The 2005 RoboRally tournament was as good as ever. Having the Conestoga 3 room to ourselves for the initial heats was nice, but I think I would have prefered the large oval tables in the main ballroom for the number of players per game. With three hours scheduled for the first heat, five out of six tables finished on time. Our intention was to only play six-players per game, however, only sixsets were available and 42 players appeared so we played seven-player games. The table that failed to finish had a player or two who decided to play as blockers and collected a lot of options, something I believe tends to slow the game down. Yours truly lost this round on the fifth card of the last register when both Bill Dyer and myself were three spaces from the final flag and Bill's three was the next lower initiative value which meant he got to push me off the final flag and himself onto it.

The second heat setup was a bit harder which was reflected by the fact that three of the seven games did not finish. Fortunately, the adjudication standards have been developed enough now that most games were readily adjudicated with only one actually requiring GM intervention to determine the winner. Four of the seven games played had seven players rather than six, and three of these were the games that did not finish. Next year I will be bringing all three of my RoboRally sets tin an attempt to ensure that we can have all 6-player games. A few more players bringing their own sets would certainly go along way towards speeding the heats up for everyone. In the second heat, at least two of the sets we used were the new Avalon Hill version. The boards are not quite the same, but I had deliberately designed the heat setups such that either set could be used. Several players who had played the new version had to be taught the "old" rules briefly before the second heat.

Twelve people qualified for the semifinals, including me, but only eight actually appeared, not including me. My assistant took on the task of running the semi's as I was involved in another Final at the time, so the semifinal became the Final. Defending champ Brad Johnson got off to his usual quick start, touching flag 1 on the third turn. Mark Neale was two turns behind him followed closely by Bill Dyer, and Lance Ribeiro on turn 6. Jeff Power got off to a rough start, diving into the pit next to the start flag twice, before he straightened out the difference between the start space and the 3rd flag, but he still managed to be the fifth to touch flag 5, but not until turn 12, closely followed by Cliff Ackman on the same turn. Brendan Tracey managed the flag two turns later with Bill Navolis bringing up the rear on turn 17.

Brad was the first again to flag 2, reaching it on turn 14, however, the gyroscope Lance picked up on his way from flag 1 helped him pull into a close second. Bill D. and Jeff both managed to reach it on turn 20 with Mark only two turns behind them (he would have been second, but he got sandwiched in a laser shooting fest between Lance and Brad around the flag.)

Lance managed to pull away from the pack on the way to flag 3 but Cliff lay in wait for him and with two registers locked, getting only three cards he was unable to get the cards he needed to finish it off before Bill D. was able to catch him. Once again, it came down to Bill pushing Lance off the flag before he could touch it. Worse still, he pushed him into the pit next to the flag. Fortunately for Lance, his archive was nearby, and nobody else had made it out of Cannery Row yet, so he was easily able to take second. Brad managed to finish third with Jeff only a turn behind him, And Mark a turn behind that. This is probably the closest finish we've had in the seven years we've been doing this tournament, and it was a fun game to watch. I look forward to next years tournament.