadeau D'Tela/EGZ/4, Andrew Emerick/NVG/9, Ed Fear/DOM/0	Name: EPGS Four to Beam Up Rank: 42 Odds: 111-1 Points: 20.165 Ken Horan/LHV/9, Steve Cameron/GXY/8, Mike Kaltman/CYL/3, Jason Wagner/GSR/0	Name: Cynical Stoics Rank: 26 Odds: 65-1 Points: 19.167 Derek Landel/WOG/2, Eric Wrobel/MOV/8, Mike Ussery/ HRC/0, Matt Bacho/KPR/9	Name: Ski Patrol Rank: 64 Odds: 200-1 Points: 18.149 Juhana Keskinen/P1S/0, Antero Kuusi/EOS/2, Mikko Raimi/MAN/9, Riku Riekkinen/POG/7	Name: Band of Fools Rank: 5 Odds: 34-1 Points: 18.093 Richard Beyma/WAT/2, Gary Dickson/TRC/7, Ray Freeman/TIM/2, Tom Gregorio/BWD/7
6	7	8	9	10
Name: Wood Bee Contenders Rank: 3 Odds: 30-1 Points: 16.163 Jeff Cornett/BCY/8, Jason Levine/FDE/0, Bill Crenshaw/MFD/7, Doug Galullo/AOR/1	Name: Local Yokels Rank: 75 Odds: 370-1 Points: 15.451 Chad Weaver/DOM/10, Dusty Usner/CAR/5, Erik Schlosser/GXT/0, Ken Schlosser/7WS/0	Name: Not Age of Steam! Rank: 61 Odds: 170-1 Points: 12.295 JF Gagne/DUN/0, Sylvain LaRose/DIP/2, Eric Caron/M44/10, Dominic Blais/RA!/0	Name: Tea Brigade Rank: 32 Odds: 71-1 Points: 12.222 Chris Bauch/MMS/3, Terry Coleman/WOG/0, Dewayne Curry/ACS/0, Allen Kaplan/CCA/9	Name: EPGS Wabbits Wevenge Rank: 15 Odds: 48-1 Points: 12.189 Eric Freeman/AMR/3, Barb Flaxington/ELG/0, Chris Moffa/GOA/0, Craig Moffit/E&T/9
11	12	13	14	15
Name: We Ain't Dead Yet! Rank: 9 Odds: 44-1 Points: 11.167 Frank Sinigaglio/CMS/3, Larry Lingle/QGB/0, Bruno Sinigaglio/BAR/8, Don Greenwood/BKN/0	Name: Nest of Spies Rank: 2 Odds: 23-1 Points: 10.152 James Pei/FTP/7, Chris Byrd/TWS/0, Kevin Wjtaszczyk/WOR/1, Bob Heinzmann/CBC/2  :	Name: Gaming Speed Bumps Rank: 39 Odds: 97-1 Points: 10.109 Lee Rodrigues/KRM/0, Craig Yope/EOS/0, Robert Frisby/ANZ/8, Doug Porterfield/AOA/2	Name: Jormungandr Rank: 13 Odds: 47-1 Points: 9.282 David Meyaard/ELC/4, Jonathan Gemmerll/CAR/0, Nicholas Henning/LRC/2, Karl Henning/GXT/3	Name: MVGA Rank: 20 Odds: 58-1 Points: 9.272 Eric Brosius/Fi5/4, Jeff Meyer/CYL/0, Rich Meyer/EPB/1, Chris Senhouse/PGD/4
16	17	18	19	20
Name: Greenville Mafia: War Rank: 7 Odds: 39-1 Points: 9.220 Bill Beckman/SSB/9, John Emery/UPF/0, Josh Githens/CMS/0, Bryan Collars/HIS/0	Name: Rhesus Pieces Rank: 16 Odds: 49-1 Points: 9.163 Pete Reese/WLL/7, George Young/TWS/0, Bill Edwards/CBC/2, Andy Maly/UPF/0	Name: The Old Guard Rank: 19 Odds: 51-1 Points: 9.093 Forrest Pafenberg/B81/2, Joe Beard/WAT/7, Kevin Keller/SCT/0, Randy Heller/BWD/0	Name: KGB Comrades Rank: 56 Odds: 150-1 Points: 9.077 Ron Draker/CRX/6, Malcolm Smith/HOS/1, Greg Ottoman/CCN/2, Fred Bauer/M44/0	Name: Tell Me The Odds Rank: 35 Odds: 73-1 Points: 8.229 Nick Page/LHV/4, Geoff Pounder/IOV/0, Robb Effinger/DSP/4, Jason Ley/AGE/0
21	22	23	24	25
Name: Yoshi's Tea Time Rank: 22 Odds: 62-1 Points: 8.177 Paul Risner/B17/8, Jim Jordan/BRI/0, Keith Hunsinger/ATS/0, Mark Yoshikawa/MMS/0	Name: Greenspielers Rank: 84 Odds: 1000-1 Points: 7.438 James Denam/DUN/2, Matthew Craig/ING/5, Robert Murray/T&T/0, Marissa Bianco/CAR/0	Name: Cardboard Heroes Rank: 50 Odds: 125-1 Points: 7.399 Cliff Ackman/STA/4, Steve Squibb/ACS/0, Bill Navolis/RRY/3, Kathy Stroh/UNP/0	Name: Desperation Grand Rank: 82 Odds: 700-1 Points: 7.375 Laura Brown/GXY/0, Laura DeWalt/DOM/0, Nick Ferris/SJN/4, Lynda Shea/ALH/3	Name: Polish Lancers Rank: 12 Odds: 46-1 Points: 7.248 John Poniske/WWR/0, Rick Young/RA!/0, Paul Gaberson/WNW/0, David Metzger/AHD/7