axis & allies [Updated October 2002]

A&A   6 prizes Experienced Swiss Continuous 
   10  Round 2 15  Round 3 20  
  Round 4 9  Round 5 14  Round 6 19  
  

  Valley

Phil Rennert, MD

2002 Champion

2nd: Jeff King, ME

3rd: Don Tatum, MD

4th: Bryan Fitzpatrick, VA

5th: Philip Shea, VA

6th: Patrick Mirk, FL

Event History
1999    Kevin Keller     43
2000    Tim Rothenhoefer     43
2001    Patrick Mirk     41
2002    Phil Rennert     50


AREA Ratings


GM: John Sharp

One Top-Six GM Nomination

Past Winners

Kevin Keller - MD
2000

Tim Rothenhoefer - MD
2000

Patrick Mirk - FL
2001
 

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.

 GM      John Sharp  [3rd Year]   4701 Hamlets Grove Dr, Sarasota, FL 34235  
    aefajohn@gte.net   NA

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