So far, E&T has defied the "Here Today, Gone tomorrow" rep of most Euro events.	E&T was voted Legacy status in 2008 after ten years of consistent performance.

Legacy status returned Reiner Kniza's tile placing masterpiece Euphrat & Tigris to the convention as a Legacy event this year. Despite that and the enhanced prize level, attendance was down to a record low 36 players, possibly due to conflicts with the scheduled Sunday morning Final.

The tournament again used a rules variant this year to balance the advantage of the first two players. Instead of their normal two actions, the first two players received only one action for the first turn only. For the elimination rounds, the higher seeded player was offered the choice of playing first or third. The distribution of wins for 4-player games was 4 - (31%), 4 - (31%), 4 - (31%), 1 (8%) for players moving first through fourth, respectively. This variant continues to offer better player balance and will remain in place next year.

Dynasty \ Finish	Win	2nd	3rd	4th	Avg Finish
Archer 1st (1 action)	4	5	2	2	2.15
Bull 2nd (1 action)	4	2	3	4	2.53
Lion 3rd	4	4	3	2	2.23
Potter 4th	1	2	5	5	3.07

Seven winners plus the best five runners-up from the preliminary heats rounded out three semi-final tables. In the first semi-final, Marc Berenbauch (8-8-8-8) defeated Patrick Shea (7-7-8-8) and defending champion Alfred Smith. Patrick was only two hypothetical treasures behind the winner but would have to wait to see if his tiebreaker held up. In the second game, leading laurelist Jeff Cornett scored a solid win as the Archers over prior champion Matt Calkins and perennial finalist Rob Kilroy. In the last semi-final, former GM Mark Guttag made his first E&T Final by edging Brian Stone10-10-11-15 to 9-9-11-13. In this case, Brian needed three hypothetical treasures to reach 10-11-11-13 to pass Mark. This was not close enough and Patrick advanced as the closest runner-up.

Turn order preferences for the Final were similar to earlier rounds. Marc had first choice and selected 3rd player. Jeff (1st), Mark. (2nd), and Patrick (4th) rounded out the table. Jeff and Mark used their only first round action to start kingdoms with their Farmer and Priest respectively. However, during the second round they both chose to place two other leaders in a different area, Jeff in the center and Mark in the northwest. Meanwhile, Marc quickly claimed the southwest treasure with his Trader and Patrick got two eastern treasures as he stretched his kingdom out tenuously to link with Jeff's Farmer.

In the first conflict Marc defeated Jeff's farmer to score four blue VP. Patrick then consolidated the remaining kingdoms while claiming his third treasure. Stability reigned for several turns as the players built up support for four closely matched kingdoms. Finally Marl's kingdom in the north stretched too far in claiming a treasure and enticed Patrick to attack with his King. Unfortunately for Patrick, Jeff removed most of his newly found support by splitting the kingdom with a catastrophe in order to avoid a rout. Since there were no temples open in the center kingdom, Mark took the rare action of removing his Priest from the board to make room for his King to attack Jeff in his second action with an internal conflict.

The endgame was punctuated by several large external conflicts. Mark won a green battle against Jeff for five points. Marc won two battles and gained three black, three green, and a treasure. Jeff ended the game by using a catatrophe and dropping in his Trader to claim the last treasure. In the final tally, Marc won with a low score of eight reds (8/9/9/10) on his 30th birthday. Patrick (6/6/7/9), Jeff (6/6/7/8), and Mark (5/6/6/11) claimed the other laurels in that order.

Next year, the 1/1/2/2 action rules variant and hypothetic treasure margin-of-victory tiebreaker will be kept. The GM would like to thank everyone for their participation and is looking forward to another great event next year.

Original GM Mark Guttag, Janet Ottey, Phillies backer Rob Kilroy, and defending champ Alfred Smith in Preliminary play.	Ex-champs Jeff Cornett and John Kilbride join Craig Melton in Preliminary Round play.