Brad Sherwood seems content with his hand.	Jason Ley and Keith Levy ponder their next acquisition.

As an ex-winner and frequent player of Union Pacific, I got caught in Don Greenwood's search for volunteers. He asked me to GM Union Pacific at the 11th hour. Actually, it was more like the 13th hour; the deadline for GM commitments had passed and had I said no, there would not have been an event. Hoping to play Union Pacific, of course I agreed. Naturally, 33 players registered for the event - one more than an even multiple of four. Not wishing to force anyone to play an inferior five-player game, I sat out. So much for my incentive to GM the event. However, this gave me the opportunity to watch various games in play. What a skillful event it was! Eight of the 11 highest AREA-rated UNP players attended including three past champions.

The only decision as GM that I made happened in a game I was fortunate to observe. They were making the final payouts. One player passed the banker two 1000s to get a $5,000 bill for a $3,000 payout. The banker took the $2000, and passed $20,000. The player asked what this was for. The banker said it was the payout for UP stock.The player and I looked confused. The player claimed he did not get the $5,000. The banker and another player said he did. Since I was a witness, I had to rule that the player got the $5,000. It determined the winner of the game.

Due to this experience, I decided to serve as banker in the Final. What an amazingly played game.

I ruled that UNP could not be exchanged until after the initial payout. My reasoning is that with more stock collected in the hand, a player may decide that those stocks could yield a greater return than just dividing UNP evenly four ways. These four finalists did not strictly exchange stock routinely, nor did they lay UNP stocks in unison. As it happened, the UNP payments were still equally divided.

Paul Bolduc and ex-champ Fred Minard tied for first with $125,000 each. They both had the same number of UNP stock, so that could not be used for a tie-breaker. Paul had seven other payouts at the end; Fred had six. Fred graciously suggested that the number of payouts be the final tie-breaker. So, I ruled accordingly.

It goes without saying that Fred Minard receives my nod for the Sportsmanship Award. It should also go without saying that someone needs to step up to GM this event next year or you'll lose it.