In 2005, 61 fearless (and $Greed-y) players competed to see who would be this year's $Greed champion. The tournament continued to use the same format, as it has for several years, with each player rolling twice, and then a number of players advance to the final round for two more turns.

The game was run at three tables this year, with turn order randomly decided. Once again, Jason Levine started off the scoring - but this year it was with only 700 points - but it was a score that kept him in the running for a while nonetheless.

Only 17 players actually managed to post a non-zero score, meaning that 72% of the players ended up with zip, nada, the big goose egg - in oither words another average year.

Jason's score was topped almost immediately, as Sarah Vasilakos scored 1050 as the first person to roll at one of the tables. More challenges came quickly with Chris Gnech at 1100, and then a flurry of scores with Karl Henning (1650), Allyson Field (1750) and Jim Bell (1600) all posting solid scores with around 40 of the players still to go.

Allyson's mark would last for almost 25 turns before John Jacoby put up a score of 2200, including a 1000-point $GREED. It looked like John was going to go into the Fnal as the leader - with only four players left to roll. It was not to be though as Paul Risner pulled off not one, but TWO 1000-point $GREED rolls on his first turn! This catapulted him into a tie with John, and allowed Paul to cash a simple 350 points on one roll in his second turn to take the lead going into the finals.

With only 61 players this year, the "minimum of 8 advance" rule was put into effect - resulting in much lower scores than usual advancing. There was a tie at 8th place, so using the new guidelines for $GREED, nine players continued.

This also led to an unusual looking finals board - as there was a very visible gap in the scores. Leading the board was Paul at 2550, followed by John's score of 2200, Allyson at 1750, Karl at 1650 and Jim at 1600. These were all scores that would have been in contention in prior years. This year, they were joined by Richard Curtain at 1250, Rich Shipley at 1200, Chris Gnech at 1100 and Matt Calkins also at 1100.

Other statistics from the first round include four rolls of $GREED (Debbie Bell, John Jacoby and two by Paul Risner), one roll of 4 Diamonds (Rhonda Reiff) and five recorded scores of zero on a roll of all six dice.

Matt made the first move in the Final, posting 750 on his first roll to move him into 3rd position. Jim Bell then scored 650 to try and position himself for a final turn run at Paul. Not to be outdone, Allyson posted 800 points, leaving her in a short-lived tie with Paul. John posted 500 points to take an equally short-lived lead, as Paul answered with 500 points of his own to stay 350 ahead

The Do or Die round was filled with players trying to make their move on the leaders, with disastrous effects. Chris lost 1300 points to a bust, and Rich Shipley soon topped that by losing 1400 points. Jim Bell continued his assault on the lead though, scoring 900 points to give him a-100 point lead at 3150. Allyson answered with 750 of her own, moving the bar up to 3300. John was unable to answer these final challenges, but Paul managed a 500
point roll, which he banked, giving him a final total 3550 and the victory! Allyson Field took second with 3300 and Jim Bell scored third place laurels with 3150.

While the scores needed to advance this year were lower (due in large part to the relative increase in the ratio of finalists to competitors), the final scores were considerably higher (with the top three positions all besting last year's winning score of 2850).

Once again I would like to thank those who ran the game tables: Jeff Mullet, Kaarin Engelmann and Peter Staab.

Come join us next year for another good time of dice rolling in $Greed!