The 2003 tournament had a large audience of potential CEO's chasing market share. Over 30 people qualified for further action after four heats, but only 16 showed, thus setting up semi-finals of two 5-player and one 6-player games. From that, two players per table would advance to the Sunday final. Brandon Bernard led off the 15th round bloodbath, followed by Shantana Saha, Jonathan Fox, John Chung, Jimmy Fleckenstein, and Richard Fox. The government contract was pulled from the cup six times and had some very high bids in the later game. In the third round, the Oil Price Hike made it's first of three appearances. The other two disasters in the game which were both pulled twice, were Local Competitor and Recession. Jumbo profit showed up four times. Detroit led the hub draw at nine pulls, followed by Houston with eight. Atlanta, Denver, and Phoenix were pulled six times each. DCA, DFW, JFK, and SFO were pulled three times each. LAX and MIA were drawn twice. Chicago only saw the light of day once. The Southeast empire of Jonathan Fox was put together with some very successful forays into Fare wars. The second place finalist, Jimmy Fleckenstein went for the Northeast in a more slow grinding fashion. Richard Fox placed third with his empire based in Denver and San Francisco. Brandon Bernard finished fourth with his holdings of Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta falling victim to the fare wars dice of Jonathan Fox. Shantana Saha finished fifth, va ictim of the Oil Price Hike and Richard Fox. John Chung ended the game prematurely at the mercy of the bank with loan interest taking him down.

I wish to thank everyone that played and had to put up with a rookie GM. I would also like to ask everyone who played in the fourth heat Saturday to check their games. Someone left their copy behind and took mine by mistake. Send me an E-mail describing the contents within, unfortunately there was no name printed inside the box. I didn't have my name inside my copy of the game either, but you'll know it when you open the box and see no game inside. There should be two decks of cards which I used to determine player table order and lists of people's names on GM paperwork. Thanks again and see you next year.