bitter woods  

Updated 11/29/2008

2008 WBC Report    

 2009 Status: pending 2009 GM commitment

Tom Gregorio, PA

2007-08 Champion

Links

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WBC Event History
1999    Phil Evans     19
2000    Randy Heller     16
2001    Rich Ogata     14
2002    Tom Gregorio     16
2003    Bob Ryan     17
2004    Bob Ryan     20
2005    Randy Heller     20
2006    Steve Likevich     21
2007    Tom Gregorio     21
2008    Tom Gregorio     22

PBeM Event History
2000    Randy Heller     20
2001    Bob Ryan     27
2002    Tom Gregorio     25
2005    Phil Evans     27
2008    Bruno Sinigaglio     32
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Randy Heller       NH    08    186
  2.  Tom Gregorio       PA    08    151
  3.  Bob Ryan           MI    05    116
  4.  Phil Evans         VA    05     94
  5.  Forrest Pafenberg  VA    08     57
  6.  Steve Likevich     OH    08     57
  7.  Bruno Sinigaglio   AK    08     54
  8.  Mike Mitchell      GA    02     38
  9.  John Grant Jr      CT    01     35
 10.  Bill Morse         VA    08     30
 11.  Rich Ogata         VA    01     30
 12.  Mike Pacheco       CA    05     24
 13.  Buddy Sinigaglio   CO    08     18
 14.  Dan Tierney        CA    05     18
 15.  Doug James         NC    06     15
 16.  Marty Musella      VA    08     15
 17.  John Popiden       CA    04      9
 18.  Nick Frydas        UK    03      9
 19.  Jim Tracy          OH    05      7
 20.  Jeff Lange         APO   08      6
 21.  Ed Witkowski       VA    07      6
 22.  Jeff Hacker        PA    05      6
 23.  Larry Hollern      TX    08      3
 24.  Frank Sinigaglio   NJ    08      3
 25.  Johnny Hasay       PA    07      3
 26.  Lance Roberts      AK    05      3
 27.  Rob Mull           CO    02      3
 28.  Chris Roginsky     PA    01      3
 29.  Paul Koenig        CA    00      3
 30.  Rob Beyma          MD    02      2
  

2008 Laurelists                                             Repeating Laurelists 

Randy Heller, NH
2nd

Forrest Pafenberg, VA
3rd

Bill Morse, VA
4th

Marty Musella, VA
5th

Larry Hollern, TX
6th


Past Winners

Phil Evans, VA
1999

Randy Heller, MD
2000, 2005

Rich Ogata, VA
2001

Tom Gregorio, PA
2002, 2007-08

Bob Ryan, MI
2003-04

Steve Likevich, OH
2006
       

GM Ed Witkowski (left) and Terry Hollern trade shots.

 Tom Gregorio (right) and designer Randy Heller contest the Final.

Designer Denied ...

Attention All Riders! Please keep hands and feet inside your Sherman or Panther at all times! Oh, wait a minute this wasn't the "Wild Ride Though the Bitter Woods" roller coaster, it was the Deluxe Bitter Woods (DBW) Tournament at WBC 2008. This year's tournament challenged 22 players in 26 matches!! An awesome range of grizzled champions to new players rolled their panzers and zeroed in that great American artillery. So did the Americans win more or did the nasty Germans? Blammmm, 13 American victories and 13 German, an even split.

We started with the Mulligan Round on Tuesday evening.18 Bitter Woodsians for the Mulligan!! This turnout was a very big surprise for me! The round was determined by random draw. We had three new players that evening, Bob Bassin, Terry Cotter and John Grasse dove in head first. As fate would have it, I was matched against Charlie Drozd, my Mulligan opponent from last year. We played the same sides as last year too! Some great match-ups: former champion and DBW designer Randy Heller defeated teammate Forrest Paffenberg; 2006 champion Steve Likevich was defeated by Mike Mitchell! The last Mulligan match finished was Charlie's and my match, going until the last turn, with better results for me. Time to rest for a busy day on Wednesday.

