up front

Updated 11/26/2008

2008 WBC Report   

 2009 Status: pending 2009 GM commitment

Ed Kendrick, UK

2008 Champion

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Event History
1991

  
Mark Cohen

  
44
1992

  
Maria Hawthorne

  
43
1993

  
Bruce Young

  
53
1994

  
Bruce Young

  
53
1995

  
Herbert Gratz

  
48
1996

  
William Edwards

  
46
1997

  
John Emery

  
42
1998

  
John Emery

  
55
1999

  
Larry Davidson

  
42
2000

  
John Emery

  
34
2001

  
Bruce Wigdor

  
39
2002

  
John Emery

  
50
2003 

  
Ray Stakenas II

  
38
2004 

  
John Emery     30
2005

  
Bruce Young     33
2006

  
Paul Wright     30
2007

  
Ray Stakenas II     27
2008 

  
Ed Kendrick     22

PBeM Event History
2000    Jeff Matthews      32
2003     Jeff Matthews     24

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  John Emery         SC    08    158
  2.  Bruce Young        SC    07    141
  3.  Ray Stakenas II    MI    07    106
  4.  Bruce Wigdor       NJ    07     68
  5.  Ray Stakenas Sr    MI    08     46
  6.  Larry Davidson     CA    02     46
  7.  Ed Kendrick        UK    08     45
  8.  Paul Wright        PA    06     40
  9.  Jeff Matthews      CA    04     30
 10.  Bari Herman        NJ    04     26
 11.  Bill Edwards       VA    05     24
 12.  Stefan Hess        NY    01     24
 13.  George Young       VT    06     18
 14.  Ralph Gleaton      SC    08     18
 15.  Herbert Gratz    Austria 07     16
 16.  Wade Fowble        MD    06     16
 17.  David Wong         NJ    05     16
 18.  Lance Ribeiro      NH    05     16
 19.  Ken Katano         MD    01     16
 20.  Richard Irving     CA    08     12
 21.  Mike Stachowski    NY    03     12
 22.  Jeff Paull         OH    00     12
 23.  Dale Martin        MI    04     10
 24.  Michael Johnson    MA    03      9
 25.  Nick Vlahos        IL    00      9
 26.  Erick Young        SC    01      8
 27.  Andrew Maly        MD    08      6
 28.  Scott Russell      MI    00      6
 29.  Alan Arvold        IL    00      3
 30.  Don Greenwood      MD    00      3
 31.  Frank Arndt        MD    99      3
 32.  Brian Carr         VA    04      2
 33.  Brian Devitt       CA    00      2
 34.  Robert Mull        CO    00      1

2008 Laurelists                                             Repeating Laurelists:

Ralph Gleaton, SC
2nd

Richard Irving, CA
3rd

Ray Stakenas, WI
4th

Andrew Maly, MD
5th

John Emery, SC
6th


Past Winners

'91: Mark Cohen, NJ
'92: Maria Hawthorne, VA

Bruce Young, SC
1993-1994, 2005

Herbert Gratz, AUS
1995

Bill Edwards, VA
1996

John Emery, SC
'97-'98, '00, '02, '04

Larry Davidson, CA
1999

Bruce Wigdor, NJ
2001

Ray Stakenas Jr, MI
2003, 2007

Paul Wright, PA
2006

Ed Kendrick, UK
2008


The Battle of the Youngs: Bruce and George.

GM Jim Burnett oversees his surprise finalists.

Eight Rounds of Glory ...

Work assignments kept several of the faithful away this year and the field shrunk to 22 intrepid squad leaders.  Even the two previous winners were unable to defend their "wood" this year.  The field was tough; as it has gotten down to the really serious players so there are few easy wins to be had these days.

Five previous champions did manage to return to try to recapture past glory.  There was no repetition of the virtual sweep by those past winners in last year's tournament, however.  All of them suffered at least one defeat in the opening five Swiss rounds as Andrew Maly was the lone player to post a 5-0 score.  Two previous winners, Bill Edwards and Bruce Young, came in at 3-2 but were eliminated from the elimination portion by the strength of schedule tie breaker.

Past champs John Emery, Herbert Gratz, and Bruce Wigdor did manage to reach the elimination round. However, their royal lineage did them no good. In a swift turn of the cards, they and Andrew were eliminated in the quarter-finals to quickly ensure a new champion would be admitted to the club in 2008.  Ralph Gleaton, Richard Irving, Ed Kendrick, and Ray Stakenas all had impressive wins against obviously tough competition to continue.  In those semi-finals, the players in both games chose scenario "F", "The Infantry's Iron Fist" to attempt to advance to the Final.  Both Ralph's defending and Ed's attacking Germans were successful in defeating their Russian opponents.  Richard and Ray opted to let strength of schedule decide third place.

The players chose Scenario "L", "Outpost Line", with Ed's Americans attacking Ralph's Germans.  The game started with some small exchange of fire to no apparent effect and then in a couple of swift moves, Ed managed to establish his M-20 in a flanking position against Ralph's main group.  Ralph suddenly ran out of both Fire cards to attempt a response with his Mortar and Move cards to cancel the flank and with a few swift shots, Ed reduced the flanked squad to cap a victory.  It only took a little over half a deck -- one of the fastest finishes to a Final ever.  Ralph later said that he just made an error due to the pressure of playing all day and thought that Ed's AFV had a gun (per the previous scenario he had played) rather than the large MG.  It did demonstrate the stamina requirements that Up Front players have with eight matches over the course of one day.  Ed is a deserving champion and will take the plaque across the pond to the UK with pride. 

We look forward to next year and hope that all our winners and the rest of our cadre will be joined by some new blood for another session of Up Front.

 GM      Jim Burnett  3rd Year]   NA
   jimallene@comcast.net   NA

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