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Sequel breaks 100
 The
inaugural WBC San Juan tournament was a success, with
20 four-player games being contested in the first heat, followed
by18 more such games in the second heat. The overflow turnout
for the initial round forced the GM and his assistant to locate
additional space, particularly since the prior event (another
popular new Euro game, Goa) was running long in the same
space. Four players (Eric Brosius, Tom McCorry, Ray Pfeifer,
and Alex Safford) scored wins in both heats to guarantee a spot
in the Sunday semi-final round. The other winners had to rely
on having a high enough score to advance on a tiebreaker, and
it came down to a random draw to determine the last available
seat in the16-player semi-finals. All games (in both the preliminary
heats and the elimination round games) used the "seat-balancing"
rule which allowed players in later seats to look at more cards
to compensate for going later in the early rounds.
Some of the highlights in the two preliminary heats were Winton
Lemoine's high score of 45 in the first round, Ray Pfeifer's
13-point win in the first heat which was then topped by a 16-point
win by Tom McCorry in the second heat as the greatest margin
of victory in a single game. There were some close games, with
Eric Brosius nosing out Alan Kaiser on a tiebreak in the second
heat. Seven games were one-point wins, including a 32-31-31-31
thriller won by Phil Rennert. A number of varied strategies proved
successful in the initial round games, with purple building and
production building/Guild Hall
strategies prevailing on an equal number of occasions.
The cut-off for the semi-final round proved to be one win
and a score of 34 or better, and Mike Zehnal out-cut Aaron Buchanan
and Bruce Reiff in a random card draw to claim the last spot
in the semis. The four two-game winners were seeded into different
games with choice of seating position which, as it turned out,
only worked out well for Tom McCorry, who was the only two-game
winner to make it three in a row to advance to the finals. For
the record, the two-game winners chose seats 1, 2 and 3 (twice)
and Tom, who won, selected the #3 starting position. Tom was
joined in the final by three members of the Columbus, Ohio-based
CABS gaming group - Jeff Mullet, Nate Hoam, and Alan Kaiser.
All four semi-final winners used similar strategies - each piled
up large points on a Guild Hall - although Jeff needed several
purple buildings to overcome Chris Kamm by a one-point margin,
32 to 31, in one of two one-point games. Tom McCorry edged out
Rob Kircher, 41-40, with both scoring big with the chapel as
well as the Guild Hall. Nate Hoam edged out Eric Brosius by two,
32-30, and Alan Kaiser won by the largest margin, 10 points,
in the other semifinal game, scoring big with both the Guild
Hall and the chapel. Rob Kircher was awarded fifth and Chris
Kamm, sixth, based on having the top second-place scores in the
semis.
 In the final game,
by random draw Alan drew the #1 position, followed around the
table by Nate, Jeff and Tom. Early on, Alan, Jeff and Tom jumped
into tobacco production, while Nate built a smithy followed by
a black market to defray construction costs. Jeff followed with
a smithy of his own, and by the third turn, he had the first
silver mine up and running. Tom countered with the prefecture,
useful to obtain additional cards. Jeff eventually built a diversified
production portfolio, topped off with a Guild Hall. Once Jeff
followed up with a Palace, he became the obvious leader with
everyone else playing for second. Tom made good use of a chapel
to score some extra VPs, but he lost out on the opportunity to
build in the final game turn. Tom scored with his chapel and
Guild Hall to nose out Nate's purple building strategy for second
on the tiebreaker, 4 to 3. Alan's city hall and palace kept him
close, but was insufficient to offset his lower total in base
VPs. Jeff's Guild Hall/smithy strategy continued the streak of
all elimination round games being won by a player who had built
the Guild Hall.
Statistics collected from all 43 games played suggest that
the game (using the draw extra cards by seat position variant)
is fairly well-balanced, with no seat recording fewer than nine
nor more than 12 wins. The average scores by seat position ranged
from a high of 30.79 (seat #2) to a low of 29.23 (seat #1). The
most popular non-bonus scoring purple buildings in winning displays
were, in order (number of times in parenthesis): prefecture (18),
aqueduct (16), carpenter (14), gold mine (13), followed by the
library, smithy and hero (12 each). At the other end of the spectrum,
least seen in winning displays were the archives (1), the black
market (2), and the carne and market stand (3 each). As far as
the all-important "6"cost bonus buildings are concerned,
the Guild Hall (25) and City Hall (20) proved the most popular,
and the victory arch was by far the least used (only three times
in winning displays). The chapel, with its variable bonus points,
was only used by ten winners in the 45 games played.
The GM wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Keith Levy,
who served as assistant GM and was instrumental in finding the
additional room space to allow the first heat to conclude on
time and Winton Lemoine, who offered his services as an unofficial
assistant GM and "rules guru," which was important
given that the first heat saw the games split into two different
rooms.
Additional highlights from the San Juan tournament
as well as stats and a reply of the championship game of its
predecessor, Puerto Rico, are available on line at http://home.earthlink.net/~jcw222.
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John Weber [1st Year]
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