The Monday evening start attracts players who normally wouldn't be willing to play such a long Euro.	Few games are more esoteric for an American audience than Die Macher's German election theme.

The 2008 Die Macher tournament began with four preliminary games (three 4- and one 5-player) on Monday, followed by a Tuesday morning Final in its now traditional safe haven pre-con slot bracketing the Sampler Showcase. It was an experienced crew with three past champs and nine former laurelists on hand - four of whom would return to the Final. The preliminary results were:

Tom Browne 388, John Weber 326, Nick palmer 297, Barrington Beavis 293

Jim Castonguay 383, Tom McCorry 332, Rod Davidson 327, Steve Bachman 307

Chris Trimmer 332, Tom DeMarco 287, Paul Skrabut 280, Eric Freeman 256

Steve Simmons 435, Greg thatcher 342, Peter Staab 336, Ted Simmons 311, Jason Wagner 307

John Weber, as the second place finisher with the highest percentage of his table's total score, joined the four winners in the Final.

The Final began with four regions of sizes:  40, 46, 36 and 22.  Chris used his starting choices to place three Media Markers, in the first region (40) which gave him Media Control which Chris used to good effect to maximize his Mandate while minimizing the Mandate of the other players.  Chris and Steve formed a coalition to win the first region with Chris getting the maximum Mandate of 40 while Steve got only 9.  Jim and Tom formed a coalition to win the second region with both getting the maximum 46 Mandate.  Coalitions won the regions 3, 4 and 5 with region 5 being size 80, the largest possible.  Chris remained a step ahead of the other players throughout the game.  Chris got his trends up early and by placing grass roots organizations into these regions was able to convert into votes before the region's final tally.  This tactic allowed Chris to reuse his grass roots organizations and to solidify his vote totals in regions before the final tally and before any last minute maneuvers by other players.

The last two regions were size 20 and size 50.  Chris won the size 20 region without a coalition and the last region (which prohibits coalitions) was won by a Short Head by Steve. 

The final standings were: Chris Trimmer 429, Steve Simmons 406, Jim Castonguay 359, Tom Browne 353, John Weber 257

Congratulations to Chris Trimmer for successfully defending his Die Macher title!

Bidding for the right to determine the first player was modest, the highest bid being 12 until the final round, when the winning bid was 111.  Players saved their money to bid for opinion polls with the highest bid (other than in the final round) being 50 and many other bids in the 30's and a few in the 40's.  John Weber's theory was "I took the fat cat money.  I got to spend it somewhere."  For the information of non Die Macher players, money has no value at the end of the game so the final rounds bids are always high as there is no reason not to bid everything.

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 2009 WBC DIE MACHER TOURNEY

I am planning to make Die Macher a Type B event with a TWO HOUR DEMO at 4 PM on Monday followed by the Preliminary Round at 7PM, Monday.  Please tell your friends and gamers who have any interest in Die Macher to attend this DEMO. 

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

Rearrange the first four regions so that the smallest region is FIRST, the second smallest is SECOND and so forth.  Matching or not matching the opinions of the first region is largely a matter of luck in what cards you are dealt in your starting party platform.  This rule change is proposed to minimize the effects of luck in the starting party platforms.  THIS IS A PROPOSED RULE CHANGE.  PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK at the address below. 

Greg Thathcer watches as Jason Wagner commits resources.	Tuesday morning plays host to one of WBC's first Finals.