Three-time champ Paul Gaberson vs Doug Mercer	Bills Edwards vs George Young

James "The Master" Pei became the first four-time winner in the event's history. Pei was undefeated, beating Chris Jones, Bob Jamelli, and Michael Ussery in the preliminary rounds, George Young in the semi-finals and Ussery again in the Final. Ussery defeated Ernie Chambers and Doug Smith in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the semi-finals on tiebreakers despite losing to Pei in Round 3. He defeated Grant LaDue in the semi-finals to advance to his rematch with the Master. Young and LaDue were each unbeaten in the preliminary rounds. In Round 3 LaDue knocked out Paul Gaberson, the defending champ, while Young outlasted GM Keith Wixson, 2010's other finalist.

The highlights:

* This year I cancelled the fourth round because of the light turnout, a large number of dropouts after Round 2 and a general lack of interest.
* There was only one new player this year, down from four lin 2010. It has been suggested to me that I should have a demo if I want to attract new players. I have resisted the idea in the past for various reasons, but I will have to reconsider in the future.
* Half of last year's laurelists made it into the top six again this year, including the defending champ.
* The best British player was Pei with four wins. Ussery had three wins with the Brits. Several players had two wins as the French.
* The rule changes I have implemented to address the game's inherent French advantage may have finally hit home. British players are now allowed to retrieve a reinforcement card from the discard pile at the start of each turn (if conditions permit), the French Marine Detachment units have been reduced to only one loss step, the starting French VPs have been reduced to 3 and side selection has been made random in order to eliminate specialization. This year the games split evenly with each side winning 16 (as compared to French advantages of 69% last year, 65% in 2009, 67% in 2008, 61% in 2007, 52% in 2006, 56% in 2005, 71% in 2004 and 62% in 2003). Along with similar results from the current online tournament, this is good news indeed. But time will tell if this isn't just a statistical anomaly.

Prizes: The Champ received a warhawk and the losing finalist received a spiked ballhead warclub. The losing semi-finalists each received a book.

Attendance was up only slightly in the new Monday timeslot. That was a disappointment but not really surprising in hindsight. I had hoped that the heavy competition from other tournaments in the old Wednesday timeslot would be lighter on Monday, but if there was less competition it did not really matter. This game has been around for a long time, and it has become apparent that new players in significant numbers are probably not going to be drawn to it, while veteran players are going to continue to drift away to new games. That is understandable and it appears unlikely that attendance will ever rise above the mid 20's again. I have my doubts whether that is enough for a viable tournament.

Assuming this game survives the Century cut for 2012, I have no idea at this point about what I will do next year. Since the switch to Monday was pretty much a flop, if there is a tournament in 2012 a move back to later in the week is possible. Also, a change in format is probably warranted as the current format was meant for a larger field.

Ernie Chambers vs Scott Beall	The Master picks up his fourth WNW title vs Michael Ussery.