Although its growth is small,  Santa Fe Rails attendance is trending in the right direction with its fourth straight increase - moving it into the Century for the first time.	Andy: "Six years ago this seemed so much better. Tell me again why I recommended GMT publish this game." Rebecca: "Because you're so much fun to beat."

I would to thank everyone for playing this year and especially those who brought their games. We broke our attendance record again this year. We had five games in both the first and second heats, and six in the third heat. We remain in search of our first two-time champion.

In the Preliminaries, Jeff Senley set a record score of 280 in a 3-player game while collecting 88 in cash. Ken Rothstein had the best score in a 4-player game with 249. In one of the few short games this year Andrea Wicks won her game with only 85 points. Most of the games went the distance. Steve Scott took cash to a new level by collecting 84 and won with a score of 119.

The Semis got off to a rocky start when an alternate was seated only to discover that no alternate was needed when the 16th player was located without a game assigment. Rather than dismiss the alternate, it was decided to continue with an extra player. In the first semi-final game, former champ Bob Wicks crushed the table with four 7-pt city cards to score 77 points. Ken Rothstein scored 89 points in 5 city cards in Semi #2 to earn his way into the Final. Kevin Wojtaszczyk played eight of his ten city cards in Semi #3 as 6 or 7 pt cities to slip by Laurel Stokes.  In Semi #4, Phil edged Steve with the strength of 56 points in 7pt cities.

Semi #1

Bob Wicks        33 cash + 132 cities( 9) = 165

Rob Kircher      40 cash + 106 cities( 9) = 146

Rod Davidson     29 cash + 98 cities( 8) = 127

Chad Gormly      29 cash + 87 cities( 9) = 116

Semi #2

Ken Rothstein    38 cash + 105 cities( 8) = 143

Tom Demarco     32 cash + 96 cities( 8) = 128

Bruce Hodgins    26 cash + 91 cities( 9) = 117

Chris Lefevre    42 cash + 72 cities( 7) = 114

Andrea Wicks    20 cash + 81 cities( 8) = 101

Semi #3

Kevin Wojtaszcyk 38 cash + 117 cities(10) = 155

Laurel Stokes    37 cash + 115 cities(12) = 152

Rob Winslow      40 cash + 104 cities(10) = 144

Andy Lewis      39 cash + 81 cities( 8) = 120

Semi #4

Phillip White   31 cash + 121 cities( ) = 152

Steven Cuyler   44 cash + 105 cities( ) = 149

Mike Backstrom  41 cash + 102 cities( ) = 143

Eve Secunda     27 cash + 109 cities( ) = 136

This year the Final was a far different expeience. The game went the distance in using all the track and cards. In addition to the highest scores in a Final, it also produced the closest finish. There was no runaway cash grabbing. Bob had the most with 46, followed by Kevin 45, Phil 39 and Ken 28.   Phil gained the most city points (187) while Kevin earned 182.  Bob made a strong effort to become our first two-time champ, but Kevin edged out Phil by one point to become our sixth different champion in as many years.  When you analyze the game, the difference was the average points per card played. Kevin received 14 per card while Phil earned 13.4. 

Final Scores:

Kevin Wojtaszcyk 45 cash + 182 cities(13) = 227

Phillip White   39 cash + 187 cities(14) = 226

Bob Wicks       46 cash + 146 cities(12) = 192

Ken Rothstein   28 cash + 132 cities(11) = 160

In the four games I received full trackers, six different cities hit the 20+ point mark with LA and Sacramento hitting the mark three times. When we track cities scoring 15 or more, we added six more cites to the list with Salt Lake City scoring 15+ in all four games. Sacramento, LA, San Francisco, Duluth and Phoenix all hit 12+ in every game.

GM Kircher enjoys a game too.	The finalists plot their rail lines.