Charles Coats, Pam Gutermuth and Lissa Rennert	When you come down to it, almost everyone likes dice.

Attendees rewarded GM Scott Buckwalter's decision to expand his offerings from two heats to four with a triple digit field as Ra's little brother earned its way into the Century in more ways than one. The field was a mix of folks just learning to play and experienced returnees back for another try. As fate would have it, the tournament was ruled by the newcomers with few of 2010's semi-finalists advancing even to the 2011 quarter-finals. Two notable exceptions were third place laurelist Curt Collins II, who missed the Final this year by a single point; and fifth place laurelist Chris Gnech, who improved a notch to fourth this year. Only three more years at that rate to the title! Chester Lanham, David Meyaard, and Anna Marion also advanced.

Despite the higher stakes, the Final was among the quickest games of the tournament as suns kept being rolled in abundance by each player. All four rolled two each in their first turns, leaving only four remaining before the end of the era. Each player had only two turns before the first scoring round in which David and Anna took the "lead" by scoring zero while Chris and Chester were weighted down with -5 and -7 slates.

The second era was more productive as each player received three turns prior to scoring. This allowed enough time for strategies to start emerging. Chris, David, and Anna all started with a Pharaohs strategy with Pharaohs being hotly contested throughout the game. Chris would soon switch to a Monuments strategy, although lagging behind Chester who started off with a combined Floods/Monuments bias. The fast pace of the game took its toll on the players in the second scoring round as Chris again scored -5 and David again was shut out although he had picked up three points earlier by rolling three suns. Anna scored 2 and Chester 6 to complete the second scoring round. For those not familiar with the game, these are extremely low scores. Players start the game with 10 to 13 points and tend to win with totals in the high 30s to low 50s. At this point in the Final, after two of the three scoring rounds, the highest score was only 15.

The last era proved as fast as the second with each player again receiving only three turns, except for Anna who was shortchanged with but two. It was a continuation of the previous era as Chester continued with his Floods/Monuments strategy, Chris pressed for more Monuments, and David and Anna continued their fight for Pharaohs. Although Chris was able to score 21 points in this era, it was not enough to overcome his previous losses, leaving him in 4th place with 22 points. The Battle of the Pharaohs took its toll on both David and Anna, leaving them with but 12 and 11 respectively in the third era, giving David a final score of 27 and Anna 26. Chester's Floods/Monuments strategy paid off with 20 points, giving him enough to win his first ever WBC title with a score of 29.

Alex Hanning, Tom Knapp, Jennifer Gorman and Bianca Oksienik	New champ Chester Lanham.