A Cabbie Win .... kinda
44 wannabe commanders appeared on Friday night in Salon A.
The GM and his Cabbie crew were a little concerned when they
showed up 30 minutes before the start and found almost every
table filled with Vanishing Planet games. Fortunately
most of the games 'vanished' in time (although some groups had
to find other space) and they left behind no 'cooperative' residue.
The players were broken up into 11 groups with the winner
of each group advancing. The groups were numbered by the order
in which they finished. This didn't get the players anything,
but it's interesting to note who were the fast players and who
wasn't.
Group 1 included Bruce Reiff and two-time bridesmaid Aaron
Fugei. Both Bruce and Aaron were 2-0 going into their game together.
It looked through most of the game as if Aaron was going to survive
and advance, but Bruce saved himself from a breakthrough with
good timing of a tactics card and turned the tide to come out
on top of a 5-4 game.
Group 2 Had Arthur Field go 3-0 to advance (who says Arthur
is a slow player). Recent Board candidate Laurie Wojtaszczyk
went 3-0 in Group 3 to make the single elimination portion of
the event.
Over in Group 4, Richard Irving needed a tiebreaker to advance
over Barrington Beavis who was also 2-1. Bert Schoose smashed
through Group 5 with a perfect record of 3-0, all via breakthroughs.
CABS member, and all around good guy, Sean McCulloch went 2-1
in Group 6 but took the tiebreaker over 0-for the convention
Ken Gutermuth. Stuart K. Tucker (of the memorial pucked award)
crushed Group 7 with three breakthroughs.
In Group 8 Jason Levine went 3-0 to win the group over new
CABS member Carol Caler who was 2-0 until he met Jason. 1st time
attendee Mike 'Zinfandel Whine' Zehnal, a CABS member representing
the slow playing faction of CABS shockingly went 3-0 with three
breakthroughs in Group 9. In Group 10 Charles Stucker went 2-1
and won in a tiebreaker over Rhonda Reiff who had been in heavy
training for this year's WBC with her husband. Rhonda managed
to win her two games via breakthrough, but lost the head-to-head
tiebreaker. And your illustrious GM was in Group 11 along with
Andrew Fedin and Matt Calkins who all went 2-1. This was the
only table to have to use the flags captured tiebreaker sending
Andrew to the final. Matt Calkins was also in last years last
group, coincidence?
Since no past champions made the single elim round, five random
byes were handed out to 3-0 winners: Laurie W, Bert S, Arthur
F, Stuart T, and Jason L. The first round games had Sean McCulloch
taking out Charles Stucker, Richard Irving pounding Mike Zehnal,
and Andrew Fedin whooping the snot out of Bruce Reiff sending
the vaunted Cabbies down to their last chance.
In Round 2 Sean beat up on candidate Laurie to keep the Cabbies
alive while Richard Irving stopped the previously unstoppable
Burt Schoose. Arthur Field beat Stuart Tucker in a titanic battle
to advance while Jason Levine beat giant Killer Andrew Fedin.
This set up semi-finals of Sean vs Richard and Jason vs Arthur.
Jason and Arthur seem to attract each other at the WBC like a
fly to.. well you get the idea. Sean quickly pounded Richard
into submission while Arthur inevitably beat Jason.
This set up the final of Sean vs Arthur who agreed to play
after Liar's Dice. The WBC and CABS members everywhere
were cheering for Sean. Sean for himself wanted to prove that
his nickname was indeed "The Hammer". Alas, it was
not to be as Sean "Puffy" McCulloch was routed by Arthur.
However, Arthur is a CABS member! So the CABS win also. This
was to be Arthur's only wood of the convention so EVERYONE was
disappointed with Puffy who missed a golden opportunity to shut
out Arthur. Instead, he collected his 11th wood while leaving
five new laurelists in his wake. Oh well, there's always next
year. See you in Lancaster!
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