For another year, the GM was very happy with the turnout for the event in the three preliminary heats. However, there were even more players who qualified but did not attend the semi-final round, making the GM wonder what he can do to improve attendance for the semi-final round, although the number of semi-finalists participating in the round has worked out to the
optimal number of players for the past three years. The GM prefers 5-player games if possible, and uses either 4-player games or 6-player games as necessary to fill the field in each heat.

Heat 1 on Wednesday afternoon had 11 games, including one 4-player game. In the most notable, Ellis Simpson got five dye commodities and Gary Noe four cloth commodities in the first round. Both players made it to the 20-point bonus level in the second round, but it didn't help as Ellis finished a distant fifth while Gary did a scarcely better fourth. John Kerr won this game by getting the highest boat, including the "gold" card on the final set of commodities in the third round. This round also saw two players, Robert Cranshaw and Eugene Lin, win with 25-point victory margins, the highest in the tournament. Other winners in the first heat were Alex Gesing, Steve Scott, David Platnik, Aaron Fuegi, Tom Dunning, Jeff Mullet, Rhonda Reiff and Bill Beckman.

Heat 2 occurred on Thursday afternoon and was one of the highest attended heats that I have ever had in this tournament. 13 games were played including three 6-player versions. Tom DeMarco won his game in which the players didn't bid on a lot of cards in each of the rounds, leaving many players repeatedly without full boats. Brendan Tracey was the only player in the first round of his game who could take a load of three commodities and ended up getting the two "5-spice" and the "gold" card on his draw, leading him to an easy victory. In the GM's game, Peter Staab, Chris Gnech and Charles Faella all had four of a commodity in the first round of the game. However, only Chris made the bonus level in the second round (and only the 10-level). In fact, Peter didn't make the top level in his commodity at all, but Alex Gesing did by getting four of this commodity in the third round. However, Charles did manage to get to the bonus level in two commodities and won handily. This heat also saw another 25-point victory, this time by Michael Musko. Other winners in this heat were Rich Zelano, Jason Levine, Harold Henning, Kevin Youells, Fred Minard, Gary Noe, Benjamin Foy and David Fritsh.

Heat 3 was played again on Saturday evening for the second year in a row, but moved up to try to get the semi-final and final finished earlier and avoid conflicts between this heat and other events. There were only nine games played in this heat including one 4-player. In this heat, Bruce Reiff called his shot in the final round by stating that he needed "any metal, the 10-card and any 5 to win." Bruce then proceeded to turn over a 0-metal, the 10 and a 5-spice card and fulfilled his prophecy. This heat also saw the only double winner in the preliminaries as Joe Jaskiewicz won his second. The other games in this heat were won by Kathy Stroh, Laurel Stokes, Larry Loiacono, Peter Staab, Bill Burch, Gary Presser and Ted Mullally.

The semi-final began immediately after the end of the third heat as has been the tournament format since its inception. The 32 different Preliminary winners yielded 25 who chose to advance - allowing five 5-player games with the winners advancing to the final. Gary Presser and Bruce Reiff tied in their game with Gary winning the tiebreaker. Eugene Lin won his test even though he was the only player not to score bonus points in the final round. Ben Foy, Gary Noe and Peter Staab also won to round out the finalists.

The seating order was randomly determined as stated in the tournament format, with Gary Presser getting the honor of being the first player followed by Peter Staab, Gary Noe, Eugene Lin and Benjamin Foy in clockwise order. In the first round, Peter paid 12 florins to get a combination of a "5-cloth" and "4-cloth" card on his deal, and then on the next deal got three more cloth cards (values of 3,5, and 0) for 10 additional florins. At this point, Presser complained that Noe allowed Peter to have these cards and was giving him the game. However, Foy managed to snag four different spice commodity cards in the first round as well and these two large sets of commodities did not prevent Presser from leading after the first round with 55 florins, followed by Noe at 52, Eugene at 37, Peter at 28 and Ben at 26 florins. In the second round, both Peter and Ben managed to make it to the 20-point bonus level of their respective commodities. Late in the turn, Presser decided to pass on a set of cards that would have gotten him second place in the boat size and two moderately useful commodities to try to get the top boat since many of the higher cards had not been seen in the round. However, lady luck was against Gary as he drew two low cards to end up third in boat size and the commodities didn't help him either. After the second round, Presser still held the lead at 75 florins, followed by Noe at 65, Eugene at 60, Peter at 59 and Ben at 55. In the final round, Peter completed his ship early and assured himself of the biggest boat with the commodities that he got. This turned out to be a good move as the last round saw too many cards burned. Some players, especially Presser, didn't complete their ships and the prices escalated as commodity cards became scarce. Eugene made a valiant try to catch Peter in the end, but wound up bidding too much on the last bid. Peter won the event at 90 florins to Eugene's 88. Noe came in third at 86 florins, Ben squeaked into fourth at 82 florins and Presser brought up the rear with 81 florins.

The games are getting closer and closer after six years of competition. This year, there were three ties - compared to only two in all five of the prior events combined. The largest margin of victory in a game this year was 25 florins, as compared to numerous blowouts of over 30 florins in prior years. Finally, the difference between first and last in the final was only nine florins so everyone was competitive in the final to the end as compared to a lot of games where one player falls behind early and can never catch up. I am very impressed with the improved skill levels and play in this game that has occurred over the years - even though all five of this year's other laurelists were new to the chart.

I plan to GM Medici again in 2004 and plan to keep the schedule as it was last year. If you have any suggestions to improve the tournament, please let me know your ideas at the address below. I hope that those of you who played this summer lenjoyed the tournament and that my regular players who couldn't make the event last year can fit it into their schedule in Lancaster. Finally, I've had some complaints about the tiebreaker that I amcurrently using. If you have any suggestions about a good tiebreaker for this tournament, please contact me.