We had 46 people, up 10 from last year. Thanks to all who participated in 2004. Nick Anner took home the wood after scoring 12 and 13 points in the last two provinces to put the game away. Nick used the palace connection very effectively, considering he only scored one point for the 1st province tile and never scored again for elephants.

Tom Dunning used his double elephants along with the special elephant card to capture the 6th thru 10th province tiles and had six elephant provinces in total. Unfortunately for Tom he could not escape last place. Wealthy as he was in provinces, he was just as much a pauper when it came to castles. Tom was able to place only three castles with his longest connection at 2.

Andrew Greene used the Princess card holding it for over half of the game. He finished ahead of Tom despite the fact there were no elephant provinces on Andrew's side of the board. He had, however, built a nice palace connection to supplement the +2 strategy, even though his longest palace connection only totaled 3.

Travis Denis finished second , five pts ahead of Andrew . Travis probably had the most balanced strategy, capturing five Elephant tiles and had a nice palace connection featuring five castles. Considering this was only Travis' fouth game, he did exceptionally well factoring in the strong players in the Final.

Halfway through the game, the players were within 2-3 points of one another. As the game progressed, Nick would lose a little ground and then gain it back in the next province. In provinces 6 and 7, there was a 6 point gap between players, which narrowed in provinces 8 and 9 to only a 4 point separation. Sort of a take one step back, then move two steps forward motion. Basically that's how it was until Nick finally pulled away by merging his two big palace chains to garner 33 points in provinces 10, 11, and 12 to seal his victory.

All in all, an enjoyable tournament, which saw a myriad of strategies employed throughout the WBC. The elephant strategy was top dog last year and this year was the palace connection's turn. Maybe next year will be the Princess strategy blowing away the competition. How about coming to Lancaster next year and finding out!

Final Scores were

Nick Anner 64
Travis Ste. Denis 46
Andrew Greene 41
Tom Dunning 36