2003's tournament used the same format as in previous years: Three preliminary heats with every player who wins at least one game qualifying for the SE semifinals on Saturday morning. There were a total of 64 different players who played 24 games in the preliminaries. The one who had to use a space ship to get there was Ahmet Ilpars all the way from Istanbul, Turkey.

This year I asked the players to record which players collected and bartered IOU's. In the 23 games where this was completed, I found winning players collected on average 4.04 IOU's, runner-ups 3.09, 3rd Place players 3.13, 4th place players 2.96. So collecting IOU's is helpful, but not necessarily a guaranteed ticket to victory:

- In all 23 games, a player with most (or tied for the most) finished first 13 times, second four times, third seven times and fourth six times.
- In games where one player collected more than anyone else, the top collector won nine of 16 games. The top collector finished last in two of these games (including the Final)
- On the other hand, the winner collected the fewest IOU's (including ties) five times and still won. Twice, the winner collected only two IOU's.

In the first heat, 34 players played a total of nine games. A couple were nail biters:
- In Game 3, Thomas Browne needed to a roll a 2 on any of the four dice to navigate the Cloud to win, but failed. Doug Galullo delivered two Melf Pelts and would finish $4 dollars short after delivering both-but he drew a demand for Pelts after his first sale to get the win. Laurel Stokes was also one sale away from winning.
- In Game 5, David Long finished a few pips short-too bad he wasted 20 pips when he rolled 5556 and was stuck against an unfriendly navigation circle. Alan Ernstein snuck in for the win. The next player, yours truly, would have won on the next turn.

The second heat featured 36 players and another nine games.:
- In Game 1, Joe Abrams finishes $17 short. Roy Pettis, on the next turn, visited Joe's port to win the game, which would have given Joe the necessary money.
- In Game 4, Bill Navolis need to roll 14 or more to win, unfortunately he still had his Scout ship, which only rolls three dice. The long shot did not come in and Chuck Foster won his second game.
- In Game 8, Ed Wrobel wins the "Wrong Way" Corrigan award for having a defective Jump Start sending him everywhere but where he wanted to go. Andrew Cummins raced away for the win.

The third heat featured, 24 in six games, unfortunately, there was no commentary by the players for any of the these games. (If you want to get mentioned in the final report, write some comments.)

There were 22 different winners in the Heats, but only 18 showed up bright and early on Saturday for the semi-finals. That meant five four-player games with two alternates being advanced. Games were to $3000, instead of the $2000 used in the heats. I was in another close loss as I finished one pip short! (Aaaarrrrrrrrgggghhh!) and Ed Wrobel sneaked in for the victory. The other semi-final winners were Luke Koleszar, Chuck Foster, Steve Dickson, and Tom DeMarco. Unfortunately, Tom had to leave to GM a final in his own event, leaving only four players in the championship game.

Just as well perhaps, since Luke Koleszar just ran away with the game with $3210. The real battle was for second. Steve Dickson won that at $2400. Ed Wrobel finished third at $2353 and Chuck Foster took 4th with $2256.

As always I hoped everyone followed Rule #1 of this tournament-Have Fun!