The tournament this year had 130 different players and 254 total . I am happy to report that as in past years, many beginners who just learned how to play the game at WBC this year were able to win at least one of the four heats. In the end, eight participants won twice and were automatically qualified to enter the semi-finals. With all the single-game winners, I thought I had enough to fill the 25 slots for the semi-final, but several people bowed out to play in other events. As it turned out, we didn't have enough alternates appear at the semi-final round to fill five tables of 5, so I ended up having five tables of 4 and the winner of each of those tables went to the final round.

The five finalists pulling out their games in the semi-final round were Lee Sensabaugh, Jennifer Drozd, GCOM's own Legend Dan Hoffman, Thomas McCorry, and Doug Williamson. Jennifer was a relatively new player who had learned her lessons well. It was a great game to watch -- Dan and Tom were 'duking it out' until the end. The end game was very long and drawn out, and the farms were one of the major factors in determined the winner. I know that everyone involved had a fun time playing the final round.

I will be unable to GM this event next year so it will be listed as Open on the Orphan Page.

I handed out a survey to all the participants inquiring about the format with the following results:

Most people liked playing with all expansions together. Individually, most people liked the builder/trader expansion.

Would you rather have a basic tournament where beginners can participate or a more advanced event where some or all of the expansions are used? Most people thought that the basic tournament made more sense because that way you could teach someone how to play and they could still enter the tournament on the same day.

Any suggestions for changing the format of the tournament? For example having different versions during each heat? Most people said that this would be more fun, but they felt that it worked well as a beginner's tourament so that even the younger children could participate in the event.

 Carol Jaeger outdid 11 other little Carcassonne players in the Juniors event. The other finalists were:

2nd: David Pack of CO

3rd: Kaleis Jagger of VA