Still the WBC Attendance Champ
...
It
was nearing 3 PM on Saturday at the 2004 WBC and Barbara Flaxington
had a decision to make. She was on the alternate list to advance
in her team event but there was another game she wanted to play.
She checked and found out that there was only one person ahead
of her, and that the GM would accept as many alternates as needed
to fill tables of four if not all winners showed up. Thus, there
was a 50-75% chance Barbara would be able to continue competing
for a prize in her team event. Barbara decided to play, since
she had some recent successes with the same game, securing second
place laurels at the 2003 EuroQuest tournament. As it turned
out, the #1 alternate did not show and there was exactly one
spot left open once all the other seats were filled. Barbaraís
team event was Puerto Rico, and the rest is now WBC history.
In an unlikely scenario, Barbara (who was forced to accept the
worst possible seating position because of her lack of wins in
the preliminary heats) went on to win the WBC's most hotly contested
tournament.
This years tournament saw a drop in attendance from record
levels in 2003, but you couldn't tell it from the first two heats
where 23 and 21 games were played, sending the players and assistant
GM Anne Norton scurrying for tables in all corners of the Maryland
ballroom. The third and final round saw only ten games contested,
perhaps because of competition from other events, perhaps because
of the 9 AM start time, perhaps because not everyone realized
that anyone without a win still had a chance to advance. This
was because of a format change that added a second semi-final
(or quarter-final) round and allowed the GM to take as many as
40 to 48 winners (10 to 12 tables) to the next level. In addition,
those with multiple wins were competing for a bye into the second
semi-final round, where only four players would emerge to contest
the Sunday final.
As it turned out, there were six players with two wins and
five chose to contest the third round in search of one of the
coveted byes. Two of the third round games each had two double
winners competing. In one game, Phil Rennert's two bonus buildings
overcame Aaron Buchanan's superior shipping to give Phil his
third win; in another, David Platnick used a similar approach
to eke out a 44-43 win over Arthur Field to bring David to the
three-win plateau. Phil, David, Aaron and Arthur thus qualified
for byes into the second semi-final round - all but Phil accepted,
with Phil electing to play and risk elimination in the quarter-final
game. The fifth double winner, John Kerr, could only manage a
third place and thus did not improve his position.
The first semi-final or quarter-final round was contested
by 28 players who were paired in seven four-player games, with
any two-game winners having choice of seat over single-game winners.
Defending champ Nick Anner was one of those one-game winners
who actually got in by the skin of his teeth, his two prior results
being a narrow-one point win and a devastating 20-point loss
which actually put him at the bottom of the pack had it become
necessary to apply the margin of victory/defeat tiebreaker at
any point. In the quarters, Nick could only manage third to Andrew
Gerb, who scored an impressive 12-point victory in a relatively
low scoring game with just 37 VPs. Phil Rennert, who finished
third overall in 2003, did a little better than Nick by placing
second to Adam Waalkes, but then Phil too stumbled at the semi-final
round when he only came up third to Jonathan Tivel and John Kerr.
In that game, Jonathan and John each had two large buildings,
but Jonathan's full 10 points on the Guild Hall was the difference
in a five-point win, 49 to 44. The five other quarter-final game
winners were Brendan Tracey, Rodney Bacigalupo, Jonathan Tivel,
John Kerr, and (of course) Barbara Flaxington.
Barbara's path to the final was not an easy one. In her quarter-final
match, she barely edged out Barry Barnes for the win by just
one on the doubloons plus goods tiebreaker. Barry, as a two-game
winner, had choice of seat and took the #3 seat (first corn)
while Barbara was stuck with the less desirable #2 indigo position.
