Although the attendance at WBC did not seem to slack all that much, we managed to have one fewer game in the preliminary heats than last year. A couple of them were even 4-player games in the third heat. Are the glory days that were the triple-digit attendance of 2008 now beyond our grasp? Only time will tell.

For the semi-finals we had 18 heat winners appear, but only one alternate. So, as we weren't able to fill to 20 with just him, our alternate went off to greener pastures in another event. This left us with four tables, two of them 4-player games. On three of the tables, competition was fierce - at each table the winner won by a single point. On the fourth, a staggering 20 points in bets were lost on the Cyclops in the last round, and, although Devon Miller lost four of those points, her two nearest competitors lost more, giving her a place at the Final table. 2003 champ Brendan Coomes fell in the semis - leaving us with a Final totally devoid of former laurelists.

The Final heated up quickly, as Sam played the Head Referee in the very first combat round, and managed to expose Jeff's secret bet on the Warlock. Though he also had a 4-point bet on his magic-wielding combatant, he managed instead to kill off Sam's first-round bet on the Unicorn, possibly out of revenge. In the second round, no one came to Jeff's aid, and the Warlock perished. This left two players with first-round bets still in play, Devon and Tim. Although negotiations were lively, it was decided that, since Devon had deliberately made no secret bet (a fact she pointed out at every opportunity), one of Tim's had to go. Since he didn't have the cards to successfully defend both, he made the active decision to kill his Hydra himself, probably because it took more of other players' bets with it than the Dragon did.

Even without a secret bet, Devon was now the only player with two first-round bets, and to further put a target on herself, she had managed to get three points onto two other creatures. So when killin' time a-came, Tim again made a tough decision to off the Troll instead of the Ranger, as he had fewer points on the Troll. In the last round, the two people with the most points on the board, Devon and Jeff, had no secret bets, which meant that Angela and Tim had higher potential scores if their secret bets survived. But in the end, it really came down to two things: the Dragon had the least support of the four survivors, and Sam had to choose to either kill the Dragon or risk losing the Cyclops, which carried his only existing points. Unfortunately for Devon, this meant that Angela's secret bet on the Titan also survived, allowing Angela to become the 14th TTA champion in as many years. No one repeats in the Arena!

At long last, I was able to get my act together enough to make medals for incidental awards, in addition to the usual finalist cups. I only had three this year, but hope to eventually have 11, one for each spectator card. The "Battling Behemoth," for the player who killed the most creatures in the qualifying heats, went to Ann Bruck, who managed to eliminate eight creatures in the three games she played. The "Shining Serpent," for the player who managed to lose the most points in bets in the final round of play, went to Harrison Anderson, who had nine points to lose on the Hydra in one of his games. Finally, the "Mighty Minotaur" went to Brendan Coomes for coming in sixth in the tournament which doesn't sport fez caps.

Congratulations to Angela, all of the other finalists and award winners, and I hope to see you all next year! Bring a friend!

 Titan: The Arena Junior

In Greg's Juniors event 23 kids reported for mayhem in the ring this year, with Thomas Melton winning - after finishing sixth last year. The Melton clan has long dominated TTA Juniors and this time it was young Thomas's turn to benefit from the hard lessons he learned from his older sisters who now do their thing in the adult tournament. The other finalists were:

2nd: Matthew Roizin-Prior (up from third place last year)

3rd: Zach Denysenko

4th: Franklin Rinko

5th: Andrew Doughan

6th: Dacey Collinson

The always helpful Mark Love lends a hand to the Titan wanna-bes.	GM Greg Crowe holds court for the Junior gladiators.