axis & allies   

Updated 12/1/2008

2008 WBC Report     

 2009 Status: pending 2009 GM commitment

Kevin Keller, MD

2008 Champion

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Event History
1999    Kevin Keller     43
2000    Tim Rothenhoefer     43
2001    Patrick Mirk     41
2002    Phil Rennert     50
2003    Philip Shea     34
2004     Philip Shea     31
2005    Charles Michalek     19
2006    Joe Powell     28
2007     Ty Hansen     22
2008     Kevin Keller     17 
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Philip Shea        VA    07    188
  2.  Kevin Keller       MD    08    162
  3.  Joe Powell         VA    08    156
  4.  Phil Rennert       MD    04     96
  5.  Pat Mirk           FL    08     99
  6.  Tim Rothenhoefer   MD    07     68
  7.  Brian Fitzpatrick  VA    03     54
  8.  Ty Hansen          DC    08     52
  9.  Charles Michalek   NV    05     40
 10.  Andrew Murphy      PA    07     36
 11.  Jeff King          ME    02     36
 12.  Alfred Wong        IL    01     30
 13.  Greg Berry         VA    04     24
 14.  Don Tatum          MD    02     24
 15.  Phil Rollins       ME    00     24
 16.  Matt Tolman        UT    08     22
 17.  John Sharp III     FL    00     18
 18.  Mike Terrana       GA    99     18
 19.  James D. Long      PA    06     12
 20.  Eric Lind          CA    03     12
 21.  Joe Collinson      MD    01     12
 22.  Barry Shoults      MI    99     12
 23.  Richard Beyma      MD    99      9
 24.  James H. Long      PA    05      8
 25.  David Rynkowski    NY    04      6
 26.  Russell Vane       VA    03      6
 27.  David Huss         NY    01      6
 28.  John Koski         MD    00      6
 29.  Rich Curtin        NY    99      6
 30.  Dan Pasaric        NY    08      3
 31.  Kevin McCarthy     OH    99      3

2008 Laurelists                                           Repeating Laurelists 

Matt Tolman, UT
2nd

Ty Hansen, DC
3rd

Patrick Mirk, FL
4th

Joseph Powell, VA
5th

Dan Pasaric, NY
6th


Past Winners

Kevin Keller, MD
1999, 2008

Tim Rothenhoefer, MD
2000

Patrick Mirk, FL
2001

Phil Rennert, MD
2002

Philip Shea, VA
2003-04

Charles Michaleks, NV
2005

Joe Powell, VA
2006

Ty Hansen, DC
2007
   

Kevin Keller (left) meets Matt Tolman in the Final as 5th place laurelist Joe Powell spectates.

The Final Four participants pose beneath the Axis & Allies banner before beginning the Single Elimination rounds.

Keller takes Second Title ...

Day 1-
The first day saw 17 games played over the course of three rounds. With quality players matching up in the second and third rounds, consistent play was the watchword for all who wanted to advance to Single Elimination play the following day. A few of the event newcomers that won a first round match came to see that their Axis & Allies "education" wasn't complete until they had the pleasure of playing some of the tournament veterans.

The third round pitted six combatants vying for the four spots in the semi-final round. Matt Tolman and Dan Pasaric joined previous event champs Patrick Mirk, Kevin Keller, Joe Powell, and Ty Hansen in the fight to play another day. Actually, after the 2nd round of play, the fifth-ranked player Bob Starr (who had a very good chance to advance) decided to drop out of the tournament, reducing the possible contenders to the aforementioned six. This situation highlights the positives of the VT scoring system. It allows one to lose a game, albeit a close loss, and still have a good chance to advance.

In the Round 3 games, Kevin Keller (1-1) needed to win against Matt Tolman (2-0) to continue. He did so in what would be a foreshadowing of events to come. His buddy Joe Powell (1-1) won his third round match but also needed Kevin to lose in order to secure his place in the final four. Joe's fate was sealed in the second round by a bad loss at the hands of defending champ Ty Hansen. In the last determining game, Patrick Mirk handled Ty to gain the top seed for the SE rounds.

During the first day, during each round, I draw out names of event participants and they receive prizes that were either donated by myself or by the Table Tactics game company. Al Hurda won the Revised A&A, while Matt Tolman and Ty Hansen each received a new copy of A&A Guadalcanal. Receiving copies of Table Tactics were Michael Corrigan, Dan Pasaric and Marc Murphy.

The following chart is the player rankings based on the games from the first day's preliminary rounds:

 Player Rank Won-Loss TVTs IPC % >
1. Patrick Mirk 3-0 47 52.58929
2. Matt Tolman 2-1 48 73.48214
3. Ty Hansen 2-1 45 34.82143
4. Kevin Keller 2-1 44 54.40476
5. Joe Powell 2-1 39 22.85714
6. Dan Pasaric 1-2 27 -44.8214
7.Marc Murphy 2-0 31 38.54167
8. Bob Starr 1-1 24 0.267857
9. Alex Gregorio 1-1 24 0
10. Steve Cole 1-1 23 -2.08333
11. Chris Goodman 0-2 17 -72.8571
12. Peter Corrigan 0-1 9 -8.33333
13. Angus McDonald 0-1 8 -19.7917
14. Colum McCurdy 0-1 6 -38.5714
15. Adam Kozina 0-1 5 -29.1667
16. Michael Corrigan 0-1 5 -31.25
17. Al Hurda 0-1 5 -42.8571

The top four players (based on the rankings above) advanced to the Single Elimination rounds of the second day.

