Jim Doughan shakes off the rust vs John Conlon while going unbeaten in the Preliminaries on his way to a 6-0 record.	Jack Doughan gives Andrew Cummins all he can handle in the swiss rounds. Andrew would advance to the Elite Eight on a tie-breaker.

This year's tournament marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of this venerable game! Strangely, interest in this long-out-of-print game seems to be increasing, as ten appeared for the demo on Saturday, many of whom returned Sunday morning for the event. We had the largest attendance of the past 15 years - since the days of Avaloncon. The pool of players included seven past champions and many newcomers. Once again, Jim Doughan and his squadron of sons participated. Last year, one of the boys (Andrew) finished fifth while dad was left far astern. Duly chastened, dad must have been practicing in the interim.

Once again three rounds of Swiss play were used to select eight who would advance to single-elimination rounds. The Swiss rounds proved tough on many of the past champions. Foremost among them, defending champion Bruce Young was eliminated with a 1-2 record. Only two of the seven would qualify for the elite eight - Steve Caler and Daniel Hoffman. Five players emerged with 3-0 records - Caler, Geoff Allbutt, George Young, Bruce Monnin, and Jim Doughan(!). I guess the boys had sharpened his game somewhat. Tiebreakers were used to add Frank Cunliff, Andrew Cummins and Hoffman.

The luck of the draw pitted Caler against Monnin in a battle of unbeatens . Steve chose to play the Soviets in Scenario H "Boomer", while Bruce tried to hunt him with the NATO subs. Bruce closed in quickly for the kill - gaining a contact level of 4 on the boomer and launching a big 5 value attack. But lady luck was with Caler as Bruce drew a malfunction! The game of cat and mouse continued with Caler finally able to escape with the boomer for the win - dashing Bruce's hopes of scoring team points.

Esewhere, Allbutt (renegade) faced Cummins (surface) in Scenario E "Rebel Without a Cause". Geoff managed to get off his missiles at the very start of Deck 2 for the win. Hoffman and Doughan chose an unusual scenario - G "Turning the Tide" which involves a pack of Soviet subs attacking a NATO convoy. This scenario is seldom used in tournament play due to the number of ships involved - three subs against three escorts and three transports! It is also difficult for the Soviets to win since they need to sink all three transports! But Dan was up for the challenge, taking the Soviets against Jim's convoy. It looked like Dan just might pull it off! He sank two transports and two escorts before Jim managed to nail Dan's third sub for the win. In the last quarter-final, Frank Cunliffe (Soviets) faced off with George Young (NATO) in Scenario B "Search and Destroy". Soviet equipment let Frank down as he had to deal with a number of sensor malfunctions and George emerged victorious.

Both semi-finals used Scenario E. The first pitted Caler(renegade) against Allbutt(surface). Caler chose to play an unusually aggressive strategy as the renegade. Instead of hiding, he attacked the surface forces. It took three hits, but he was finally able to sink the Simferopol. Meanwhile Geoff was able to bring on the Udaloy with its helicopter support. Due to Caler's aggressive play, Geoff was able to maintain a contact level of 4 on the renegade for a long time, but all of the attack cards seemed to be going Caler's way and he managed to dodge the torpedoes that were launched at him. Caler then managed to sink Rovnostnyy after scoring two hits. But finally Udaloy made Caler pay for his audacity, sinking the renegade before it could reach its missile launch position. Young took the renegade vs Doughan in the other semi. Jim's surface ships methodically hunted the renegade and sank it before it could reach firing position.

The Final would again be Scenario E, with Geoff taking the surface ships. Things were looking grim for Jim as Geoff managed to get his Udaloy reinforcement into the game very early in the first deck. But Jim managed to run deep to survive the first deck. Jim tried for the win on the very first card of the second deck, but failed on a draw of 7 (needing a 0 or 1). Jim was helped as bad weather grounded Geoff's helicopters for a while. But Geoff finally managed to pinpoint the renegade's location and launched a deadly attack. The renegade was hit - but survived, taking two damage! Close, but no cigar for Geoff. Finally, near the end of the second deck, Jim managed to get the necessary draw to reach firing position with the renegade for the win. Although this was Jim's tenth title overall, it was his first Attack Sub championship. And, perhaps more importantly, gave dad family bragging rights for one more year.

2003 champ and GM Steve Caler falls to Geoff Allbutt on his way to a second place finish while wife Carol does the paper work.	George Young is no match for the dad on a mission with six kills and his fleet waiting in the background.