Perriane Lurie, Cary Morris, Dan Hoffman and Steve LeWinter	David Meyaard and Jefferson Meyer

Changing of the Guard ...

While previous years had seen many familiar faces in the elimination rounds, this was a year of new blood in Thurn and Taxis which was only fitting given the record attendance for the two heats. Only two former semi-finalists, Randy Buehler and Andy Latto, reached the same stage this year. Alexandra Henning was the third member of her family to reach the semi-finals, and fell just one point short of being the third Henning ito ever reach the Final as well.

Randy had to discard a route early in the Final, and was soon out of contention. Kyle played a game of nearly perfect efficiency. The other players saw how well he was doing and united to try to stop him. Kyle did not get a Lodz card the first time through the deck, and needed to get one the second time through to get the all-colors bonus, so Randy, playing before Kyle, fell on his sword and took a Lodz card to keep it out of Kyle's hands. Kyle responded by pulling another from the top of the deck. And so it went. In a game in which he never used the Administrator, Kyle won in a runaway, 15-14-12-25.

Of the 38 4-player games, the first seat won 13. The later three positions won six, eleven, and eight games respectively. Combining this with statistics from the previous two years, we have 32 wins from players going first, 20 from second, 26 from third, and 22 from last. Although both Kyle and three-time champion Andy Latto prefer to go fourth, this is enough of a disparity that I'm considering adding bidding for start position in the elimination rounds next year. Send me an email and let me know what you think!

The tournament has grown to a somewhat awkward size. It's not big enough to have a quarter-final round, since qualifying 64 players would be over half the field. But with only two heats, only a handful of players win two games, and I hate having to exclude first-heat winners just because they didn't win by a sufficient margin. Should I add a third heat on Monday, making it easier for dedicated players to guarantee a semi-final spot by winning twice? Another possibility is to have a quarter-final, but to have 3-player games in the playoff rounds, so that we need qualify only 27 players for the quarter-finals. Since this year 28 players won their first heat, this would come close to my ideal of all and only first-heat winners advancing. In any case, I plan to change the tiebreak rules next year, so that a first and a second will qualify over just a first, or a first and a third. There should be close to 16 players who either win two heats or win their first heat and come in second in their second heat, reducing the importance of margin of victory, and giving someone who narrowly wins their first heat a better chance to make the semi-finals. Again, feedback is welcome!

Alex Henning and Faith Wobbeking	Angela Hoffman, Debbie Gutermuth and Andy Latto

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2011 Euro Quest Laurelists
Jim Castonguay, PA 1st Robert Kircher, RI 2nd Haim Hochboim, Israel 3rd Alex Bove, PA 4th Daniel Eppolito, CA 5th