Wandering through Space for Fun
and Profit
The 2005 tournament had a bit of a down year from the previous
year with 50 merchants plying the spaceways for profit (and FUN!)
Although the total number of games played (25) was about the
same, so more players were taking advantage of multiple rounds
in order to get the necessary win to advance to the semifinals.
This year I asked the players to record the spaceports and
factories purchased on a map of Merchant of Venus board. I thank
the players who recorded 20 of the games played it is tough work
(even yours truly made mistakes). This allowed me to get an idea
on the geographical distribution of purchases.
As usual, I found the winning players did very well in the
real estate market. Ports & factory deeds are useful and
count directly for victory. The most popular places to buy land
was the Multi Generation Ship system (18 factories & 15 Neutron
Ports) and War Torn System (19 Factories, 10 Terror Station and
eight Titan's Towers), but the Cloud Factory seemed the best
chance for victory (13 times the winner of a game bought this
factory out of the17 games in which it was purchased). The winners
purchased no other factory or port more than eight times. I
suspect this might be more a result of their victory than a cause
of it. Next year I'll have to see if the pattern continues.
Otherwise the distribution of ports and factories seemed well
balanced. Winners and runner-ups tended to buy more than others,
but everyone bought all over the board. There does not seem
an obvious place to buy.
The first heat was held on Wednesday morning with 36 players
in nine games. Doug Gallulo was the easy winner of the fictional
"Water in Dilithium Crystals Award" for rolling five
rolls throughout the game with a total less than 8 on four dice.
OUCH! On another table, the "western" (as if "west"
is a legitimate direction in space) systems of the board were
left unexplored for an entire game. I guess the trading was
so good, there was no need to look anywhere else!
The second heat was held Thursday evening with 20 merchants
in five games. The most memorable contest included Tom DeMarco
exclaiming, "I'm a good player! I should be able to see
these things!" when another player informed Tom he could
win that turn by completing certain transactions. (I can confirm
that other player was correct (he had to barter his equipment
and relics into a port that was available in the system.) Not
that it made any difference in the final result, Tom gave up
finding the instant win and won on the next turn anyway by over
$400. But certainly, the quote of the event!
The third heat was held Friday afternoon with six more games
being logged. For some reason, I thought there were exactly
24 players (It ALWAYS ends up on a even multiple of 4! Always!)
But one table was missing a player after I made the assignment.
I simply told the three other players to go ahead and start.
(Which is how I handle an odd table anyway.) Eventually, I
figured out it was my fault one of the player score cards must
have stuck to a returning player's when I culled the cards out
to set the round. Oh well, what am I going to write about when
no one writes any juicy stories from their games! (Please take
this as a hint to add some notes on your game if you want to
read about something besides sticky note cards).
The semifinals were held Saturday morning. 18 players won
at least one game, two players won twice and 15 players showed
up at the appointed time, so only one alternate was needed to
fill four tables. Debbie Gutermuth made it with the lowest alternate
score ever to make it in at $1908. Usually, it takes over $2000
to buy in as an alternate.
Bill Crenshaw, defending champ Eric Wrobel and Lance Ribeiro
won their heats easily. The fourth finalist was John Koski,
who won in a close race over another ex champ, Luke Koleszar
and Ray Stakenas Sr who had to settle for fifth and sixth place
laurels respectively.
The Final was a close affair decided by a key moment in mid-game:
Eric and John were in a race to deliver Finest Dusts to a planet
with triple demand. Eric needed only an 8 (on three dice) to
make the delivery, but rolled only a 7! This allowed John to
sell two Dusts first, giving him an extra $250 which propelled
him to the win. In addition, John bought up all the goods in
this system leaving Eric nothing to deliver in future turns,
adding insult to injury. John then coasted to a comfortable
$400 margin.
Most importantly, I hope everyone followed rule #1 for this
event. Have Fun!
Full
Results:
Finalists ranked by their result in the Final:
1) John Koski, $3048
2) Bill Crenshaw, $2629
3) Lance Ribeiro, $2323
4) Eric Wrobal, $1535
Semifalists, ranked by their score in their semifinal game:
5) Luke Koleszar, $2819
6) Ray Stakenas, Sr. , $2812
7) Eyal Mozes, $2307
8) Richard Irving, $2242
9) Debbie Gutermuth, $2232
10) Kathy Stroh, $1995
11) Tom DeMarco, $1984
12) Tom Browne, $1838
13) Vassili Kyrkos, $1774
14) Ken Gutermuth, $1601
15) Steve Dickson, $1540
16) Charles Davis, $1529
Players who won their heat game, but missed the semifinals
17) Harakd Henning, $2146
18) Roderick Lee, $2113
19) Ewan Mc Nay, $2102
Remaining players ranked by their best heat game:
20) Wendy DeMarco, $1797
21) Gary Dickson, $1775
22) Richard Meyer, $1736
23) Duane Wagner, $1727
24) Rod Davidson, $1711
25) Peter Staab, $1672
26) Debbie Davidson, $1586
27) Derek Landel, $1530
28) Roger Whitney, $1499
29) David Weinstein, $1497
30) Charles Hickok, $1448
31) Stephen C. Snyder, $1435
32) Alex Henning, $1430
33) Chris Striker, $1374
34) Malinda Barnes, $1373
35) Michael Holmquist, $1341
36) David Matheny, $1326
37) Craig Dudley, $1210
38) Steve Cameron, $1172
39) Norm Newton, $1129
40) Jason Wagner, $1140
41) Andrew Snyder, $1110
42) Nick Henning, $1108
43) Steven Westerholm, $1105
44) William Duke, $1089
45) Kenneth Pinder, $1017
46) Doug Galullo, $965
47) Jeri Freedman, $908
48) Patrick Shea, $890
49) Richard Jones, $733
50) Tom Vickery, $723
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