Arrhur Field, Laurel Stokes and Bryan Berkenstock	Harald Henning, Anni Foasberg, and Tom McCorry

Attendance was down 30% in its sixth year as the event failed to register triple digits for the first time. Three heats yielded 36 games with most people playing in two heats. Winning scores ranged from a low of 46 to a high of 147 for Ted Bohaczuk, in an unusual game that exhausted all four decks.

Of the 16 semi-finalists, all but alternate Lee Mewshaw (three seconds) had at least one win; more than half had a pair of Preliminary victories. At Table 2, second heat entrant Vien Bounma triumphed with a score of 72. At Table 3, Eric Brosius soared to victory with a high score for the round of 104. At Table 4, newcomer Randy Buehler's 88 beat perennial favorite and top ranked laurelist Tom DeMarco's 81 - forcing him to settle for fifth place. Inaugural champion Arthur Field won Table 1 with Lee Mewshaw again finishing second to gain sixth place laurels. This matched Eric and Arthur, two veterans of the WBC wars, against two unknowns.

The Final was a rarity. As Eric observed, St. Pete is never the same game twice. This time the cards dealt in most unusual fashion. Neither the Mistress nor the Observatory were seen until the end. Randy grabbed the Judge in Round 1 to get a good start in the Noble battle. Eric got out to an early money lead with building upgrades and used his warehouse wisely. Vien maintained a balanced strategy throughout and observed that Arthur managed his hand skillfully giving him a chance to get a card when everyone else was full and depriving Eric of his second fur trapper upgrade. In this low scoring, very cerebral Final, every point counted. Arthur saw this and immediately upgraded a money noble to one yielding 4 VP each turn, possibly his best move. It became clear to his opponents that Eric was slowly pulling ahead of them despite his apparently lower score. As these four superb competitors well know, it is only the final score that counts.

Six worker cards turned, with two of them costing 7. Under no circumstance would they return the investment. However, only six building cards remained. Randy and Arthur, after considerable thought, both concluded they needed to end the game early and took the 7's. Here was masterful play by both seeing the need to suffer to achieve potential gain. Neither knew the final result, but both knew Eric would win if the game went another turn. The unseen Observatories both appeared and Vien took one into his hand as a prophylactic measure. Randy's hand was full and he was saving his cash. Arthur took the second and drew a duplicate Author. Everyone was counting money carefully and Arthur and Eric each pubbed for five points. The Mistress came out and nobody could afford her. Randy and then Arthur each got an additional noble. Arthur began the upgrade round and two noble upgrades appeared and Arthur could afford the cheaper one. Nobody else had a duplicate noble, so the last upgrade went unbought. In final scoring, Randy had seven different nobles to Arthur's six and pulled ahead by two points. However, he was unable to buy down the building costing 17 he had taken earlier to get a slot and gave up five VPs to fall into second place. Final scores: Arthur Field 64, Randy Buehler 61, Eric Brosius 49 and Vien Bounma 37. A truly amazing game played by four superb players. Arthur recalled that Chris Yaure said in his probability seminar "You have to play as if the card you need will be there." So he did in the final round and became the first two-time Saint Petersburg champion.

Winton Lemoine, Cary Morris, Sean Vessey and Randy Buehler	The finalists do their thing in the hunt for big laurels.

2010 Euro Quest Laurelists
Mike Turian, WA 1st Randy Buehler, WA 2nd Steve Shambeda, PA 3rd Chris Gnech, PA 4th Tom DeMarco, NJ 5th