How Others See Us: I usually play in this event, but had to miss it when it conflicted with the finals of Republic of Rome. I really like how, in contrast to most of the other multiplayer games, it does not have multiple first round heats. The Adel Verpflichtet tournament instead lets all players play the same four rounds, with the ten best results advancing to the semifinals. Then those players play two games to seed five players into the final game. One negative about the Adel event, though, is that there is no demo. That seems a shame as the game is so simple a beginner can easily learn it and even play a complete game in the hour allotted to a demo. ... Frank Cunliffe in EPGS' HEROICS newsletter

In the first round, every entrant plays four games, scoring points based on finishing position (1st=5 points, 2nd=4, 3rd=3, 4th=2, 5th=1). The ten players with the highest total points advance to the semifinal. Each semifinalist plays two games, with the four winners and the best second place finisher advancing to a single winner-take-all final.

Though attendance for WBC in its new venue this year was down only slightly, the attendance for Adel Verpflichtet was down significantly. This was possibly due to scheduling conflicts (which, among others, kept defending champion and Robo Rally GM Marc Houde from attending), and having the event in the out-of-the-way Paradise room instead of the Hunt Valley's centrally-located Maryland ballroom, where many entrants traditionally joined at the last minute. Among this year's contestants were four former champions, 20 returnees from last year, and six of the ten semifinalists from last year. As there were fewer total games played this time (29 to last year's 42), most of the remarkable events were not as extreme. The longest set at the finish was 13 cards, achieved by Tamara Houde (twice), three-time former champ Ray Pfeifer (twice, including the final), Inger Henning, and Walter Hnatiw. Jason Levine, Arthur Field, and 1993 champ Tom DeMarco each won a game with a lead of 11 spaces ahead of the 2nd place finishers. Arthur's win was also the furthest past the finish line at +10 spaces. Paul Weintraub and Ray each won a tied game by having the larger set at the finish over former champs John Pack and Thomas Browne respectively. Thomas won a game in the semifinal that had the tightest bunching, all four players finished within a five-space span; that game, along with games won by Inger and Tamara, each had four players crossing the finish line. Greg Crowe (twice), Tom, Nicholas Henning, and Kaarin Englemann each won games with no set at the finish. Greg has achieved this each of the last four years he has competed.

After the first preliminary round of seven games, Walter and Jonathan Gemmell led the overall standings with a +7 space win, followed by David Meyaard at +6 spaces. None of the winners was able to repeat in the second round of six games; Tom, his daughter Wendy DeMarco, and David were the leaders with 9 points (a 1st and a 2nd), followed by Inger, John, and Greg Crowe at 8 points. Winners in the third round of six games included John and Greg, who joined David and Tom in the lead at 13 points, and Thomas, who matched Wendy with 12 points. The fourth, and final, preliminary round of games consisted of five boards. John pulled away from the pack, and with two wins and two seconds, ended up with the high score for the Prelininaries for the second year in a row, this year finishing with 18 points. David, Greg, Thomas, and Ray each finished with 16 points, Tom and Wendy with 15 points, while the final three semifinal slots were filled by Tamara, Nick, and Abby Cocke, each with 13 points. Tamara and David were the only two semifinalists who had not been there before. In the first two semifinal games Abby finished at least 10 spaces ahead of Thomas, Tamara, Tom, and David, while Greg outran Ray, Wendy, John, and Nick. Then in the last semifinal round Tom beat out John, David, and Ray, while Thomas was victorious over Nick, Wendy, and Tamara. Ray achieved the best 2nd place finish at +4 spaces, becoming the fifth finalist. Nick had the next best 2nd place finish, and therefore earned sixth place laurels. After a delay so that Tom could play in the already-delayed Saint Petersburg final, the Adel Verpflichtet final began with Abby cruising to a big lead. She lead around the first two corners, but then seemed to languish in the final stretch, due to having lost cards to various thieves. As the others were desperately trying to close the gap, Abby was finally able to trigger the game end by crossing the finish line to the +4 space, trailed by Greg, Ray, Thomas, and Tom. But Ray had been collecting a lot of cards; his 13 card set garnered the 8-space bonus which moved him one space ahead of Abby to the +5 space for his fourth Adel Verpflichtet crown. Thomas had the second largest set; the 4-space bonus advanced him to the +1 space and third place behind Abby. Greg finished in fourth at -2 spaces, while Tom settled for fifth place laurels with his -9 space finish.

Stats

The player with the black cards won nine times in 29 games, getting the most victories for the third time in the last six years and a 24.1% win rate. The other four colors each picked up about an equal number of wins, with the blue player having a six-year average of 21.9%, followed by red at 20.2%, yellow at 18.9%, and green at 14.9%. For the third year in a row, the player of the red cards had the most last-place finishes with 10, followed by blue with 7. Black also got the best average of finishing rank points at 3.38 and the best average final board position at 1.64 spaces short of the finish line. Blue averaged the fewest finishing rank points with 2.76, and red brought up the rear in average final board position at 3.93 spaces short.

Player Profile

Ray Pfeifer has been the GM of the Adel Verpflichtet tournament for 14 years, has played in the tournament all 15 years of Avaloncon/WBC, and is a four-time champion (1991, 1996, 1999, & 2005). Over the past six years (those I have all the records for) he has played 35 games, playing the black position the most (ten times), and red the least (four times). He has won seven times, finished second 13 times, and last only four times. He has finished past the finish line 16 times, has an average of 9.26 cards in his finishing set (never finishing without a set), and possessed the ultimate tiebreaker card (the 1468 "A" card) 12 times. He has gotten the 8-space bonus for the longest set at game end 15 times (43% of games), and the 4-space bonus for second-longest set nine times. Of the four times in the last six years he has made it to the semifinals (all but '03 & '04), he made it to the Fnal three times by achieving the best second place finish in the semis and becoming the last one to make it to the final. Of the 73 different opponents he has faced in the last six years, he has played Wendy DeMarco the most times (six games). Greg Crowe has faced Ray five times, winning three of those games and finishing behind Ray only once (in this year's Final). John Pack has also faced Ray five times, winning two games, and also finishing behind Ray only once (in this year's first semifinal). Unlike Greg, whose preferred style of play is to finish with a small or no set, Ray prefers to gather many cards and try to win with the 8-space bonus. Unlike John, who usually tries to race ahead and finish way ahead of everyone else, Ray seems to prefer taking it slower, while being close enough for that 8-space bonus to make the difference.