Quick Diplomacy
The format of the tournament this year consisted of one heat
consisting of four games in a row. Each four-player game scored
five points for the winner, four points for second, two points
for third, and one point for fourth. Each three-player game scored
five points for the winner, three points for second, and one
point for third. The top 16 totals would advance to a semifinal
of four four-player games to select four finalists.
The first round consisted of four four- and two three-player
games. Jay Fox was the winner of a three-player game with the
tightest bunching of scores with four points between his 50 points
and Andy Lewis's third place score of 46, while Robert Sohn won
his four-player board where all the players were within six points.
Tom DeMarco's 65 points was tied for the highest-scoring four-player
win, had the largest gap between first and second (18), and scored
the most points from advisors in a four-player game (33).
In the second set of games, Jay Greer's 43 points was the
lowest winning score in all of the games played in both this
and last year's tournament. Brad Sherwood also scored 65 points
in his win, while Mike Hazel scored the most points from cloisters
(59) in the first round to finish second in the same game. After
two games, Tom lead with two wins for 10 points, followed by
Jay G., Brad, and David Gantt with nine points.
Three players decided to drop out, while one new entrant appeared
before the third set of five four-player games began. John Faella
tied Anne Norton with 44 points, but finished with 15 pieces
off the board to Anne's 13 pieces to win the tie. Bill Murdoch
won his game and while completing three four-point cloister chains
for 12 points and the best scoring of cloister chains. And after
three games, Jay G. was now the tournament leader with 13 points,
followed by Tom, Steve Cameron, and defending champ Andrew Greene
tied at 12 points.
The fourth set had four four- and one three-player games.
Steve won the three-player game with 74 points, the highest in
the tournament, won by the largest margin (23 Points) over Robert,
and scored 35 points from advisors against Robert's 12 points
of cloister chains (higher scores from advisors and cloister
chains are easier to achieve in three-player games).
Before the total tournament scores were announced, there was
a suggestion that advancing 16 of the remaining 19 players for
a semifinal was too many, and that we should advance only four
and go directly to the final. The vote was unanimous in favor.
The best result was achieved by Steve with two wins and two seconds,
and Jay G. with one win and three seconds, each accruing 17 points.
They were joined by Bill, who had three wins and a last for 16
points, and Ray Pfeifer scoring15 on the strength of one win,
two seconds, and a third. These four leaders pictured above
proceeded directly to a fifth and final game. Three players scored
14 points. Andrew garnered the laurels for fifth place due to
his two wins, and Anne beat out Brad for the sixth place laurels
by having a higher percentage of the board's total points in
her win.
In the first scoring round of the Final, Ray had the most
or tied for the most cloisters in Frankreich, Aragon, Burgund,
and Italien, scoring the most possible from those four countries
with 24 points. Ray had placed no advisors, while the others
had placed a mixture of cloisters and advisors. Jay G. was second,
scoring 15 points, and leading Bill at 13 points and Steve at
11 points. During the second, and final, scoring round, Ray continued
his all-cloister strategy, while Bill and Steve desperately tried
to link up their advisors into profitable alliances. Ray was
able to get cloister points in eight of the nine countries, scoring
35 to reach 59 points. Jay G. scored 31 to reach 46, with Bill
and Steve advancing to 35 and 30 points respectively. Ray and
Jay G. were able to pad their leads by scoring five points each
for a cloister chain. Bill and Steve were the only two to score
points from advisors, and while they scored 20 and 23 points
to pass Jay G.'s total of 51 points with totals of 55 and 53
points for second and third place respectively, Ray was able
to retain the lead and win the second Web of Power tournament
by nine points with a score of 59.
Web of Power will undoubtedly need a lot of support
if it is to return to WBC next year. If you would like to see
WOP return, be sure to become a 2006 BPA member during the December
signup period so that you can cast your vote for the return of
this challenging, yet easy to learn game.
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Tom DeMarco [2nd Year]
720 Wood Lane, Cinnaminson,
NJ 08077-3976 
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