GM Mark Mitchell still finds an audience to learn Galaxy in his demo 11 years after its release.	Bob Wicks does his Mark Mitchell imitation and harasses Stein with a gallblader attack card.

All told, there were 22 games played this year and, as usual, the competition level was high but, at the same time, balanced among all of the participants. In fact, it was so even that, once again, there was a player that made it to the Final who had just learned how to play the game at the demo four days earlier. Every year there is an average of about ten people that learn the game on the spot and this year was no exception. Misha Lavrov, a fellow dookey Blue Devil, brought along by Lisa Gutermuth picked the game up quickly during the instruction and proceeded to come in third in his first two attempts to get a heat win. Undaunted, he arrived at the third heat where he managed to pull off an exciting one-point win in a high scoring game and what's more, he did it without eliminating a single world. It is encouraging to see that there is still a lot of interest in this game and that it is possible to become competitive in it with only a few plays. Misha and another Blue Devil newcomer, Michael Wei, both made it to the semi-finals after learning the game in the demo. Even more amazing was the play of the young Max Duboff. Not far removed from playing in the Juniors events, he pulled off a win in the third heat against some pretty tough competition. His opponents were 2007 champ John Keating, Dave Buchholz and Andres Dunn - perennial semi-finalists every year so for a youngster like Max, that's quite an achievement.

The Final generated our second two-time champion in John Keating with Rebecca Hebner coming in a close second. So close, that for the THIRD year in a row, the title was decided on a tie breaker! On the last play of the game, Rebecca took a shot and eliminated the Felowi in the hopes that it was John's secret base. However, he had chosen the Kha'Farjimmn which survived the game and gave John his second shield in the WBC Galaxy. Both finished with nine points but John had 76 tie breaker points to Rebecca's 63. At least this year she made it to the Final. In two previous years she finished sixth in the tournament which is the highest finisher to not get to play in the Final - and sadly, doesn't earn an honorary fez cap. So, once again, she had to settle for the position of "always a bridesmaid and never a bride". Maybe next year Rebecca.

This year the Felowi was the world that survived the most games by a wide margin. It survived 15 times while no other world even made it to double figures. As for the world that surrendered the most, seven of the eight worlds were within a radius of four eliminations with the E-Cups edging out the Cylor 17 to 16. The world that was chosen the most for a secret base was the Felowi. There were two worlds chosen the least as secret bases. The E-Cup, which was eliminated the most, and the Divergence, which had three other worlds surrender more than it, but there were also three others that tied with the same number of eliminations. So overall, unless you chose the Felowi as a secret base, chances are you were not happy about the ending to your game.

So is Jason Fisher a sandman or does he just like to wear a fez?	GM Mitchell rides herd on his finalists.