Celebrating Second ...
Another large crowd made their way into the North Atlantic
in 2005 as the event drew its eighth straight three-digit attendance.
Some of the highlights from the 39 Heat games played:
* Three Stein Flushes for the man whose name is now synonymous
with dumping your entire hand
* Steve Cameron generously giving all the points away on the
last hand of the game (keeping nothing for himself) and then
losing by a point.
* Nick Evinger sweeping a 7-point convoy and three points of
spoils for a 10 point hand
Six semifinal games left us with this year's Laurelists. Carol
Caler, Ron Wuerth, Peter Reese, Justin Thompson, Brad Jones,
and Tom Bissa ventured out for what would be an exciting Final.
SC107 was the first convoy up for grabs Cards were played
on both sides and Carol had a die roll to decide it. Her roll
wound up tying the battle and sending it around a second time.
Brad had the lead for the second round and called a surface
battle. He followed with the powerful hand of Admiral Donitz,
Tirpitz, and Gneisenau. That's ??+5 folks! Despite it looking
rather gloomy for the Allies, Peter couldn't resist the four
points staring at him and played Bomber Command to take down
the Gneisenau by fate. Despite losing the Gneisenau, Brad won
the hand and took the convoy and two spoils.
Ron led Hand 5 and called a combined battle over SC122, putting
out12 points for the Allies. Peter and Justin teamed up on the
German side hoping the rest would follow suit. However, Brad
put a stop to this by playing Raid on St. Nazaire and forcing
Tom and Carol to play Allied or not at all. They both did and
the Allies won the hand with Ron taking the convoy.
SC118 was the next convoy and Peter called another combined
action, playing the Victorious (??+3). Justin, Brad, and Ron
all played Allied as well making it a big dicefest at the end.
Brads roll of 6 turned out to be the winner and he took the
convoy.
Brad continued to play strong during the early game, including
a big 8-point haul during the10th convoy. At the halway point,
the total scores were Brad 27, Justin 16, Carol 10, Ron 10, Tom
9, and Peter 8.
The second half saw some early fireworks as Ron took Brad
out of the fight for convoy SC48 with an Atlantic Storm. Ron
then continued his strong play by winning the next convoy up
for grabs (ONS5).
Tom saw his mighty Tirpitz go down during the fight over convoy
PQ12, QP8. Carol's Battleship Rodney proved to be the deciding
factor in the battle and she took five big points for herself.By
the last hand it was pretty obvious that Brad had a comfortable
lead. However second through sixh places were all up for grabs
and the 7-point SC44 was on the table in front of Carol. She
called an air battle and put out a "? for the Germans.
Justin played allied, but both Ron and Tom played German, so
it was up to Carol to roll for the convoy. She rolled a big
5 and took the 7 points for herself, giving Tom the 3-point spoil.
Those seven points catapulted her into second place. To see
her reaction, though, you would have thought she had just won
the Battle of the Atlantic all by herself. She was quite ecstatic
to win her first piece of wood at WBC. However, the big prize
went to Brad who won the game with a final score of 32 points.
Carol finished 2nd with 27. Third through sixth place saw a
four-way tie as Peter, Tom, Ron, and Justin all had 21 points.
Convoy points had to decide it and Peter took 3rd, Tom 4th,
Ron 5th, and Justin drew the short straw and got shut out of
the wood in 6th place.
Thanks to all for playing. I hope everyone had a great time
and you will all be ready to head out to sea again next year.
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