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Aran Warszawski, Eric Freeman, Larry
York, Brittany Bernard and Eric Brosius pay homage to the Sun
god. |
Ra! topped 100 entrants for the eighth
straight year while reaching its high water mark this year with
176 players. |
An even bigger crowd ...
RA set an all-time attendance record as 176 would-be
Pharoahs vied for the coveted John Jacoby prizes, not to mention
the "wood" that is awarded to the top four finalists.
The biggest heat of the competition was once again the Thursday
3:00 session. Another attendance record fell as RA surpassed
100 in a single heat as 106 players vied in 22 games. We had
a minor delay as people returned to their rooms to get more games.
We found ourselves nine games short due to the record turnout.
The other three heats held their own with 15 games on Tuesday,
18 on Wednesday, and nine on Friday. This year we had two triple
winners and seven double winners in the heats. One of the triple
winners went on to win the tournament while the other, Jeff Plummer,
lost in the semi's. To make the top 25 for the semi's you needed
to win your first heat played unless you won two or more heats.
The 25th semi-finalist was Laura Brown who was seeded 36th by
virtue of winning her first and only heat played by two victory
points.
Past laurelists were dispersed among the five semi-final games
except for Table 2 where 2008 laurelist Greg Thatcher and former
two-time champion Tom Dunning went head to head. Tom prevailed
over newcomer Rob Renaud 42-38 and two double winners, Mario
Veillette and the aforementioned Greg Thatcher.
Table 1 saw former laurelist David Buchholz getting the better
of double winner Carmen Petruzzelli 41-38. Carmen finished in
6th place due to the lowest percentage of defeat in the semi-final
games. Carmen was pleased to take home the Nefertiti statue which
was one of the fabulous prizes so generously donated by John
Jacoby.
Table 3 saw triple winner Jeff Plummer and double winner Rod
Davidson get pummeled by Cheryl Meek who posted a 19-point victory
over Laura Brown 55-36.
Table 4 oversaw the ouster of 2008 lauelist and double winner
Eric Freeman by newcomer Jake Byrens in a close 39-36 match.
Eric missed 6th place by a mere percentage point.
Table 5 featured triple winner and defending champion Alex
Bove who advanced with a 45-41 victory over Stephane Dorais.
The Final was a close game throughout. In the closing moments,
Alex spent his last sun (the "1") on two monuments
which both completed triples (three of a kind) for a total of
10 additional points that proved to be more than enough to defeat
David Buchholz 51-44 with Cheryl Meek finishing third only three
points further back. Congratulations to Alex Bove for defending
his championship and for becoming the first three-time RA
champion.
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The finalists battle for the Egyptian
themed prizes shown at right. |
John Jacoby donated these Egyptian
themed prizes for the event. |
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