puerto rico [Updated October 2004]  

2004 WBC Report  

 2005 Status: pending 2005 GM commitment

Barbara Flaxington, NJ

2004 Champion

2nd: David Platnick, VA

3rd: Jonathan Tivel, VA

4th: Aaron Buchanan, VA

5th: Arthur Field, SC

6th: John Kerr, VA

Event History
2002    Arthur Field     152
2003    Nicholas Anner     217
2004    Barbara Flaxington     176

Euro Quest Event History
2003    Lyman Moquin     57
2004    Arthur Field     44


Offsite links:

AREA Ratings

boardgamegeek 

 Laurels
Rank Name

From

Last
Total
 1. Barb Flaxington

NJ

04
102
 2. Arthur Field

SC

04
  64
 3. Nicholas Anner

NY

03
  60
 4. David Platnick

VA

04
  42
 5. Lyman Moquin

DC

03
  40
 6. Gary Carr

VA

03
  36
 7. Jonathan Tivel

VA

04
  24
 8. Phil Rennert

MD

03
  24
 9. Aaron Buchanan

VA

04
  18
10. Lucimara Martins

Brazil

03
  18
11. James Robertson

MD

03
  16
12. Andrew Greene

VA

04
  12
13. Bruce Reiff

OH

03
  12
14. Christian Moffa

NJ

04
    9
15. John Kerr

VA

04
    9
16. Bill Salvatore

MD

03
    8
17. John Weber

MD

04
    6
18. Ted Mullally

NJ

02
    6
19. John Adams

MD

03
    4
20. Steve Simmons

NJ

02
    4
21. Rachel McGinley

SC

02
    3
22. Tom Browne

PA

02
    2
23. Bill Murdock

VA

02
    1

Past Winners

Arthur Field - SC
2002

Nicholas Anner - NY
2003
 


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

 GM      John Weber  [3rd Year]   NA
    jcw222@earthlink.net   NA

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