Tom Vickery, Peter Staab, Greg Thatcher and Jim Castonguay do their politician imitations which means they're lying when their lips move.	Bronwen Heap-Senhouse, Roberto Sanchez and Jon Anderson campaign against one another in a preliminary game won by Roberto.

The tournament began with four preliminary games (split evenly between 4- and 5-player games) on Monday at Noon, followed by a Final that evening. Unfortunately, even with a restricted schedule, the early start on Monday conflicted with other events. Two past champions, including reigning two-time champion, Chris Trimmer, were unable to play.  The prelim results were:

Jim Castonguay 352, Greg Thatcher 314 (21.42%), Peter Staab 289, Tom Vickery 218

Steve Simmons 419, Ted Simmons 372 (20.54%), Jason Wagner-341, Thomas Pethy III 317
,
Roberto Sanchez 306, Jeff Cierniak 297 (21.76%), Bronwen Heap-Senhouse 294, Jon Anderson 284, Timothy Hing 184

Luke Winters 353. Kevin Walsh 327 (20.48%), Bruce Hodgins 323, Mark Neale 299, Tom DeMarco 295

The close finish at Table 3 was very impressive.  Only 12 points separated first, second and third.  Fourth was only another ten points behind.

One of the winners, Luke Winters, was unable to play in the Final.  Thus, the two runner-ups with the highest percentage of their table's total score, joined the three remaining winners in the next round.

The Final began with four regions of sizes:  20, 24, 26 and 54.  Jim was the only effective player in the first region, winning the maximum 20 Mandate, while no other player could get more than 9.  Jim followed his first region victory up by forming winning coalitions in both the second (with Roberto) and third (with Steve) regions.  These three straight wins for Jim set him up as the clear leader and gave birth to a Stop Jim movement by the other players.  However, Jim had already converted many votes in the fourth region (at size = 54, the largest in the game) and Jim could not be stopped from scoring the maximum mandate of 54.

The last three regions were sizes 50, 15 and 28.  The Stop Jim movement was effective in these regions, limiting Jim's mandate there to 30, 4 and 0 respectively.  However, Jim used his early victories to choose National Issues which aided his Party Basis and then carefully switched his Party Issues to match the National Issues chosen by winners in the later regions so that his Party Basis continued to increase even through his Mandate in the last three regions dropped.  Jim ended with a Party Basis of 74 (plus the first place bonus of 10) as opposed the second with only 60 plus a bonus of 6.  Jim's early victories also guaranteed him a big win in Medien, 80 versus only 42 for second.  These leads were sufficient to give him a narrow victory over Jeff, despite the Stop Jim movement by the other four players.

The final standings were Jim Castonguay 344, Jeff Cierniak 340, Steve Simmons 305, Greg Thatcher 297, Roberto Sanchez 212.

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR 2010 WBC DIE MACHER TOURNEY

Assuming it returns, Die Macher will again be a Type B event with a TWO HOUR DEMO on Monday.  The DEMO will start two hours prior to the start of the preliminary round.  PLEASE TELL ANYONE INTERESTED TO COME TO THIS DEMO!

In order to minimize conflicts with other tournaments, I have asked Don to schedule Die Macher with a preliminary round on Monday evening and the Final starting Tuesday at 0900.  I appreciate Don's willingness to consider this request and do not expect an answer, one way or the other until the 2010 schedule is being set up.  IF YOU FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT THIS REQUESTED CHANGE IN TIME SLOT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

CONTINUING RULE CHANGE

2009 used the rule change to rearrange the first four regions so that the smallest region is FIRST, the second smallest is SECOND and so forth.  This is intended to minimize the effects of luck in matching or not matching the People's Opinions in the first region.  This seemed to work well and most comments I got favored this rule change.  I plan to keep this rule change in effect in 2010.  IF YOU FEEL STRONGLY ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

The Simmons clan shares a table in the opening round which meant one of the ex-champs would not make the Final. Dad advanced.	Finalists Roberto Sanchez, Jeff Cerniak, Steve Simmons, Greg Thatcher and Jim Castonguay vie in Round 2.