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Alhambra
draws well with only two heats - missing triple figures by just
one player. Most events drawing over 100 players use three or
four heats. |
Chalk up another event for the Chairman
of the Board where he's outshined by a family member. Just who
wears the pants in the Gutermuth household anyway? |
Palaces
R Us
We again had 25 tables during the two preliminary heats with
all tables being 5-player games.
The Preliminary results during the heats were as follows:
* Dan Hoffman, the defending champ, won his table despite
the random draw handing some tough competition as he had to overcome
Matt Calkins who was a finalist in 2006 and past champion and
three-time finalist Nate Hoam. Matt came in a close
second which was his best showing this year as he came in last
in the second round at Ken Gutermuth's table. Nate
had a similar fate as he took third in this first round table
and then proceeded to come in a very distant last on his second
round table which was won by Chris Ellis.
* Sam Atabaki, in the first round, and Michael Brown,
in the second, had the privilege of playing 2006 Champion
Mike Mullins and both beat him.
* Meghan Friedman beat Vassili Krykos, the 2007 Champion, in
the first round. Undeterred, Vassili squeaked out
a one-point win against Charles Faella in the second round. "Close,
but no cigar" was the motto for Charles who also come in
second to Chris Greenfeld in his first round game and did not
advance.
* John Lewis and Chris Moffa had the closest finish - requiring
the tie breaker rules to make Lewis the winner.
* Jeff Meyer topped Corey Kim by one point to take his Round
1 game.
* Other close games won by three points went to Lawrence Solomon,
Matt Amitrano, and Carolyn Strock.
* Debbie Gutermuth won her table in the first round to advance
for only the second time since donning the GM duties for this
event.
* Karen Roberts had the highest score in the event with a 151
total. Sean McCulloch had the second highest winning
score overall, with a 137. These were followed by
Jean Francois Gagne at 102, Kevin Wojtaszczyk at 101 and Devon
Miller with100.
* Ed Roberts won his table by building a 19 length wall in the
first heat. Robert Drozd had a similar strategy of
winning his tables by building long (16 length) walls in the
heats. Robert had won in the first round last year
also building a16-length wall.
* Cheryl Meek and Alfred Smith both won their tables, while having
the shortest walls - proving there is more than one path to victory.
With the two preliminary heats complete, we were now ready for
the semi-final.
* Kevin Wojtasczyk won his table, which had the closest game
amongst all players on the same board with the spread from his
score to the last being only eight points. Kevin ended
with a 107 score followed by Edward Roberts 101, Devon Miller
100, and Vassili Kyrkos 99.
* Debbie Gutermuth won her table by only a 4-point difference,
which was the closest victory score between first and second. She
ended with 104 followed by Alfred Smith at 101 and Sam Atabaki
with 100. Defending champ Dan Hoffman brought up the
rear with 90 - ending the defense of his title.
* Carolyn Strock won her table by the largest gap. She
ended with a 129 score to 97by Meghan Friedmann. Last
place was closely fought with Karen Roberts edging Ken Gutermuth
75-74. The widely twidely varying scores were driven by Carolyn's
long wall and purple lead. Otherwise, there was a three-way
tie for the Blue, Red, and White buildings.
* Matt Amitrano won his table by building a long wall early in
the scoring rounds. His wall building helped pull
him ahead as a number of the buildings tied between three or
four players. Matt's closest competition was Thomas
Saal who also built a long wall and was included in only two
of the building ties, but did not place in the other colors giving
Matt the edge.
* Robert Drozd won his table despite not having the longest wall,
but this table also did not have position ties like the others. His
closest competition came from John Lewis who had built the longest
wall in the semi-final round of 20. Michael Brown and Chris
Greenfield did not have much luck in walls and could not pull
enough of a lead in buildings to compensate.
Immediately following the semi-finals, the victors gathered for
the Final round. In the first scoring round, there
was a tie for the lead in five of the six buildings. Kevin
had a slight advantage by having the longest wall of 9 with Debbie
closely behind with a wall length of 8. By the second
scoring round, Carolyn had secured a lead in green (a middle
size point building) and Matt had secured a lead in Blue (the
smallest point building). Ties stagnated the other
point positions. Besides Matt's lead in Blue, he had
only one building in all the other colors except for Brown. This
did not help him as this meant he was not getting points for
these other colors. Carolyn had built her wall from
4 in the first round to now 11. Kevin and Debbie's
wall had not changed much from the first round. At
this point, Kevin held a two-point lead over Carolyn, followed
by a tie for third between Debbie and Robert. For the final scoring
round, there were again a number of ties for point positions
with White being a four-way tie for first. By this
time Matt had only gained two more tiles with a Brown building
being one of them. This left Matt with the lead in
Blue, a tie in White, and one in all the other colors. This
left Matt with a very colorful and diverse palace - albeit in
last place. Debbie tied in many of the buildings she
had obtained which prevented her from threatening the leaders. A
one-point difference between second and third separated Carolyn
and Robert. Again, the ties in colors helped keep
the scores close. Kevin pulled out a victory with
him adding to his wall and being included in many of the leading
position ties.
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The finalists mug for their 15 minutes
of fame. |
Cheryl Meek keeps a sharp eye on Mullet
... and who can blame her? |
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