First, I'd like to thank Gordon Elgart for becoming co-GM. He was helpful in setting the categories and in helping to catch scoring errors and judging that had multiplied as the attendance of this event improved. There is only a five-minute time period for doing this while the next round is being played.

Second, kudos to the Advanced Third Reich players for being prepared when 43 Facts in Five players started to show up to kick them out of the Worthington room they had camped out in all week. They were ready with magnetized board set ups and wheeled carts to move the last few games next door.

Otherwise, this year's Facts in Five tournament was run in a similar manner to the last two:

- First, yours truly, spends most of the summer wracking his brain trying to come up with challenging, topical and (hopefully) fun categories. (Though this year I had some help.)
- The players, when they first see them, whine about it. How can anyone know these things?!?!?!?!?!? This isn't FAIR! (To be honest, after the event, I get far more favorable comments on the categories than complaints.)
- After actually playing the board, the players then whine about why wasn't X, Y and Z on the answer sheet: "Why aren't 'muggles' a character in the Harry Potter books?", "You mean Crayola never did an aqua color crayon?", "Why isn't farmer's cheese on the answer sheets?" Etc.

(Short rationales for the rulings: "Muggles" is a generic term for a non-magical human in the Potter books--not the name of a specific character, which is what I was looking for. Yes, Crayola never put out an aqua-they did put out blue-green and green-blue. For some reason, my source for the cheese category, Cheese.com didn't have this listed on their Alphabetical List of Cheeses on
their website, so I ruled it was an invalid answer.)

After four rounds of play, the top six players were to play a final round, and add it to their previous scores, to determine the championship:
Doug Hoylman, 784 (2002 Champ)
Aaron Silverman, 766 (2001 Champ)
Rich Meyer, 704
Jeff Bakalchuck, 602
Roy Pettis, 594
Francis Spencer, 540
Since Jeff decided not to stay for the last round, the seventh best score, Randy Cox, 524 took the last finals position.

Since there was quite a bit of spread among the top players, only the top spot was really at risk and Aaron picked up 182 to Doug's 134 to overtake the defending champ for the title. The other finalists held their relative positions.

If you want to test yourself, here are the final categories:
- Current Members of the US Supreme Court
- Nobel Prize Winners (any category)
- Greek Letters
- Musical Instruments
- Grand Slam Tennis Champs (Male Singles)
That is the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

The letters are: B, G, K, R, T

You have 5 minutes. Go!