TV Wars had 20 participants in 2000 (the real last year of the 20th century), again about equally divided between pre-regs and walk-ins. This led to a very orderly five tables of four players each for the first round. TV Wars is somewhat unusual in that games can end in various ways and take variable amounts of time so I developed an adjudication system to rank second place finishers to advance to the second round based on percentage of net worth compared to the first place finisher. This would also possibly allow a second place finisher who might be eliminated to still advance, but as it turned out this didn't occur.

The first round was timed to be two hours and the winners were Paul Weintraub, Sean Vessey, Ken Good, Robert Navolis, and Peter Markevich. The second place finishers advancing were Ashley Dunn, Laurie Wojtaszczyk, and Mike Destro. Laurie was the closest percentage-wise with 47,500 to 58,000 to Ken while Mike just squeezed in with 25,500 to 92,000 for his tablemate Peter. As noted, there was a wide variation in game dynamics. Two games had few rating wars and led to accumulations of shows and cash while one was very "bloody" with the winner, Sean having only $20,500 and the defending champion going bankrupt, having used his last $5000 to promote his one show in a ratings war to stave off defeat for a turn.

The next round was to be two and 1/2 hours if necessary but players were told the first two would advance so both games ended when only two players remained. One young lady was hesitant to advance until told she would get a plaque for finishing second overall. The advancing players were Robert, Mike, Ashley, and Paul. After a 15 minute break they were all ready for the finals.

The final would play to the finish, of course, and could end in several ways. The first way could be last man standing; a second could be if no programs remained to be bought (I've never seen that happen); and a third way could be if a player landed on a Critic's Choice or Viewer's View space and no tiles remain. As it turned out, the game ended by the last option. The players moved along and played the game in record time, finishing in about an hour and a quarter. The players played that shows revealed in a ratings war stayed face up, an incorrect rule cited by one of the players and not objected to by the others apparently since no one called over the GM. Otherwise, the game amounted to who had the most assets and was won by perennial bridesmaid Mike Destro, who had come in second last year. He had $107,500. Ashley finished second with $78,500 over Rober's $70,500 and it turned out that she needed to roll a seven or higher to determine the rating of a two-hour special to do so (she rolled boxcars). Mike's victory was attributed to landing on lots of sponsor and movie spaces, according to the other players, or to great skill, accoriding to Mike.

Although the tournament went smoothly, I think I will try heats next year. This will allow all games to go to a conclusion. I also will not assure that a second place finsh guarantees advancement as a strong third in a highly contested game might be ranked higher. While I don' think it happened in this tournament, I would not like to see players playing artificially for second which I did see in other tournaments. Also, with the limited number of games available since the game was discontinued, playing a heat format should help assure copies of the game are available.