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Chris Senhouse watches Pei-Hsin Lin
take the last sun. |
John Jacoby, Marc Berenbach and Eric
Freeman build monuments. |
Three in a row!
Ra experienced a slight decline from 176 to 162 would-be-Pharoahs
chasing wood and the fabulous prizes donated by John Jacoby.
The senior citizen GM of Circus Maximus donates great
prizes with an Egyptian theme nearly every year. The four heats
drew 12, 17, 18 and 13 games respectively. We went hi-tech this
year thanks to Bobbi Warzcak who put the results on a computer
for easy sorting and printing to determine the top 25 qualifiers
advancing to the semi-finals.
The top qualifier was Lexi Shea who alone managed three wins.
There were 11 players with a pair of wins and 20 more who won
their first heat. There were 14 more winners who won in either
their second or third attempt for a total of 46 different winners
competig for just 25 slots to advance. Jessica Crandell stopped
by a few minutes before the start of the semi's out of curiosity
to find out what place she finished. After learning she finished
in 82nd place she thanked me for running the event and was about
to leave when I asked her if she would like to play. She said
she would love to and took a seat. Since we only had 24 appear
for the semi's all you had to do was show up and you were in.
Some GM's only allow winners to advance. I don't see any reason
not to fill to the optimum number for the second round - which
for Ra is 25.
In semi #1 Mike Kaltman won by 11 over John Shaheen. Alex
Lange won by three in semi #2 over Luke Koleszar and Paul Rubin
who tied for second but Luke had the highest sun. His second
place finish was good for 6th place laurels and second choice
from the John Jacoby prizes. In semi #3 Henry Dove won by six
over Daniel Eppolito after a controversial finish which required
adjudication. The bag was discovered to be missing a flood and
a RA. After much deliberation the decision was made to put a
flood and a RA back in the bag and allow Daniel to redraw up
to his maximum score. In semi #4 Winton Lemoine was looking for
revenge over Steve Scott who had trashed Winton by all of one
point in the 2004 Final. Winton got his revenge on Steve but
it wasn't enough to top Curt Collins who won by 13. Two ex-champions
faced off in semi #5 and finished 1-2. Defending champ Alex Bove
beat Bobbi Warzcak 45-40 to continue his title defense.
The Final came down to a duel between Bove and Kaltman. Mike
thought he was tied and the result would come down to possession
of the highest sun. He was surprised when the suns were revealed
and showed him tied for the lowest total - a status that would
cost him five points. He would have lost by one anyway. Taking
third was the youngest finalist, Alex Lange who will be entering
the 9th grade next year in Germany. He learned how to play Ra
at WBC and was playing in just his fifth game.
Many seem to feel there is too much luck involved in Ra.
Well, it depends what you do with that luck doesn't it? Congratulations
to Alex Bove who won for the third straight year. Quite a lucky
guy ... or is he?
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John Jacoby donated these Egyptian
themed prizes for the event. |
The finalists battle for the Egyptian
themed prizes shown at left. |
| 2010
Euro Quest Laurelists |
|
Jeremy Oppenheim, VA
1st
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Henry Dove, MD
2nd
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Scott Fenn, MD
3rd
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Robert Kircher, RI
4th
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Keith Levy, MD
5th
|
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Steve Scott [7th Year]
NA 
NA