Day 2-
After the Preliminary dust settled, the matchups for the semis were set. #1 seed Patrick Mirk (3-0) drew #4 seed Kevin Keller (2-1) while #2 seed Matt Tolman (2-1) opposed #3 seed Ty Hansen (2-1). Early German defeats in the Mediterranean theater forced Kevin (Axis) to gamble on a "Sea Lion" attack upon the UK Home Isles in Turn 2. Germany not only seized England with just one armor unit left, but also was able to withstand a weak UK attempt to retake the homeland. At that point, Patrick conceded.

In the other semi, the Western Allies (Ty) established a pipeline of troops through Norway to help the USSR on the Eastern Front. This move north allowed the Germans free reign in Africa. The US (Chinese troops) was actually able to take French Indochina because of the Japanese focus on India. Bad dice for the Allies in Karelia S.S.R. caused the pipeline of troops to be seriously interrupted. The door was then opened for a German armor thrust to Moscow that succeeded. The Germans also took the Caucasus on the same turn. The UK then liberated Moscow from the clutches of the invaders.

In the Pacific, the Japanese finally initiated (and prevailed in) a large naval battle after the US had moved forward from Hawaii to take Wake Island. The Soviet recaptured the Caucasus, stabilizing the Eastern Front, but the Japanese started to finally push up through the China corridor, taking the center Allied VTs, and solidified the Axis' (Matt) winning position.

The victories by Kevin and Matt set up a Final rematch of their third round encounter. Kevin won the first match as the Axis and opted for the Allies this time.

Final-
The first round saw early dead zoning of territories on the Eastern Front by the Germans and Soviets. The Japanese sent fleet assets down to Borneo to swat an early UK incursion. The UK and US massed their Atlantic fleets off of Algeria in sea zone 12 and the US built an IC in Sinkiang.

The USSR was active in the Soviet Far East and in China, clearly a concerted effort to support the US IC build. With the German Mediterranean fleet moving into sea zone 13, along with the majority of the Luftwaffe based in Western Europe, the UK was forced to attack with air and naval forces of its own.

The USSR started slowly pushing westward on the Eastern Front while the WA massed their combined fleet in sea zone 7.

The Japanese reclaimed their Asian mainland holdings of Manchuria and Kwangtung from the Soviets. They had however lost French Indochina to US armor marauding forth from the Sinkiang IC.

The German Baltic Fleet dashed out to sea zone 3, on Turn 3, while the WA fleet was in the Western Mediterranean. That set up a Turn 4, trans-Atlantic lunge to take Eastern Canada. In counter to that, the UK fleet entered the Baltic and took Eastern Europe, cutting off a large German force in Karelia S.S.R.

Japan reinforced Manchuria but by doing so lost Kwangtung to the advancing US armor. The US Pacific fleet moved south to Australia putting it in a position to threaten the Indonesian VTs.

The USSR consolidated its Eastern Front forces in the West Russia territory thus setting up a massive battle when the Germans in Karelia decided to attack it. The Germans fell back after having taken the worst of that attack but they do clear out the UK forces in Eastern Europe in a separate attack.

The Japanese wiped out the rampaging US armor in China and then took India and Buryatia S.S.R. They also set up some blocking ships in the South Pacific to slow the US advance upon their island empire. The US blew through the blocking ships to take New Guinea in force.

The USSR took Ukraine S.S.R., West Russia, and Belorussia, along with the UK grabbing Norway and Eastern Europe. Japan countered by taking a long cruise to capture the Egyptian VT. The US then took the VTs of Borneo and East Indies as the Japanese outer defensive ring crumbles.

In the final round, Soviet armor masses on the doorstep of Berlin and the US pushes up the gut to take the Philippines VT.

Kevin Keller defeated Matt Tolman for the second day in a row to become a two-time champ with a win in each of the A&A editions - Second and Revised.

 Tournament Stats

Axis Wins

Allied Wins
Round 1 

4 (1)

4 (1)
Round 2

2 (1)

3 (0)
Round 3

2 (0)

2 (1)
Semi-final

2 (1)

0 (0)
Final

0 (0)

1 (0)
Total

10 (3)

10 (2)
(*) - The number in parentheses is the number of concession wins that occurred in each instance.

 

Axis

Allies
Average VTs in a Win

16.6

16.1
Average IPCs in a Win

89.8

116.7
Average Rounds in a Win

5.3

6

 Bidding

Axis Wins

Allied Wins

 No Bid

1

3

Axis Bid

2

0

Allied Bid

7

7

Average Bid

2 IPCs

5.5 IPCs

Quality Games-
In what I term "Quality Games" (games that don't end in a concession), these are the applicable stats:

 Tournament Stats

Axis Wins

Allied Wins
Round 1 

3

3
Round 2

1

3
Round 3

2

1
Semi-final

1

0
Final

0

1
Total

7

8

 

Axis

Allies
Average VTs in a Win

15.57

15.38
Average IPCs in a Win

85.43

114.38
Average Rounds in a Win

5.86

6.25

 Bidding

Axis Wins

Allied Wins

 No Bid

1

1

Axis Bid

2

0

Allied Bid

5

7

Average Bid

2 IPCs

5.67 IPCs

As always, I am thankful for the help and support of my assistant GMs, Kevin Keller and Joe Powell. They quietly keep things on an even keel and that helps make the event a pleasant experience for all. I also thank those who participated in the event this year and I hope that all return for more fun next year!

Colum McCurdy battles Ty Hansen in the swiss rounds.

Peter Corrigan takes on Dan Pasaric as Round 1 gets underway.
 GM      Craig Yope  [4th Year]   1313 Mayer Rd, Saint Clair, MI 48079  
    CraigYope@yahoo.com   810-367-3020

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