Norwegian Vidar Aas in the Stone Age.	Hudson Wyatt and Marc Berenbach
Ben Gardner and Henry Dove	Jeff Mullet and Christina Harley

Stealth Tools Triumphant
There were 72 games played during the three preliminary heats yielding 66 different winners. The multiple winners were Eric Engelmann, who won all 3 and Henry Dove, Marcy Morelli, Loc Nguyen and Joe Yaure who both double dipped. Charles Faella told me that he knew the game wasn't going to go well for him when on the first turn, he set up to claim the card on the 1-resource spot and failed to get it when he rolled three 1's with his three men on the brick spot to get no resources.

Of those 66 winners, 52 (78%) opted to advance to the quarterfinal round, creating 13 4-player games with the top three runners-up also advancing to the semifinal round. The quarterfinal winners were Cliff Ackman, Rodney Bacigalupo, Alex Bove, Henry Dove, Ed Ericson, Paul Klayder, Larry Loiacono, Matthew Morgal, Cary Morris, Scott Saccenti, Lexi Shea, Kyle Smith and Christopher Yaure. They were joined by Nick Henning, Ashley Kilroy and Ryan Houman as the three closest runners-up. Eric Engelmann's streak came to an end while just barely missing advancement with the fourth-best runner-up score.

Cliff Ackman, Rodney Bacigalupo, Ed Ericson and Cary Morris won their respective semifinals to reach the last round. Seating was randomly determined with Ed in the first seat followed by Rodney, Cary and Cliff. On his first move, Rodney took the card which gives the player an extra bonus card. A couple of his opponents after the game said that they thought that was a mistake because they feel that you can get a useless card with that much of the deck remaining and he could have gotten locked out of timber. Personally, I liked the move because I feel that the early extra card gives you some idea of where you can get bonus points at the end of the game if you want to go in that direction.

You could tell early that these four weren't going to go the starvation strategy route as on Turn 2 Rodney took the farm followed by the hut space on a later move in the same turn as nobody else wanted the additional mouth to feed. Cary did the same thing on the following turn. Turn 2 also saw the first two "lottery" cards with really good rolls of 6, 5, 4, 3 on Cliff's card and 6, 5, 4, 4 on Ed's. That meant that Cary who had fourth choice on Cliff's card and third choice on Ed's card still managed to get a stone and a gold from those cards.

The first points of the game were scored on Turn 4 as players finally started to build huts. Ed managed to claim one of the huts that allows the player to spend up to seven resources on two consecutive turns, scoring nine points by spending three wood on the fifth turn while holding a gold, brick and five wood for future turns. He then spent one wood for another three points for the second of those huts while holding a brick and five wood for the future on the sixth turn. Ed had claimed at least the 3 hut builder bonus card early and he also had a 2 hut builder card by this point so he wanted to claim as many huts as possible. So holding back resources from those huts gave him a start toward building more huts in future turns and also kept others from claiming those huts for big points and gave him huts for his bonus points at the end of the game.

On Turn 7, Cliff completed two huts for 27 points to finally get on the board. Rodney starved his people for the first time as he switched to the starvation strategy out of necessity. The possibility of the game ending arrived on Turn 11 as at least one of the hut stacks was down to one building and the card deck was also getting low. Going into the turn, Ed had 82 points, Rodney 30, Cary 81 and Cliff 54. The others were concerned about Cliff because they feared he had a full set of civilization cards for an additional 64 points. Meanwhile, nobody seemed to be worried about Rodney with his ten people and nine tools because he hadn't gotten any shamen for bonus points for the people during the game. Rodney had gotten some tool makers during the game, but nobody was sure how many. During the last turn, the huts were split so that everybody got one hut to build in the turn. Rodney managed to get the card that gave him an additional permanent tool along with a bonus tool maker. He also claimed the tool in the village and another card that gave him the lottery chance along with one of the civilizations. With the lottery card, Rodney managed to get another tool giving him the maximum allowable number of tools (12). Rodney still starved his people on the last turn, which most players try not to do. At the end of play, the scores were: Ed 95, Rodney 44, Cary 112 and Cliff 68.

In end game scoring Ed got a point for civilization cards, 21 for three shamen and seven people, 48 points for six hut builders and eight buildings and two points for remaining resources for a score of 167. Rodney had a set of five civilization cards for 25 points, two farmers and a food production for two points, seven tool makers and 12 tools for 84 points, two shamen which he got from the bonus cards on the first turn times 10 people for 20 points and eight resources for a total of 183 points. Cary had two civilization cards for four points, two farmers with nine food production for 18 points, a tool maker and four tools for four points, two shamen and seven people for 14 points, two hut builders and eight buildings for 16 points and eight remaining resources for a total of 176. Cliff had six unique civilization cards and a duplicate for 37 points, three farmers with four food production for 12 points and six resources for a final score of 123. So thanks to the 20 points from the bonus card that he picked up on the first turn, having more tool makers than the others thought and getting a tool with his lottery card on the last turn, Rodney managed to surprise everyone and pull out the game despite having only four buildings.

Of the 71 games played in the heats with adequate records, second was the best position to play in the first turn as 25 players won games from that position. The third and fourth players won 16 games each while the first player won 14 games. There were 18 games played once the elimination rounds started and six games each were won by the second and third players while three each were won by the first and fourth players. The tournament champion was the second player in the Final.

Joe Yaure and Samantha Berk	Dagny Lytle and Eric Englemann
Scott Nerney and Dave Gagne	GM Peter Staab oversees his finalists.