The addition of another heat on Tuesday night proved popular as 27 people showed, requiring six games! Overall, 15 Preliminary games were played over the three heats - raising participation overall by more than third over the previous year. A number of entrants played multiple times. Peter Debenittis, a new WBC attendee, won his first heat but kept coming back for more, although he was unable to repeat his performance in later heats. Mike Hazel showed that persistence pays off, finally getting a win in his third heat after prior finishes of third and fourth.

The biggest win in the Preliminaries went to Jay Fox, who led by 26 points at game end (with a three-way tie for second place). As for the closest wins, there were three games that tied for first place. Tie-breaking rules were used, but the runner-ups still easily secured a spot in the semis.

Most of the qualifiers showed up for the semi-finals with only four no-shows, and enough alternates available to fill all five boards. I apologize for the lack of game details at this stage, but yours truly, the GM was in the closest semi-final game, edging out one of his assistants, Greg Thatcher, by a mere three points. (Greg has sworn revenge for next year.) Defending champion Mark Guttag also made it to the semis, but had to settle for second behind Eric Brosius.

The five semi winners were Eric, myself, Mario Lanza, Davyd Field, and Josh Campbell. All advanced to the Final where Mario bid 12 on the first turn and took the "dial a region to score" card. (I really hate that card.) Rob guessed wrong and ended up six points in the hole as everyone else scored their home region. Josh bid low in the first round, then high, so Mario, being to his left, took advantage to play his 1-13 combo for turns 2 and 3. After the first scoring round, Mario had 48 points while his nearest contender was at 32.

The next few turns were a series of mostly successful attempts to close the gap while keeping Mario's score down. First, Josh joined Mario as a leader, then Rob. Davyd finally pulled in striking range with a couple of scores of his home region, but Eric got left behind and couldn't catch up. (Don't worry, he got revenge in the POF semis when he showed this GM how that game is really played.)

Near the end of the game, Josh lost track of the Caballeros in the Castillo and scored it. That revealed Rob as having the most with Josh and Mario close behind. When the final "paradrop" occured, all the choices went Rob's way and exaggerated the margin of victory. Davyd took Valencia, but three other players (including Rob) attacked Davyd's home province in Granada, denying him any points there. Mario defended his 8/4/0 Aragon, and nobody went to Rob's region in Old Castile which was defended by a fairly meager number of pieces. When the dust settled Rob had an 18 point victory over Josh in second place.

Thanks to all the players for participating and making my first GM experience a rewarding one. Next year I hope to have things tightened up a bit (some confusions on tie-breakers, conflicting rules in different versions of the game, and amount of table talk that will be tolerated) to make next year's tournament even better.