brawling battleships [Updated October 2005]

	2005 WBC Report    2006 Status: pending 2006 GM commitment
Jeff Spaner, MD 2005 Champion Offsite links: AREA Ratings:	Event History 2004    Rob Mull     30 2005     Jeff Spaner     34	Laurels Rank Name From Last Total 1. Jeff Spaner MD 05 30 2. Rob Mull CO 04 20 3. Steve Raszewski MD 05 18 4. Andrew Fedin PA 05 12 5. Kevin Brownell ME 04 12 6. Bruce young SC 05 9 7. Tin Evinger PA 04 8 8. James Dougherty PA 05 6 9. Tom Phillips NJ 04 6 10. Chris Greenfield NY 04 4 11. Bradley Raszewski MD 05 3 12. Mark Bayliss UK 04 2
2005 Laurelists Steve Raszewski, MD 2nd Andrew Fedin, PA 3rd Bruce Young, SC 4th James Dougherty, PA 5th Brad Raszewski, MD 6th Past Winners Rob Mull, CO 2004 THE BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS STEEL TALE Last year I ran this event, which then included the original BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS game and its Expansion Deck, all on one busy Saturday, an ordeal that included three hours of marathon demonstrations, a three-hour elimination round and a three-hour championship round that was a true bloodletting. This year, with the new and improved BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS STEEL version of the game, I was determined to spread the pain over more days and ran a three-hour heat on Wednesday, a one-hour demonstration and a three-hour heat on Thursday and a three-hour heat on Friday. 34 individuals participated in the heats, a number of them multiple times, so that 44 positions were filled. None of the players from last year's championship round participated, so we were certain to have an all-new crew in the finals. All this mayhem on the high seas was followed by an elimination round followed by a championship round on Saturday. The Saturday elimination round was to be two four-player tables consisting of the eight winners from tables in the earlier heats but one of the heat winners didn't show. We continued with yours truly filling in as a fourth at one of the tables, with the understanding that I would be automatically eliminated and the other three would automatically advance to the championship round. At the other table, Jeff Spaner was the one eliminated but one of the winners, Matt Evinger, had to leave to participate in another event, so Jeff was allowed to remain and occupy the sixth slot in the final table. As it turned out, this very same Jeff Spaner was in the lead and had 39 victory points at the end of the second sortie of the championship round. He had to fight off attempts at annihilation by his opponents during the third sortie and survived but scored no victory points while Steve Raszewski (or Mr. Persistence as I called him - played in all three heats before winning a spot in the finals in the third heat) increased his total to an identical 39 victory points. By the game's rules, a tie for the lead requires another sortie to be played by all players but most of the group had to be elsewhere, so the championship had to be settled by a dice roll. Jeff Spaner won the roll and is the 2005 champion. Fourth and fifth place was also a tie and required a dice roll to position the players. Such is life! They were a good group and I hope to see many of them again next year. The final round, a low-scoring affair, was exciting and unusual and the official results are as follows: FIRST PLACE (WINNER): Jeff Spaner - 39 victory points. SECOND PLACE: Steve Raszewski - 39 victory points. THIRD PLACE: Andy Fedin - 32 victory points. FOURTH PLACE: Bruce Young - 24 victory points. FIFTH PLACE: Jim Dougherty - 24 victory points. SIXTH PLACE: Brad Raszewski (Steve's son) - 23 victory points.
GM      Craig Taylor  [2nd Year]   NA    NA   NA