Bruce prooves the Master can be beat - as long as he's playing your game - and not his. Bob Wicks and Fred Minard get a front row seat.	Rebecca Hebner, Jack Stalica, Ralph Gleaton and Jon Anderson are among the early arrivals betting on trains for fun.

One of the few perks of editing these reports is that I get the last word in massaging the statements of my favorite GMs. See if you can spot where I helped Bruce along in reporting the facts.

It was decided to switch San Juan and Union Pacific on the Monday schedule this year. The result? Union Pacific was down nearly a third and San Juan rocketed off the chart. Next year it looks like San Juan will go back to early morning and Union Pacific will return to the afternoon.

Your GM is getting smarter in his old age - but not any better looking - and enlisted the help of whiz kid Rebecca Hebner as an assistant GM. Rebecca came equipped with her laptop and a handy dandy electronic scoring system. Man, what took me so long? ... Naah .... too easy! Thanks Rebecca!

The participants were set up on 4-player boards (with a couple of 3's) and the first round began. Highlights from the first round included Lisa Gutermuth handling her board easily, Rich Meyer with a comfortable win, along with James "For The People" Pei who ventured forth from CDW land to record a win over Rich's son Jefferson Meyer. Defending champ Curt Collins put up the high score of the round - 158 (albeit in a 3-player game) and yours truly with a comfortable victory over his board.

Second round matchups were based on first round results. Curt Collins won again, defeating winners Bobbi Warczak, Cliff Ackman and Rich Meyer. Rich Irving won his second as well. I beat James Pei by six points in the battle of the round earning bragging rights over "the Master" for the rest of the week. So, when are you going to play For the People, Bruce? Sam Packwood had the high score of the tournament with a 177 (again in a 3-player game).

Round 3 starts to separate the men from the boys. There were three undefeated players at this point - defending champ Curt Collins II, Rich Irving and moi. Jefferson Meyer won (or lost as the case may be) the draw from the first and seconds to be moved up to the all-winners board. He then proceeded to dominate the hotshots to make the Final on his own merits. Bruce finished second which was enough to advance. Curt was a distant fourth and therein ended his title defense. Brandon Bernard beat Tom Browne, James Pei and Steve Shambeda in Semi #2 to advance while Rich Meyer took Semi #3 over Jack Stalica, Fred Minard and Alan Stencius to advance on a tie breaker over Lisa Gutermuth and Cliff Ackman who had to settle for fifth and sixth place laurels. The latter was the only former laurelist to return to "Top Six" land.

In the Final Brandon jumped out to a sizable early lead after the first scoring round. Bruce was in last, but managed to get control of the Union Pacific - which would be huge later - with the Meyer clan completing the sandwich in the middle. So far so good. The second scoring card saw much the same - Brandon ahead, the Meyers and then Reiff - and all was right with the world. The key to the end of this happy story was Brandon building the Yellow trains and Jefferson the Black. Bruce had one share of each and was quietly benefiting from their work in the background. In the third scoring round some ownership jockeying took place, but Bruce's solo second place shares of the Yellow and Black were still good and things started going horribly wrong. In the last round Bruce managed to take control of both the Purple and Green which along with the Union Pacific and the two second place shares was enough for a comfortable victory with Bruce at 119, Jefferson 99, Brandon 99, and Rich 98. Jefferson took second on the tie breaker and Bruce made a down payment on an extension to his trophy room.

Sean McCulloch, Rob Kircher, Russ Irving and Steve Shambeda invest in Monday leisure time.	The finalists do their dirty work but fail to keep the GM from winning more wood.