First of all, let me say, thank you, to everyone who participated in this year"s tournament! You guys made it so easy for this first time GM and I'm already looking forward to next year's event! Okay, now that I got that crap out of the way, let's get to the meat of this review. This year, Galaxy once again lead the con for most mispronounced race names in one tournament. In addition to that, the Myrmidon were chosen the least amount of times as a secret base...which was a good thing, because it was also the most eliminated race. That is clear proof that Galaxy players are not only gracious and nice, they are also very smart gamers. The Cylor proved to be the leader of all the worlds when it came to surviving the most games, and the Felowi and the E-cup tied for being chosen as a secret base the most times..

The Fnal featured two past champions (including the defending champ) and the brother of another former champ. I guess being a good Galaxy player runs in the family - or at least gets you a lot of practice. A repeat was not meant to be for defending champ, Joe Burch. He used a strength 8 ship to attack a 6 and failed, only to have the counterattack kill his ship. He also missed two sensor rolls when he only needed eights! Fortunately though, he can't take the prize for the most...um...embarrassing moment as there was one player (his name withheld to protect his dignity) who, in a first heat game, made the kill in the first round, but....the race he killed was his secret base! Also this year, the much coveted Ender Award, which is given to the player who eliminates the most worlds in the tournament went to Andres Dunn.

An interesting rules issue arose that I am happy to report has a solution in place should it occur in any future WBC tournaments. The issue is: what to do when the draw deck is exhausted, a player has no cards in his/her hand, but does have a reserve. Is the player required to pick up his reserve cards when it comes around to his/her turn? I'm going to say No for next yea's tournament. But, the game only continues as long as any player has at least one card in their hand. Once the last card in a player's hand is played, the game ends. So, that means, a player's turn can be skipped as long as they leave their reserve on the table, and they can pick it up on any of their later turns as long as the game is continuing. What that also means is that it is possible for a game to end with more than three worlds surviving! I,'m looking forward to seeing the first time that happens.

Lastly, there were three players who achieved a high game score of 17 points! Joe Lieberman was the only one to do it in a five-player game which is very impressive! The lowest score was turned in by the dashing, yet incompetent GM with a grand total of TWO points in his only game played in the tournament.