six rounds of swiss action
This year's tournament featured 50 entrants playing in 75
games over six 4.5-hour rounds of stiff competition. The frequent
comment was: "Boy, the competition is much tougher this
year!"
Phil
Rennert defeated six straight opponents to amass 73 points and
take the Wood for Best Player. During his undefeated run for
the plaque, Phil played the Allies four times, the Axis two.
In addition to overall honors, Phil holds the Eisenhower Award
for best Allied play with four Allied wins.
Second Place went to Jeff King, with 58 points and five wins.
Jeff split his games equally between Allies and Axis, and only
lost once as the Allies to third place Don Tatum. Jeff tied for
the Hitler/Tojo Award with Philip Shea. Each had three wins as
the Axis.
Third Place Don Tatum also won five, grabbing 53 points to
secure his award.
Dark horse Brian Fitzpatrick missed the first two rounds,
but still managed four wins to snatch Fourth Place with 50 points.
Brian's four wins were split 50/50 Allies and Axis, with bids
averaging 15.5.
Philip Shea took Fifth Place honors with 49 points earned
in four victories. Phil tied for the Hitler/Tojo Award with Jeff
King. Each had three wins as the Axis.
Last year's champion, Patrick Mirk, placed sixth this year,
with 46 points to his credit. Facing a tough schedule due to
last year's win, Patrick was still able to win four matches out
of six, keeping him in the money for a second year.
Bidding
seems to still be the weak area, enabling the Allies to win 41
times (55%) to the Axis 34 (45%). This was better than last year's
59%-41% Allied/Axis ratio. With 75 games played during the six
rounds of the tournament, the Allied edge is still apparent.
The average bid was 13.44 (down from last year's 14.75 average).
The average bid of players during Axis wins was 13.65. Phil Rennert's
average bid was 16.83. The highest bid made during the tournament
was 21, and the lowest 0. There were two Axis victories in games
with zero (0) bid!
Luck (both good and bad) dominated the comments noted on the
Player Records. There were a few instances of players rolling
for technology and getting results. The most common technology
gain mentioned on the Player Records was Heavy Bombers for Japan!
What a switch!
We had a number of younger players this year, ranging from
9 up. The GM even had a chance to play three games, although
always as an eliminator (no chance to win the tournament). No
one was turned away who answered the roll call at the start times
for each round.
Next year, an effort will be made to remove the stigma of
adjudication. As GM, I detest adjudications. They tend to stress
me out and make players very unhappy. I am entertaining suggestions
on methods to allow players to complete their games to a victory
in definite terms. Here are some suggestions already put forth:
1. Any game not ending in an Axis victory (i.e., two Allied capitols
taken or 84 combined Axis IPC at the end of a complete turn)
by the time limit will be an Allied win. This has merit ONLY
IF players bid correctly for the Axis. This will require MUCH
higher bids for the Allies, with correspondingly higher immediate
rewards for the Axis player.
2. Players will complete a scoring sheet at the time limit, totaling
the values of all units, controlled territories, plus IPC left
over from the previous buys. Armed with these, the GM will adjudicate
quickly, based on overall value and considering territorial anomalies
(i.e., one capitol taken, etc.) I don't favor this much
it still requires adjudication by the GM.
3. A level of relative IPC scores will determine the winner after
the regulation 4.5 hours of play. For example, if the Allies
have 25% more IPC than the Axis, the Allies win. IPC would be
controlled territories plus IPC left over from the previous buys.
We will have to determine a reasonable level of IPC surplus for
this to work.
I am willing to consider any suggested methods of determining
the winner in a game not settled between the players. The final
method should be easily understood by players and the GMs, easy
to administer (no lengthy calculations or formulas) and quick.
Of course, we can always resort to the traditional "friendly
roll of a die" to finish games not decided in time. That
will be the fallback position if a better method cannot be determined
by next year.
If you have suggestions, please e-mail them to me at aefajohn@gte.net.
Thanks to all 49 non-GM entries. It was a great tournament,
and I appreciate your attendance and patience with my GMing efforts.
Special thanks to my Assistants, Keith Levy and Kevin Keller,
for their unfailing dedication, loyalty and fairness, even after
receiving unfavorable adjudications from me during the tournament.
Thank you again, Keith and Kevin. You made the experience (two
days, 30 playing/scoring hours) enjoyable and rewarding.
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