six rounds of swiss action
This
year's tournament was attended by players from as far away as
Florida, Wisconsin, and Canada.
Defending champ Philip Shea defeated six out of six opponents
to amass 614 points and take the Wood for Best Player. During
his undefeated run, Philip played the Allies four times, also
earning the Eisenhower award for best Allied play. Assistant
GM Greg Berry came closest to defeating Philip in their head-to-head
match, but in the end finished third, losing to Philip Shea,
Joseph Powell, and Phil Rennert.
Joe Powell improved to second place from last year's third
place finish, having earned 515 points; his only loss was to
Shea. Greg Berry had two games that ended because of time and
were decided by the rules of arbitration. Both rolls were against
Greg. One was only a one-in-six chance, but the other was a two-out-of-three
chance for victory.
Kevin Keller won the Hitler/Tojo award for the most wins as
an Axis player while finishing fourth overall.
Although the bids were the same as last year, averaging 17.23,
the Axis won only 46.5% of the games. This is only a slight rise
from last year. The average bid was still low being 17.23. Of
the games with a bid of 20 or higher, the split was exactly 50/50.
The most popular bid was a surprising 12. However, the Axis won
more than half of these low 12 bid games. Who can argue with
success? The second most popular bid of 21 ended in mostly Allied
wins.
The
Rules of Arbitration designed by Philip Shea and Brian Fitzpatrick
were very successful; there were no disputes over games that
had to be adjudicated because of time. The new point system,
giving players100 points for each win and one point for each
win by an opponent, also seemed to work out well.
I hope to design something equally as good for the new edition
of A& A which we will be using next year. If anyone has any
suggestions on how to adapt these rules to the new Victory Conditions,
please e-mail me at the address below.
With the new 2004 Edition, I am attempting to get prize support
from Avalon Hill/WOC. If you have not played the new edition,
you are in for a treat; it is wonderful. I also hope to make
Axis and Allies a pre-con event. The competition takes
up two full days, and a large number of people let me know they
chose not to play because of conflicts with other games. If you
would also like to see A&A as a pre-con event, please respond
to the BPA surveys on this topic to voice your opinion. Otherwise,
it won't happen.
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