John Schoose bests three former laurelists (Vassili Kyrkos, Jeff Mullet and Ken Gutermuth) in the semis.	New GM Bob Wicks hosts a brand new batch of finalists. Only Robert Buccheri had prior laurels in the event.

The Tuesday night mulligan round yielded the usual suspects. Defending champ Rob Kircher won his table, along with previous laurelists Vassili Kyrkos and Ken Gutermuth. Joining them in the high rent district was Bruce Monnin and newcomer (and mulligan high scorer with $8120) Terri Wicks. Rob Buccheri topped that mark by $10 in the Wednesday heat to join the semi-finalists. Jeff Mullet, Zhiming Shi, Jim Garvey and John Schoose also won. Henry Richardson and Bruce Reiff, as the two highest runner-ups, also landed a spot in the semi-finals to fill three tables in the smallest field of the past dozen years.

Rob Buccheri bested the seasoned firm of Kircher, Monnin and Reiff to advance to the Final. John Schoose used buyer cards to carry the day over Kyrkos, Mullet and Gutermuth while newcomer Zhiming Shi defeated Richardson by $170. However, Henry's $8400 proved to be the closest second and earned him the last seat in the Final over Kyrkos and Reiff. Fot the first time in memory, the Final would be Cabbie free. A good omen of things to come ... .

Zhiming opened the Sunday morning Final with a winning bid of $240 for miniatures but had to buy back his own clocks after the bank refused to pay. He then tried selling books only to have the bank reject him again. Sometimes life just ain't fair. Rare Miscellany went next to Henry for $520. He sold his glassware and tapestries for $440, during which the jewelry collector showed. The group then passed on clocks at 50%. Next up were books, bought by Rob for $300. The fifth auction was a buyers card and sterling which John won with a bid of $1450. Another buyers card, along with a Queen Anne parlor set went to Zhiming for $1520 in the ninth auction. The tenth auction and it's two buyers cards put John in the driver's seat, forcing the next two auctions to go for $1300 and $1120 to Rob and Zhiming. John sealed the deal by taking the last auction, coins, for $1000 and finished with $7640. Rob took second with $4290 followed by Zhiming at $3830 and Henry with $3570.