Collecting by another name ...
This year's three-heat Auction tournament drew a record
39 entrants, including all the previous champions except the
defending champ, George Sauer III, who was unable to make this
year's trek to Hunt Valley. 26 players entered the first heat
on Tuesday night, with Jeff Cornett, John Zahorsky, 1993 and
1995 champion Bruce Reiff, David Platnick, Larry Kratz and 1996
champion Bruce Monnin winning their respective games.
The second heat on Wednesday drew 20 players, eight new ones
and 12 who returned for another attempt at the semifinals. Bruce
Monnin became the only multi-heat winner of the tournament (thus
assuring the fates would not be on his side in the semifinals)
by winning his game by the rare feat of accumulating the $7500
Jewelry set. Todd Surgoine, Henry
Richardson III, Kevin Wojtaszczyk and Doug Galullo also posted
victories at their boards.
The third and final heat Saturday afternoon drew 16 participants,
including five more first-timers. Perennial contender Tom DeMarco
was the victor at his board, joining the other winners of Debbie
Garver, 1998 champion Cliff Ackman and 1994 and 1997 champion
Ken Gutermuth.
Following the lead of the previous two heats, most of the
games of the third heat were played quickly and all ended in
time for the semifinals to proceed as scheduled an hour later.
These semifinals seemed to be loaded with four previous champions
still alive, but only one of these was destined to return to
the finals.
The first semifinal ended almost immediately as Henry Richardson
III completed his $6000 Rare Miscellany set by purchasing the
first item up for bid, then accumulated enough cash by selling
his extra items the next time he was able to win an auction.
The second semifinal ended almost as fast as Debbie Garver
quickly went out.
Mary Kratz won the third semifinal in a game which went through
the entire deck by edging out Cliff Ackman $7460 to $7310. Mary's
total came almost totally from cash as she hit it big with the
Rich Collector. Cliff could take consolation in the fact that
he still advanced to the finals as the highest second-place finisher
when Henry Richardson III had to drop out due to peer pressure
from his team to play in the semifinals of his Team event.
Kevin Wojtaszczyk won the fourth semifinal in another long
game. He was initially dealt a rainbow (no two cards of the same
set) but slowly acquired the $1000 set of Books and the $4000
set of furniture along with enough cash to reach $7700 and the
victory.
The final was a conservatively played game as no player seemed
willing to part with much of their cash, thus resulting in items
being acquired for lower values than are normally seen. Kevin
Wojtaszczyk again emerged as the victor, this time starting with
two Furniture and two Prints items. Kevin used cash he received
from the early appearance of the Rare Miscellany collector to
complete a natural set of the $3600 Prints, a set of the $4000
Furniture, and a bonus set of the $1000 Books to ensure the victory.
Mary Kratz managed to just edge out the others for 2nd place,
with Debbie Garver finishing 3rd and Cliff Ackman fourth.
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