 |
|
Ol' Guns, Dice & Butter himself
returns to the front vs Tom Gregorio. |
 |
 |
|
Nick Benedict vs the BKN Guru
- Andrew Cummins. |
Steve Koleszar finished fifth for
the second straight year. |
First to Five ...
This year's tournament again stemmed the attendance attrition
experiened in recent years, and continued the Pre-con tradition
of challenging all to a battle of endurance of three 7-hour games.
The first Swiss rounds started on Saturday at 3pm to allow more
players to make the start of this pre-con. More of these games
are going up to and past the 7 hour time limit, and this shows
the level of game play is continuing to increase. A few games
on Saturday went into the wee hours. Sunday was the marathon
day with a 9am start and a 5pm start to finish of the Swiss portion.
Limited West front CP strategy was often used, then the CP would
turn on the Russians. Stefan Mecay, Marvin Birnbaum, Tom Drueding,
and Peter Gurneau were undefeated during Swiss play with Tom
Drueding bowing out of the playoff round. This meant five (2-1)
players would advance into the playoff round. The famous PoG
rolloff took place on Monday morning with seven players rolling
for five spots. Carl Adamac, Michael Dauer, Alex Gregorio, Steve
Kolezsar, and Johnny Hasay advanced. Les Haskell and David Dockter
were denied their chance by lady luck. Everyone had a great time.
The playoffs saw Mecay beat Koleszar, Birnbaum over Adamac,
Gurneau best Hasay, and Dauer top Gregorio in the quarterfinals.
Round 5 had Mecay beat Dauer, and Birnbaum triumph over Gurneau
in the semifinals. The Final was thus set between defending champion
Stefan with four titles to his credit vs Marvin - still looking
fir his first WBC POG title. Stefan won the bid with 2
for the AP.
The CP attacked in the West, and Stefan responded with the
Russians attacking the Austro-Hungarians. Then Marvin tried a
new gambit, by SR'ing the German 8th Army from East Prussia to
the Serbian combat zone to help the AH. The Serbs fell back slowly
into the mountains in the Balkans, followed by the combined German
and AH army stack. By Turn 3, the CP was able to remove the Serbs
from the map, and permanently removed 1 Serb army. The CP also
attacked in the west and removed the BEF from the game as well.
This gave time to the Russians to prepare for their attack. Italy
came in early on Turn 3, and caused the CP some trouble. The
AP beat the CP to Limited War on Turn 3. The Russian attack forced
the Germans to bring down another army to save Budapest, and
the CP spent many ops trying to entrench, finally getting it
done at the end of Turn 5. This time allowed the AP to play many
events and reinforcements, and the AP got to Total War first.
The Russians shifted their attack north to the German fort line
on Turn 6, and by the end of Turn 7, Stefan was able to win an
automatic victory, by getting the CP down to 0 VP. Had the CP
been able to entrench earlier in Budapest, the early attack on
the Serbs might have been more successful as an overall strategy,
but it is always good to see new strategies applied in PoG!
Congratulations Stefan Mecay for winning your fifth WBC title!
 |
 |
|
Marvin takes down the GM in semifinal
play. |
Stefan wins his 5th title vs Marvin
as GM Gurneau observes. |
|
paths of glory 
Peter Gurneau [2nd Year]
NA 
NA