Then, in the semi-final, she was paired with Arthur Field, a
past champion who had received one of the three byes, and Andrew
Gerb, who had just put out defending champ, Nick Anner, in the
prior round. It came down to a heaving shipping battle, with
Barbara scoring just enough to nose out Arthur, 54 to 53, despite
Arthur's two large buildings to Barbara's one. In other games,
David Platnick continued his winning ways, registering his fourth
straight win, this time by nine points over Adam Waalkes. Rounding
out the final four was Aaron Buchanan, who recovered from his
earlier third round loss to Phil with an 11-point win over Brendan
Tracey that was the largest margin of victory in any of the four
semi-final contests.
The final game saw David in the first seat open with an unusual
move (Builder-Construction Hut) and this seemed to throw his
opponents off a bit. The game developed slowly, with only three
shipping rounds in the first 10 turns. Barbara took the early
lead in shipping and was repeatedly taking goods with bonus doubloons
on them to supplement her income from trading tobacco. David
used his Construction Hut to get four quarries (thus lowering
his building costs tremendously) and a Hacienda to make random
plantation draws, but he never seemed to have enough colonists
to build his production to match that of the other players. Also,
on none of his random draws did he obtain the valuable coffee
plantation that carried with it the promise of greater income
at the Trading House. In the end, David was able to maximize
the points on his Guild Hall, but Barbara also acquired and manned
a large building by game end to solidify her position in the
#2 corn seat, which was good for a solid five-point win. Aaron
recovered from some early mistakes and was, as it turned out,
the game's only coffee producer. His late surge put him only
a point out of second, but he lost out to Jonathan on the doubloons
plus goods tiebreaker for third. Had Jonathan been able to man
the Customs House he built late in the game, his lead in shipping
points would have put him in contention for the win. However,
as Governor on the last turn, Aaron selected the mayor, and David
made the decision to end the game by leaving enough unfilled
buildings during the last mayor phase. Barbara and David not
only finished 1-2 but they both earned points for their respective
teams in the team event. Barbara also was able to secure her
final game victory without the aid of a quarry, making it two
years in a row at the WBC that has happened.
Another innovation this year was an experimental bidding system
designed to offer players an option to random draw for seats
in five-player games, where statistics from over 100 games have
shown it favors the two corn seats. Perhaps because the system
took longer to explain than to implement, players elected to
use it in only five (or 10%) of the five-player games. In all
five cases, a player who had accepted a VP handicap for one of
the two corn seats won the game. Stats from 50 5-player games
showed a decided advantage for the #4 seat, consistent with data
from prior years, with the #2 seat faring worse, on average about
six VP per game worse than the #4 seat; this was about double
the differential from prior years. Stats from a more limited
number of 4-player games also show an advantage for the #3 (first
corn) seat, but so far the data from 4-player games shows the
corn bias less severe than in 5-player games. In this year's
tournament, the most frequent violet buildings in winning displays
were the small market (34), harbor (31), and factory (28); the
most popular bonus buildings in winning displays were the Guild
Hall (21) and City Hall (19). Eight games were won with no quarries,
with one or two quarries being the norm. Tobacco proved to be
a slightly more popular production crop than coffee, although
many winners took the time to produce both. A nearly equal number
of games ended by colonists and filled buildings, and only five
saw VP chits run out, with one actually being called on time.
This widening of the gap between the corn and indigo seat scores
in five-player games is causing the GM to consider a change at
upcoming tournaments to all four-player games, even in the preliminary
rounds.
Finally, the GM wishes to acknowledge the invaluable assistance
of Anne Norton, who served as a non-playing GM for the event,
along with eventual winner Barbara Flaxington, whose help enabled
the prompt posting of scores soon after the final preliminary
games were complete. More details about this year's tournament
can be found at the GM-maintained website linked above. It includes
a link to a series replay of the final game, more statistics
(yes, the #1 corn seat still has the advantage) and, as an added
bonus I posted some highlights from the tournament as well as
the inaugural San Juan tournament, plus Eric Brosius,
the Princes of Florence GM, was kind enough to forward
me a play-by-play of the final game in his event which I have
also included in this update
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