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For such a quick playing, multi-player
game, Web of Power has been slow to build an appreciative
audience and owes its return thus far to the repeated affections
of a sponsor. |
With a 40-minute playng time for each
game, the entire five-round tournament takes only about three
hours making it an obvious candidate for Continuous - as opposed
to Scheduled - rounds. |
Quick Diplomacy
20 entrants competed in the fourth rendition of this event
- including such notables as the defending champion (Jay Fox)
and runner-up (Matt Calkins).
The tournament maintained the same format - consisting of
four preliinary games with points assigned for each finish (5-4-3-2-1
for five players, 5-4-2-1 for four players and 5-3-1 for three
players). After the four rounds, the four best scores would move
on to the Final game.
In the first game, Alan Elkner and Bruce Rae had a dead-heat
- both of them scoring 44 points, using the same number of game
pieces - giving them both first place points. Joining them as
winners were Tom Browne, Brad Sherwood and Ted Simmons.
In the second game, this group was joined by Matt Calkins,
Laurel Stokes and Tom DeMarco, while only Tom Browne managed
a second victory giving him the tournament lead.
In game 3, the defending champion notched his first victory
of the tournament, while Matt Calkins and Bruce Rae came through
with their second victories to challenge for the overall lead,
but Tom Browne managed a third victory to keep the top position.
By the fourth game, attrition had taken its toll and the tournament
was reduced to just three games. Alan Elkner scored his second
victory while Bruce Rae managed his third victory in four tries,
but still could not catch GM Tom Browne, who accomplished a perfect
score by winning all four preliminary games and was threatening
to pull a Coussis and win his won event.
After the first round, it was obvious that winning games was
the key to moving on to the Final - as the four finalists were
the only people to record multiple wins in the first round. Following
Browne's perfect score of 20, was Bruce Rae twith 17 points,
Alan Elkner with 16, and Matt Calkins with15. Calkins thus returned
to the Final for the second consecutive year and he did so at
the expense of Jay Fox whose 15 points were insufficient to advance
as they were obtained with only one win to Calkins' two ... thus
ending Fox's title defense. Brad Sherwood gained sixth place
laurels with a total of 14 points.
In the preliminaries, the advisor/alliance strategy was clearly
the preferred path to victory with ten of the 16 victories having
had a significant part of their score come from alliance points
in the final round. Cloister chains were few and far between
in the tournament with Matt Calkins having managed to score seven
points in chains in one game - the highest total in the tournament.
For the Final, the random seating resulted in Alan Elkner
moving first, followed by Tom Browne, Bruce Rae and Matt Calkins
getting the last position - and the final play at the end of
the game.
The first scoring round showed Matt with an early lead in
a close game with 12 points, while Alan had 10, Tom 9 and Bruce
8. But this lead was deceptive as Alan and Tom had both shown
an early focus on placing advisors, including a fight for the
all important Frankreich region.
Alan managed to hold the advisor control of Frankreich, but
as the second round continued, Tom managed to get shared advisor
control in a number of key surrounding countries such as Aragon,
England and Italy while keeping Alan out of a number of them.
It was looking to be a very close game as Matt continued to opt
for his cloister strategy, while letting Alan and Tom duel for
advisors.
The turning point came when Alan placed a fourth cloister
in Frankreich to secure his first place cloister points in the
region. But this opened up the advisors, allowing Tom to tie
him for control in that crucial region.
After the second cloister scoring, the scores were tight with
Matt leading at 37, Bruce at 32, Alan at 31, and Tom at 28. All
of the players had played a defensive game, not allowing any
chains to be formed. Alan comfortably moved ahead of Matt in
the advisor phase - outscoring him 13 to 4. But Tom's ability
to get that shared control in Frankreich doubled the alliances
he could score for a total of eight of the fifteen possible alliances
for an impressive 46 points boosting his total to 74 and to his
fifth straight victory by a decided margin.
Final scores:
Tom Browne 74
Alan Elkner 44
Matt Calkins 41
Bruce Rae 37
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Thomas Browne [1st Year]
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