Wayne Schmittberger (left) of GAMES magazine shows his expertise in games goes beyond publishing by advancing to the Final of the Lost Cities tournament.	Paul Weintraub (left) opposes Sean McCulloch in the semi-finals. Paul would lose this match and have to settle for fourth place laurels.	Sean McCulloch (left) was the only laurelist to repeat and his experience won out over Wayne Schmittberger in the sixth and final elimination round.

Lost Cities 2K6 generally followed the format of last year with two significant differences: Friday's heat was moved from the afternoon to the late evening against Liar's Dice, and a new MESE tiebreaker rule was in effect. You may judge if either made a difference in your tournament. The handful of attendees at the demo exploded two hours later into a 68 player jail break at the first heat—a record for a heat in the Modern Era (that would be my era). In the second heat, 25 reinforcements arrived to join 29 players returnees. The third heat on Friday night had a much lower number of new players (18) in relation to the invasion of weekend players that occurred during the afternoon heat last year. Despite the lure of Liar's Dice, 28 players did return on Friday night, of which only eight had played in both of the previous Heats. On Saturday afternoon, the last heat brought in 14 new players and a robust 34 returning players. Three of whom—Jeri Freedman, Robbie Mitchell and Kelsey Lee, played in every Heat. Wayne Schmittberger of GAMES magazine, Sam Atabaki and Rebecca Hebner won all three Heats in which they played. Of 108 games played during the Heats, the field produced one tie game, resolved by a fourth hand—same as last year. Regarding the 2006 MESE tiebreaker, three players with a loss in their first Heat, but two wins in subsequent Heats were denied a qualified advance over the eight players with one win who completed the bracket of 32, because their win had occurred in their first Heat played.

Rounds 2 through 6 commenced Sunday morning. Of the 32 qualifiers, nine answered the siren's song of the advanced rounds of other tournaments, allowing slots for four of the high alternates, four other Lost Cities entrants who had braved the dawn to be counted, and—what do you know—the GM, to fill out the bracket. (Yesss, I had a 1st Heat that I played in, win, so back off!!) Beginning the semi-finals, the final four—David Meyaard, Wayne Schmittberger, Sean McCulloch and Paul Weintraub, voted unanimously to have a Consolation Round to determine the third place finisher, because, this year, Lost Cities awarded three plaques. Wayne and Sean played in the Final, while Paul and David vied for third. The two games were noteworthy for striking similarities beyond being simultaneous. No expeditions scored the bonus. The individual hand scores were: David 17-46-78 vs. Paul 63-12-9, and Sean 19-40-54 vs. Wayne 56-12-(-15). In the second hand of both games, EACH player successfully completed a Red expedition with investment cards!! The eventual winners, Sean and David, trailed as they began the third hand by -9 and -12 respectively. In the last hand of the Final, both players started Green expeditions with Wayne garnering a straight score of 10 points while Sean played all three handshakes and earned only six more points for his effort. Wayne's Waterloo was his three handshake commitment to Red. He had started the last hand with three Red cards, received a fourth early on from Sean, but did not draw another Red for the remainder of the hand, while Sean proceeded to score in Red as well as Yellow, Blue and White. David prevailed over Paul for third place.

Once again, my thanks to all who played, and who expressed their enjoyment of the experience, win or lose. I am grateful to Kaarin Englemann and Keith Levy, who regularly loaned extra copies of the game from the WBC Youth Division, as we had more players than games in several heats. Other players also helped in this endeavor with their games. Remember, next year, replace one pair of socks in the suitcase with the game cards in a Ziploc bag—you don't have to bring the box. Results have been sent to AREA. Farewell until WBC 2007.

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The always jovial and helpful Keith Levy instructs some new Explorers.	GM Levy stands out in a crowd with his festive purple hat as the pied piper of WBC.

 Lost Cities Junior

12 little explorers contested the Juniors version led by Ben gardner who made off with the wood. He was followed closely by his sister April whom he beat in the Final - thus earning him sibling bragging rights for a whole year. Apparently they play a little Lost Cities in the Gardner household.