2010 was a transition year of sorts for Caylus. Conflicts among GMs caused Caylus to flip its usual time slot with Le Havre, resulting in many games taking place on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The resulting conflicts with stalwarts such as Puerto Rico and St. Petersburg may have contributed to a decrease in numbers as attendance dipped to a new low. Nonetheless, 37 would-be master architects participated in the two heats (eight of whom played twice), with six games in each.

One pattern emerged throughout the event: the 'Building' Favor Track was not something to just dabble in. Of the 12 preliminary games, the winner in half of these games pushed the Build Track to the highest level, while five winners never took so much as a single favor on it. (One game's record of favors was not completed.) Winning scores ranged from 81 (Eric Kleist, in a 4-player game) to 130 (Tom DeMarco, in a 3-player game). Rich Meyer edged Dan Eppolito by one while his son, Jeff, was one of a pair of 2-point winners. Tom DeMarco, on the other hand, was on both ends of the two largest margins of victory: he was second by 25 points to Sam Atabaki in Heat 1, but won by 30 in a 3-player game in Heat 2 (the aforementioned 130-point game). Kevin Walsh was the only player to earn wins in both heats, but a Puerto Rico conflict caused him to miss the semis. Former champion Sam Atabaki also had to concede a semi-final appearance, opting instead for an Ivanhoe Final appearance.

12 players moved on to the three semi-final games, with the winners and highest runner-up advancing to the Final. Mike Kaltman and Cary Morris utilized similar early-carpenter strategies to win their games, despite virtually ignoring the castle early on (contributing a combined one batch to the castle during the Dungeon and Wall phases; each put in six batches during the Tower phase). Jeff Meyer won his game using the ever-popular Building Track strategy, getting a total of 10 batches into the castle and winning by 13, 103-90, over defending champion Peter Putnam. Peter's second was not close enough to advance, and his title defense had to settle for 5th place laurels. Andy Gerb, 2007 champion, also finished 13 points behind Cary (86-73), but the lower scoring game meant he had a worse percentage than Peter, so he claimed sixth place. The highest second and the right to advance was taken by Eric Harthan, who fell to Mike by only eight, 81-73; Rich Meyer missed the Final by a single point in that game, finishing a close third in that semi with 72. This created a Final table with two former Finalists (Mike Kaltman and Jeff Meyer, who made his third straight Caylus Final and two players making their first trip to the championship table, Eric Harthan and Cary Morris.

Three players went right for the Building Track in the Final, while Eric opted for early cubes and the first wood building (the wood-wood giver). The Dungeon and early-Wall phase proved to be a horserace, as each player got at least one batch in the Castle for the Dungeon and each got one of the first four wood buildings. Cary got the first coveted stone production building (the Workshop, which gives stone-stone-cloth), while Jeff and Mike split the other two. Mike went for cube hoarding and delivered three batches alone in one round, before the others fought it out in the castle the next round. Result: after two phases, Mike had a 41-36-32-25 lead over Jeff, Cary and Eric, respectively.

Jeff saw that Mike could run away with it if not challenged, and twice during the Tower phase entered the castle after Mike and beat him for the favor by a batch; in both cases, Jeff failed to leave a cube for the Building Favor (and in one case used a gold in a batch). This proved to be the difference, as Cary (who built two of the last three buildings and got two gold before the end) passed both of them at the end with the Theatre (three wood, two gold, worth 14 points and a favor). Final scores: Cary 82, Mike 76, Jeff 76, Eric 42 with Mike winning the tiebreak, owning three unscored cubes/coins over Jeff's single coin.

In summary, four of last year's Top Six again finished in the laurels, with a fifth missing by a point in the semis and the sixth bowing out due to scheduling conflicts. But it was a relative newcomer, Cary Morris, who won it all. It was Cary's second win of the Con; he also beat defending champion Tedd Mullally at Agricola ... I should know, I was at that table, too.)

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My own experience was actually a bit more exhausting this time around. I had help from my assistant, Keith Layton, in working the Demo when I made the Ra Final and had a conflict. I also had help from Winton Lemoine, who went through a sample first couple of rounds during the Demo. I was also happy to actually be IN the Final, rather than just be recording the proceedings. I'm hopeful that next year I can find some other time slots for Caylus, to avoid all the conflicts that arose this year (especially with Puerto Rico; I myself had to pass on the QF to attend to my duties and play in the SF round), but that's an issue for me to take up with Eric Freeman and others.

Once again, I was happy to participate in this endeavor, and again look forward to running Caylus in 2011.