yspahan 

Updated 11/30/2008

2008 WBC Report  

 2009 Status: pending December Membership Trial Vote

Nate Hoam, OH

2008 Champion

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Event History
2008    Nate Hoam     42
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Nate Hoam          OH    08     20
  2.  JR Tracy           NY    08     12
  3.  Scot Palenshus     OH    08      8
  4.  Chris Trimmer      TX    08      6
  5.  Paul Bean          MA    08      4
  6.  Matt Peterson      MN    08      2
2008 Laurelists

JR Tracy, NY
2nd

Scot Palenshus, OH
3rd

Chris Trimmer, TX
4th

Paul Bean, MA
5th

Matt Peterson, MN
6th


Jeff Mullet, Kevin Wojtasczyk, Andy Latto and Cally Perry

Scot Palenshus and Nate Hoam ponder their options in the Final.

A Shortage of Camels

The first WBC Yspahan tournament went very smoothly. I was hoping for a few more boards in the mulligan round Tuesday night, but the players that participated had a great time.

In fact, one table had the players laughing so hard, some of them were crying. That table was manned by Chris Trimmer, Chris Gnech, Sean Vessey and Arthur Field. As most WBCers know, it's not often Arthur does badly in any game. But this particular game Arthur's luck was so horrible, the other players couldn't stop laughing at every bad die roll and every useless card draw, including Arthur himself. By the end of the game, the winner Chris, nearly lapped the last place Arthur in victory points.

After the first round and semi-finals concluded, the Final table included Chris Trimmer (who had already won his team game), J.R. Tracy of ASL fame, Nate Hoam and his roomate, first time WBC attendee Scott Palenshus.

Something very odd happened in the first "week" (round) of the game that I have never seen. In the seven "days" (turns), not one person rolled more than one camel. This made it nearly impossible to buy any buildings the first round. In fact, J.R. was unable to erect a single building the entire first turn. And the only way for the others to build was through card play. Scott built one with the card that lets you build with only gold and no camels. Chris and Nate were able to build one with the card that let you convert gold to camels and vice versa.

At the end of Round 1, Chris had 7 points, J.R. 11, Nate 16 and Scott led with 17 points.

The next round, everyone started rolling plenty of camels and the game got back to normal. Chris was making a comeback of sorts, but he was using the same strategy that got him to the Final and it just wasn't working quite as well. Chris likes to set himself up to draw lots of cards, but the dice weren't cooperating and he was having to spend his entire turn just drawing a card. And the card didn't seem to help him much. J.R. struggled a littile for the second straight turn. And Nate and Scott enjoyed another good round.

At the end of Round 2, J.R. had 28 points, Chris 32, Scott 37 and Nate jumped in front with 45.

The final round, Chris continued to have below average luck with the dice and the cards. Scott began to stall and had trouble with his last buildings. Nate continued his steady, strong play. J.R. almost had a miraculous come from behind victory. J.R. sand-bagged a few cards for some very clever points at the end. Alas, he was just too far back to pull out the win.

The final score was Nate 78, JR 76, Scott 72 and Chris 66.

It was a very enjoyable tournament and a fun, fast-paced Final. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I hope Yspahan will return to the WBC in 2009. Thanks to everone who played and those that helped out to make it easy on me.

 GM      Jeff Mullet(1st Year)  NA  
    jamullet@frognet.net   NA

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