Round 1 started at 10am with defending champion Tom Gregorio against Johnny Hasay. Jeff and Kevin Hacker returned to the tournament, and drew each other in the first round. That caused a redraw, can't have them come to an annual tournament and play each other! Most matches finished at a good pace. However, one had to be adjudicated, Tom and Johnny's. The GM and assistant GMs examined the situation and even conducted a dump destruction die roll. In the end, Tom was victorious. Oh, by the way, Tom forgot about bridge demos!!

Round was played with a few mulligan round winners absent and a number of byes offered to former champions and top rated players so that there would be eight players in the quarter-finals. Ah, the joys of GMing. This round had Larry Hollern, this year's wildcard, surging past Mike Mitchell. John Popiden squelched Kevin Hacker's upward climb. I unfortunately didn't take advantage of an open road to Trois Ponts during the Peiper Breakout and consequently didn't apply pressure in the "right areas" where it would have made a difference, Bob Ryan was a happy winner as the American player. Marty Musella won by forfeit, Terry Cotter was very delayed in arriving due to a personal issue.

Thursday morning dawned on the quarter-finals. Randy's solid American defense stalled Larry's Germans, resulting in an American victory. John Popiden's Americans were no match for Forrest's surging Germans. Marty and Tom's game had some wild moments. "One critical early point was a 17PM German assault in the center at 5-1 (-2) that had a 1/3 chance of getting a D4 result that would have allowed him to send a lurking Reserve unit into an undefended Parkers Crossroads or Noville." Marty didn't get the roll and Tom's Americans firmed up another victory. Bill (Americans) and Bob's game had what Bob states as "what all agreed was to have been the 'worst ever' German opening in the recorded history of the game against Bill". I was checking on games and I thought they had just started but it was the 17th and Bob was still fighting across the Our River! Chalk up another for Bill and the Americans! One thing that is "good" being eliminated early is that you can watch some great games being played. The Semis were two such games.

A successful Heller Skorzeny Sneak along the Malmedy to Eupen road landed the FJ150 in Eupen. However, Eupen was then surrounded with the FJ150 and Dietrich in it. Next to Eupen was a surrounded 7 Armor regiment. Morse brought in the whole 30ID and attacked but forgot to allocate his air, Randy used his. A D1 resulted and a slugfest started. During one of Randy's attacks against the 7th armor unit Randy didn't notice a range of 5 on an artillery unit, oops! Numerous attacks took place on both sides with ENG or CA results, all deadlocked! Randy was eventually able to crush the Americans and was victorious. Forrest and Tom also had an exciting game. Forrest scrambled to stop Tom's Germans. On the 18 AM turn he left some holes near Bastogne, the Germans had Parker's Crossroads and Tom was able build a bridge leading to an advance into Eupen. Victory for the Germans and Tom.

In the Final, Tom was able to perform extremely well as the American player. There were a few mis-steps on Randy's part which helped Tom along. The 6-turn scenario was being played and Randy just wasn't able to crack the American defenses. Tom was victorious once again! The real big question, will he do it again next year! A big Thank You to all that joined in the fun. I hope to be GM next year. A few goals: 1. Have 25 or more players. 2. All electronic record keeping and 3. WIN WIN! WIN!


 SINIGAGLIO WINS 2006 BITTER WOODS PBeM TITLE: The fifth BPA Bitter Woods PBeM tournament got underway on Dec. 16, 2006 to commemorate the battle with 32 players and has ended five rounds later in 2008 with Bruno Sinigaglio's GI's defeating son Buddy's Germans to claim his first title. The Americans won 20 of the 31 games played, including six of the last seven. Other laurelists in order were Bill Morse, Steve Likevich, Jeff Lange and Frank Sinigaglio.
 GM      Ed Witkowski  [1st Year]  NA
    edwski@comcast.net   NA

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