Defending champion Greg Thatcher looked spiffy in his El Grande Centurion shirt but was stopped in the Final.	The Finalists at work as GM Rob Flowers (with clipboard) records the Final for posterity.

It has been ten years since El Grande made its appearance at the WBC, and the event has yet to see a repeat champion. Would this be the year?

The attendance appears to have settled down to a core group of players who are not only experienced with the game, but just love to play. Over a quarter of the field played in at least two of the three heats. Three players attended all three heats, including David Burkey who scored a win in the last one to advance. 19 winners meant that six alternates would also get to advance to the semi-finals, and for the first time since I have run the event, there were no dropouts for the semi-final slots.

The final table had the two previous champs, Robb Effinger and Greg Thatcher, as well as Geoff Pounder, who had placed third in 2005. Marc Berenbach had never actually laureled in the event before but he was a frequent tenant in the semi-finals. Tim Mossman was a relative newcomer, but advanced to the semis with the strongest record of 1st and 2nd place finishes in the first two heats.

Right off the bat, Greg used the King action to create a favorable situation for Geoff to score the 6's and 7's. Geoff took the score, putting him at 14 points and Greg at 13, with the rest trailing behind. In Turn 2, Tim used a Score the 5's card to catch up to them, while Robb and Marc still trailed. Robb placed the 8/4/0 mobile scoreboard on Greg's home territory (Valencia), where he was already tied with Robb with one caballero each.

During the first scoring round, everyone avoided Valencia when placing their pieces from the Castillo. Only Marc and Robb succeeded in scoring their Grandes. Greg had been beat on a bit, but still scored well enough to place him in first with 36 points. Robb was in second with 31, and the others were within 5 points of him.

In Turn 4, Tim scored New Castile, putting both Tim and Geoff within three points of the lead; Marc still trailed by nine. Turn 5 saw Tim execute the "Dial-a-Score" card, which helped Tim somewhat but helped Greg a lot more. Greg again opened his lead to five points over Robb, while the overall spread was now 12 points.

Meanwhile, Geoff had been strengthening his board position while other players were attacking the leaders. When it came to the second round of scoring, Geoff scored in seven of the ten regions (including a third in the Castillo) and was the only player to get points for his Grande, while Greg only scored in three regions and Robb in four. Geoff tied Greg for the lead at 60, although the players were all within four points.

In Turn 7, Geoff spent his 13 to grab a scoring card, adding eight points to his score while not helping Greg. Marc was a beneficiary, getting four points to barely put him into second. Midway though Turn 8, Geoff picked up a Veto card, which gave him tremendous leverage to protect his lead throughout the rest of the game. He used this to good effect in Turn 9, influencing Tim's move of the King, which finally went to New Castile to protect Tim's first place there. Unfortunately, this created a situation where Geoff was able to score Old Castile once again, getting him another eight points and putting him 11 ahead. Geoff had the lowest scoring in the third scoring round, but his lead was too much to overcome.

Unlike the previous two years, scoring cards did not play a dominant role. In fact, five scoring cards were taken by players and NOT executed. Still, Geoff managed to score about 10 points more than anyone else through scoring cards. He also managed to get points from his Grande five times, while no one else did the trick more than twice.

This year we played with a new rule whereby partial Vetoes of actions are not allowed. This simplified the rule and speeded up games. Next year I think I'll revisit the issue with the various differently worded cards in the 2 stack regarding "fellow players" versus "each player", to help reduce questions on that issue.

As with last year, I have a play by play record of the Final in Excel format, should anyone be interested.