Princes of Florence featured a new GM and new time slots for 2004. Original GM Harold Siegelman passed away unexpectedly a few months before the 2003 tournament. Stan Hilinski stepped in to fill the gap for a year before Eric Brosius took over for 2004. This year's tournament was shortened from four heats to three, and the finals were moved from Saturday to Friday night to reduce conflicts with other Euro games. Five players showed up for the demo session on Tuesday night and most of them went on to enjoy participating in the tournament. A total of 77 players competed, playing 25 games in three heats.

The 2004 tournament featured 5-player games where possible. With five players, competition for desirable items is more intense, bidding more spirited and the range of strategies wider. Despite the pressure, most games were competitive. Twenty-one out of 25 games in the heats were decided by six PPs or fewer. This includes one first-heat game for which the winning score was recorded on the score sheet as 98(!) I spoke to one of the players in that game after the heat and learned that Work Value points were converted to Prestige Points at 1 for 1 rather than at 1 for 2 as specified in the rules (all of the players benefited from this rules alteration.)

The second heat featured a notable victory by Alan Kaiser, who finished with 53 PPs, just ahead of Doug Kaufman, Doug Smith and Eugene Lin, in second, third and fourth place with 52 PPs each. This was a tough table; Doug Smith played in the POF finals in 2001 and 2002, Doug Kaufman made the finals in 2002 and 2004, and it appears Eugene can play a little bit as well! In another second-heat game, Michelle Hymowitz and Alexander Safford both finished ahead of the other players with 56 PPs and 400 florins. Ties are broken in favor of the player with the lowest numbered Profession card on the table at the end of the game. Michelle won because she had #3 on the table while Alexander's lowest Profession card was #8. Michelle went on to earn a second win in the third heat by a margin of 10 PPs (getting a Jester for 200 florins in the midgame didn't hurt.)

Twenty out of 25 qualifiers were present for the semi-finals, but only one alternate showed up (many thanks to Tom DeMarco!) Rather than draft non-qualifiers to complete a field of 25, I chose to run five 4-player semi-final games. As announced previously, players bid for seating position in the semifinals and finals. Because perceptions of inequity among the various seating positions are not as strong in the 4-player version, bids were low. In two games, all bids were zero. In the other three games, the favored position was third (with two bids of 100 and one of 200.) Second position received three bids of 100 and first position received one bid of 100. The semifinal games were all close, with no margin of victory larger than four PPs. Dan Hoffman ("Legend Dan Hoffman" as it said on his badge) finished second to Doug Kaufman by 100 florins in one game to take sixth place in the tournament after both finished their game with 62 PPs. Eric Brosius, the 2003 winner, finished third in his game, which Holliday Jones won by accumulating 64 PPs using a Builder strategy.

The final game was a 5-player game. Eugene Lin considered himself fortunate to obtain the coveted second seat for a bid of only 300 florins. Eugene produced six works and won Best Work three times to win by three PPs over David Platnick, who suffered his first loss of 2004 after two wins in the heats and one in the semi-finals. David also produced six works and won Best Work three times, but he had to play a low-Work Value work in Round 1 to win one Best Work, and as a result he earned 6 PPs fewer than Eugene from producing works. The other players put on fewer works, and though each of them fulfilled the requirements for a Prestige Card, it wasn't enough to close the gap.

I recorded the final game. It is currently available on line at http://home.earthlink.net/~jcw222.