brawling battleships [Updated October 2007]  

2007 WBC Report  

 2008 Status: pending 2008 GM commitment

Steven Raszewski, MD

2007 Champion

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  Laurels

Event History
2004    Rob Mull     30
2005     Jeff Spaner     34
2006     David Huss     26
2007    Steven Raszewski     33

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Steve Raszewski    MD    07     48
  2.  David Huss         NY    06     30
  3.  Jeff Spaner        MD    05     30
  4.  Chris Greenfield   NY    06     22
  5.  Rob Mull           CO    04     20
  6. Stephen Shedden     TN    07     18
  7.  Matt Bacho         MD    06     18
  8.  Andrew Fedin       PA    07     15
  9.  Frank Mestre       NY    07     12
 10.  Kevin Brownell     ME    04     12
 11.  Pat Mirk           FL    07      9
 12.  Bruce Young        SC    05      9
 13.  Tim Evinger        PA    04      8
 14. Andrew Chitwood     TN    07      6
 15.  Dan Pasaric        NY    06      6
 16.  James Dougherty    PA    05      6
 17.  Tom Phillips       NJ    04      6
 18.  Bradley Raszewski  MD    05      3
 19.  Mark Bayliss       UK    04      2

2007 Laurelists

Stephen Shedden, TN
2nd

Frank Mestre, NY
3rd

Pat Mirk, FL
4th

Andrew Chitwood, TN
5th

Andrew Fedin, PA
6th


Past Winners

Rob Mull, CO
2004

Jeff Spaner, MD
2005

David Huss, NY
2006


"No ... No ... I'm not the leader ... honest, I'm not."

Don't you just love reading over someone's shoulder?

The Brawling Battleships Steel Tale

Brawling Battleships Steel championship games are always full of strange and zany moments. This year was no exception. For the first time in tournament play we saw the legendary curse of Mata Hari strike a player. Patrick Mirk -- a veteran WBC player-- was the victim. In an almost impossible play Andrew Chitwood pulled three event cards, both Mata Hari cards (a spy card that lets you draw two cards from an opponent's hand) and the Radio Intercept card that lets you draw two cards from the discard pile. Andrew Chitwood the youngest player ever to make the Final decided to steal two of Pat Mirk's cards, who was sitting immediately to his left, normally the play is better against players to the right, but since he needed a ride home he decided not to play Mata Hari on his stepfather Stephen Shedden, who had also qualified for the Final in a separate heat. Everyone at the table was surprised though when Andrew played the second Mata Hari on Mirk reducing him to two cards. When Andrew then played the Radio Intercept card and picked up both Mata Hari cards from the discard pile everyone at the table immediately encouraged him to play the third spy on Mirk to let him have the distinct honor of being the sole recipient of Mata Hari's curse. For his trouble Pat received a nice prize to commemorate the notoriety. No real damage was done since Pat refilled his hand at the end of his turn, which followed immediately after Chitwood's fortuitous opening.

After that good natured start the gloves came off and all the fun and frolic that existed in the qualifying rounds evaporated from the table as everyone competed for wood. In the first hand Shedden kept setting up dreadnoughts for other players to sink. Frank Mestre played a defensive waiting game but only managed to nab three points and Shedden was shut out after providing a generous supply of damaged battleships for his opponents. At the end of the first round the score was Steve Raszewski 19, Andrew Fedin 11, Mirk 5, Chitwood 4, Mestre 3 and Shedden 0. Raszewski quickly realized he was the main target for the second hand and did his best to play defensively but against a determined series of attacks his fleet was wiped out. Fedin assumed the duty of damaging ships that others would sink. Shedden quietly sank the majority of the dreadnoughts with Chitwood, Mestre and Mirk finishing off the kills. At the end of the second round the score was Shedden 26, Raswewski 19, Mestre 19, Mirk 16, Chitwood and Fedin 11 apiece.. Shedden was playing the game with sure understanding of the mechanics. He had quietly moved into the lead.

In the third hand Chitwood really stepped up play and was sinking ships at an astounding rate, before his demise he had scored over 40 points in destroyed battleships. However, his suddenly high visibility drew attention away from Shedden and a flurry of attacks sank all his ships reducing his score to 0 and knocking him out of the round. Shedden continued a spirited defense as Raszewski, Mestre and Mirk tried to knock him out of the lead. Shedden knew he had fallen behind Raszewski and timed his moment perfectly on his last turn launching a destroyer attack that sank a 7-point dreadnought but missed the second battleship. In the end the final score was Rszewski 35, Shedden 33, Mestre 28, Mirk 24, Chitwood and Fedin 11 each.

 GM      Jeff Billings  [1st Year]   NA
   NA   NA

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