Chris Palermo, Jon Anderson and 2007 Caesar: Raphael Lehrer.	Richard Irving, Chris Trimmer and Roderick Lee

The return to our regular Monday morning spot provided another good turnout although down 25% from the prior year's evening start. Union Pacific is a true swiss format with players of similar records being matched on boards in the three preliminary rounds. This method allows for everyone to get in three games if they like while still allowing for a margin of error.

After three rounds, Bob Wicks, 2009 champ Curt Collins II and defending champ Bruce Reiff all safely reached the Final with 13 points. There was a three-way tie between Rob Kircher, Jason Ley and Chris Trimmer at 11 points for the last seat. Rob was eliminated on the first tie breaker - most wins. It came down to the second tie breaker: most points in three games and Jason Ley thus became the last finalist.

Jason did not face any of the top six players in his preliminary games while Curt Collins played only two, Chris Trimmer, Rob Kircher, and Bob Wicks faced three, and Bruce Reiff four. So by that criteria, Bruce and Bob had the hardest road to the Final while Curt and Jason enjoyed the easiest.

Since we don't allow record keeping, I had everyone write down their scores by round as we went along. Jason drew the first seat, Curt the second, Bob the third and Bruce last. Open stock was as follows: Jason - White (10), Curt - Blue (6), Bob - Red (15) and Bruce - Purple (9). Round 1 began and Jason decided not to try for the Union Pacific and lay shares instead. Curt, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, plowed right on through as well as Bob and Bruce in a vain attempt to keep up. At the end of the first scoring round it was Bruce in the lead with 14, Bob and Jason with 11 and Curt with 5. The score wouldn't stay that way for long as Jason had also decided not to burn UP shares so that the other three players would have the same amount of UP stock and Curt ruled the UP.

At the end of Round 2 Bruce had 40, Curt and Bob 38 and Jason had begun his trek to the bottom and was at 31.

The third round saw Bruce becoming intertwined with Jason and and again with Bob. Curt ,knowing that the UP would be playing off, just tried to keep his hold on the smaller stocks and keep pace with Bruce in Black and Purple. At the end of Round 3 Curt had 78, Bob 75, Bruce 73 and Jason 63.

The final scoring card came early and Bruce had managed to get a piece of Bob's Red and Green lines. Curt won with 131, to Bruce's 118, Bob's 114 and Jason at 102. During the game Curt received $45 from his UP investment, Bob and Bruce $31 and Jason $18. Those margins are reflected about evenly in the results. You can draw your own conclusions on the wisdom of not trying for the UP. But this first title defense had ended badly for the defending Consul and was the sign of even better things to come in the week ahead.

Max Jamelli, displaying excellent taste in wardrobe, eyes fellow Yankees fan Gadoon Kyrollos.	Atst GM Jeff Mullet oversees the finalists in a closed Lampeter hall during the Auction setup.