The first tournament of WBC gets underway with a bustling ballroom as San Juan makes a comeback.	Bruce Reiff falls in the semi-finals to Tom Browne which instantly admits Tom to my personal Pantheon of Heroes.

The first official tournament of WBC proper started an hour earlier than last year with a demo at 9 AM. Several players had never played before and a few just needed a refresher. San Juan is a fairly simple game to pick up, especially if you're familiar with Puerto Rico. And a few of the newcomers did fairly well.  But most of those that advanced were familiar faces, proving it takes a bit of time to master.
 
San Juan has had a steady, loyal following the last few years with an average attendence of 43 players. We were pleasantly surprised to have 74 players at the start.
 
There are four rounds played and you need to win three to advance - pretty simple. The first round is random pairings and thereafter people are paired with like records. After the first three rounds, we called all the other 3-0's around and explained they could only hurt themselves by playing again and should go get lunch, which they did. The 2-1's (and several players who were out of it, but still wanted to play some more) finished off the fourth round.
 
That gave us 21 qualifiers. The 3-0 players (which included Kirk Harris, Andy Latto, Jeff Mullet, Bruce Reiff, Robert Cranshaw, Sean McCulloch, Tom Browne, Rich Irving, Geoffrey Pounder and Rob Kircher) got a bye and most of the 3-1 players ( Daniel Eppolito, Nick Page, Corey Kim, Mike Shea, Rich Meyer, Cliff Ackman, Rich Shay, Eric Freeman, Richard Shay and Peggy Pfeifer) had to play to see who would be paired against an undefeated player. George Young also qualified at 3-1, but withdrew.
 
The Final Four included Nick Page and three former champs (Reiff, Browne and Mullet). San Juan was my team game and Bruce Reiff was my teammate.  But unlike most teams, we root against each other in our team games.  We don't want to concede bragging rights to a teammate, after all.  Bruce got his wish and Nick played well and advanced to the Final.  I had to take solace in the fact that Bruce would also be an onlooker rather than a Finalist.
 
In the Final, Nick ended with his starting Indigo and a  Silver Mine, Poor House, Statue, Tobacco, Hero, Triumphal Arch, Market Stand, City Hall, Victory Column and another Indigo, in that order. Nick had 36 points.
 
Tom Had his starting Indigo and a Library, Market Hall, Carpenter, Chapel, Silver Mine, Archive, Tower, Palace, Hero, Triumphal Arch and Statue.  Tom got 42 points and the victory. And so Tom became the first defending champion to repeat.  Tom has had a very impressive run the last two years and we call upon the masses to help us put a stop to it next year.

GM Jeff Mullet falls to Nick Page in the semi-finals, thus ending Cabbie hopes for another year.	GM Mullet oversees his finalists in the second consecutive non-Cabbie Final.