santa fe rails [Updated October 2007]  

	2007 WBC Report       2008 Status: pending December Membership Trial Vote
Grant LaDue, NY 2007 Champion Offsite links:	Event History 2003    Andy Lewis     28 2004    Tom Stokes     22 2005    Bill Peeck     23 2006    Bob Wicks     36 2007    Grant LaDue     38	Laurels Rank Name From Last Total 1. Rob Kircher RI 07 44 2. Bill Peeck NY 06 28 3. Grant LeDue NY 07 20 4. Bob Wicks CT 06 20 5. Tom Stokes NJ 04 20 6. Andy Lewis DE 03 20 7. Tom DeMarco NJ 04 18 8. Chris Palermo NY 07 14 9. Raphael Lehrer MD 07 12 10. Jeff Bakalchuk NY 03 12 11. Tom Saal MI 05 10 12. Doug Smith PA 04 8 13. Stan Hilinski MD 06 6 14. Patrick Mirk FL 05 6 15. Jeffrey Senley PA 07 4 16. Mike Backstrom MN 06 4 17. Karl Musser MD 03 4 18. Paul Rubin MA 07 2 19. Roger Whitney FL 06 2 20. Rob Winslow NY 05 2 21. Donna Balkan ON 04 2 22. Lee Presser NY 03 2
2007 Laurelists Raphael Lehrer, MD 2nd Rob Kircher, RI 3rd Chris Palermo, NY 4th Jeff Senley, PA 5th Paul Rubin, MA 6th Past Winners Andy Lewis,DE 2002 Tom Stokes, NJ 2003-2004 Bill Peeck, NY 2005 Bob Wicks, CT 2006   Although its growth is small,  Santa Fe Rails attendance is trending in the right direction with its fourth straight increase. Most events lose attendance over time.  The short playing time makes this game an ideal candidate for weekend play where it could attract more players, but at the cost of conflicts with other events' Finals. San Francisco or Bust ... 2007 was the best attended WBC and perhaps not coincidentally the biggest field for this event with 11 preliminary and three Semi-final games bringing us very close to Century status for the first time.      In the heats, Paul Hakken had a high score of 178 in the five-player games while Phil White scored 203 in a four-player games. Chris Palermo won a shortened game with only 78 points to advance. Rob Winslow proved you do not need cash to win, collecting only $6 in his victory. Raphael Lehrer and John Shaheen took the money honors -- topping out with $68 each. Bill Peeck collected the most on 7-pt cites with 11 connections. Grant LaDue ran 13 trains into 6-pt cities. Bill Burch and Jeff Senley both made 15 connections with 5- and 4-pt cities.       Semi #1 Rob Kircher   52 cash + 136 cities(12) = 188 Grant LaDue   39 cash + 140 cities(12) = 179 Donna Balkan  29 cash + 148 cities(12) = 177 Mike Horn     30 cash + 120 cities(12) = 150   Semi #2 Chris Palermo 57 cash + 135 cities(11) = 192 Paul Rubin    29 cash + 134 cities(12) = 163 Tom Stokes    26 cash + 135 cities(13) = 161 Rob Winslow   36 cash + 108 cities(12) = 144   Semi #3 Raphael Lehler 58 cash+ 102 cities(9) = 160 Jeff Senley   41 cash + 102 cities(10) = 143 Virginia Colin 32 cash+ 107 cities(10) = 139 Bob Wicks     24 cash + 113 cities(10) = 137 Although three past champions were in attendance, none got past the semis. In fact, only two former laurelists made it to the final round.  The Final proved to be the shortest one on record, six turns. Even in those few turns, there were a few huge cash payoffs. Rob held onto a 2X card in Turn 2 to connect Kansas Pacific into Denver to collect 12. Looking for a long game, Rob set up Grant in Turn 5 to collect 16 for Sacramento and San Francisco with the Santa Fe train. Chris also was looking for a long game with city cards Los Angeles and San Diego in play. Raphael, thinking he might have the game won with the most cash, decided to dead-end the Southern Pacific into Mexico to end the game. But victory was decided by Grant running two trains early into Casper and having the second most in cash.   Final Scores: Grant LaDue    33 cash + 20 cities(4) = 53 Raphael Lahler 41 cash + 10 cities(2) = 51 Rob Kircher    25 cash + 18 cities(5) = 43 Chris Palermo  10 cash + 20 cities(3) = 39
GM      Rob Kircher  [4th Year]   3595 Post Rd, Apt 516, Warwick, RI 02886      rhk_1@yahoo.com   NA