"I ran out to the car in 100 degree heat for this?"	GM Joe Lux and BPA COB Ken Gutermuth confer on the game shortage.	Braille lessons would have been helpful in this game.

The event started slowly, with only half of the 14 sets needed available. It took 30 minutes for volunteers to run to their cars and hotel rooms to get enough sets to begin. I would not assign more than four people to a game.

The final round was full of gamesmanship. After four rounds, the finalists were exhausted. It was late. Three of the players had a lot of friendly banter during the beginning of the game. The fourth sat quietly. He showed great intensity and seemed a little rattled by the talking. Two of the finalists realized this. Their comments intensified. The fourth player looked more and more disturbed. Since talking is part of multi-player gaming, I did not interfere. But if the fourth player had complained to me, I would have interceded.

As it turned out, the talking did not prevent that player from becoming World Champion, with $52,400. Steve Shambeda finished with $48,700. Jeff Meyer totaled #38,800. Jason Brown, who could not catch a tile, ended with $20.900.

Is the first merger significant to the final result? Many players would suspect so. I asked the contestants to record who made the first merger on the result cards. Out of thirty-four games played, twenty complied. The final position of the players who made the first merger:
            1st position: 7 first mergers
            2nd position: 8 first mergers
            3rd position: 4 first mergers
            4th position: 1 first merger

Let me point out that in the championship game, where skill levels are more tested, the first merger finished third.

Only 28 of 54 players stayed for the second round of the Swiss-style preliminaries. At the end of three rounds, the last seed to advance to the semi-final round, had a score of 124. This represents the three positions a player finished in his games. It was possible to be last in the first round, and still get into the semi-final. Per chance some folks bailed early after failing to win the first round.

I must mention that two entries really love Acquire. Both of them had scores of 444. The play is the thing at WBC. It was a rewarding experience. I had to make only one decision during a game. The Acquire bunch is a very experienced crew. Special thanks goes to Dan Mathias. After playing games for four days, I had developed laryngitis. With his strong voice, Dan volunteered to announce who was sitting at which board. I hope to be back next year.