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.