age of steam   

Updated Nov. 23, 2012

2012 WBC Report  

 2013 Status: pending December 2012 Membership Trial Vote

Marc Imbeault, qc

2012 Champion

 

Event History
2004    Richard Irving     34
2005    Pierre Paquet     40
2006     Martin Sasseville     36
2007    Martin Sasseville     40
2008     Pierre Paquet     32
2009    Martin Sasseville     36
2010    Marc-Andre Imbeault     34 
2011    Pierre Paquet     29
2012    Marc-Andre Imbeault     26

 Laurels

 Rank  Name               From  Last  Total
   1.  Pierre Paquet       qc    12    162
   2.  Martin Sasseville   qc    10    120
   3.  Marc-Andre Imbeault qc    12     96
   4.  Mario Veillette     qc    11     72
   5.  Richard Irving      CA    12     51
   6.  Nathalie Malenfant  qc    10     24
   7.  Michael Holmquist   WI    05     24
   8.  Peter Staab         PA    04     18
   9.  Barb Flaxington     NJ    12     12
  10.  Ben Stephenson      WA    12     12
  11.  Eric Melancon       qc    12     12
  12.  Craig Moffitt       NJ    06     12
  13.  Keith Altizer       FL    04     12
  14.  Pierce Ostrander    MD    11      9
  15.  John Karr           PA    09      9
  16.  Charlie Kersten     OH    06      9
  17.  Ilan Woll           CT    04      9
  18.  Cody Sandifer       MD    10      6
  19.  Michael Kaltman     PA    08      6
  20.  Charlie Hickok      PA    06      6
  21.  Franklin Haskell    NH    05      6
  22.  Harald Henning      CT    11      3
  23.  Bruce Hodgins       on    09      3
  24.  Alex Bove           PA    06      3
  25.  Andy Joy            MD    05      3
  26.  Doug Smith          PA    04      3

2012 Laurelists                                           Repeating Laurelists

Pierre Paquet, qc
2nd

Richard Irving, CA
3rd

Barb Flaxington, NJ
4th

Ben Stephenson, WA
5th

Eric Melancon, qc
6th


Past Winners

Richard Irving, CA
2004

Pierre Paquet, qc
2005, 2008, 2011

Martin Sasseville, qc
2006-07, 2009

Marc-Andre Imbeault, qc
2010, 2012

Susan Waterhouse, Bruce Hodgins and Marc-Andre Imbeault participate in the first heat.

Daniel Farrow IV, Barb Flaxington and Richard Irving take part in a preliminary game.

no match for three Canadians ...

After seven years of Canadian dominance, it looked like there was a chance that the streak could have been broken as three of the regular contingent from Quebec could not attend the convention this year leaving only 3 members of the group in attendance. However, when all was said and done, the plaque still managed to find itself heading north of the border again.

The tournament started on Friday night with 5 different games taking place on 4 different maps. The only 5-player game of the tournament took place on the Rust Belt map that comes with the game and was won by 2010 champion Marc Imbeault. Another game was played on the Rust Belt map in this heat with 3-time and defending champion Pierre Paquet winning by 27 points, the tournament's largest margin of victory. The game on the Germany map created by Winsome Games was won by Eric Melancon, had a separation of 6 points between first and third place and produced the only bankruptcy of the tournament. Richard Irving, the 2004 champion, pulled out the victory on the England map produced by Warfrog. The final game took place on the Mexico map created by the Steam Brothers which Ben Stephenson won.

The second heat occurred on Saturday afternoon and had only 3 games in which most of the players did not seem to have a preference for the map that they played. The GM ended up setting up one game on the England map that Chris Palermo managed to win. The other two games were played on the base Rust Belt map and saw Woolly Farrow V win one game and Daniel Farrow and Barb Flaxington tie for the victory in the other.

With one of the qualifiers not being able to make the Saturday evening semifinal, there were eight participants separated randomly into two 4-player games. The map used for these games of the choices offered by the GM was the Rust Belt map as voted on by the players. The two winners of the semifinal games along with the two closest runners-up as a percentage of the winner's score were to qualify for Sunday morning's final. By luck of the draw, all three of the Canadians ended up at the same table in the semifinal making the path for them to the Final that much more difficult. Both games ended up very close with 4-point victories for each of the winners over second place. In the first game, Marc Imbeault defeated Pierre Paquet, with Pierre's score ending up at 95.35% of Marc's score. In the other game, Ben Stephenson squeaked out the victory over both Richard Irving and Barb Flaxington who tied for second place. Richard and Barb's score was 95.60% of Ben's score allowing both of them to qualify for the final with Ben and Marc. However, Ben had an early flight on Sunday morning and asked to move the Final to Saturday evening. Two of the qualifiers didn't want to play right away so Ben missed the Final and Pierre played as the next alternate.

The players had the choice of the Rust Belt or England map and the Rust Belt map was chosen for the Final. Barb's main problem in the game was that she started off on the western portion of the map which doesn't have many towns or close cities so it is more difficult to get long runs and the player can fall behind in income. This happened to Barb and she wound up trailing in income the whole game.

There were some other items of note from the Final. Marc wound up winning the bid to be the first player in all of the turns of the game except the first turn in which Rich won the bid. Two times in the game a player abandoned spurs of of towns that they had built (Marc on turn 2 and Pierre on turn 4) and Rich claimed all four of the abandoned spurs eventually. Rich had the Turn Order ability in the fourth turn but still ended up going third as the bidding was more active and aggressive that turn. Even though Marc won the bid for first player in the fifth turn, he still took the First Build ability to assure his track build. The fifth turn also saw Rich became the first player with a 6-link locomotive. Finally, Evansville and Springfield didn't get an additional production until the seventh turn of the game.

When the game was finished Pierre had $37 in income, 15 shares and 23 track segments for 89 points. Marc also had $37 in income, 14 shares issued and 26 track segments for a final score of 95 points. Rich ended at $32 income, 14 shares and 27 track segments for 81 points and Barb had $25 income, 15 shares and 25 track segments for 55 points. This gave Marc his second title in 3 years in the event.

Marc built an impressive rail network in that it was very compact in the middle of the board and yet he still managed to get high income deliveries. He didn't build further north than Chicago and Michigan City until the last turn, he didn't build further east than Cincinnati until the last turn and his westernmost point from turn 3 until turn 7 was St. Louis with Kansas City eventually on Turn 7.

Eric Melancon, Pierre Paquet and Marc-Andre Imbeault ride the rails.

GM Peter Staab oversees his finalists.
 GM     Peter Staab (6th Year)   700 Bayridge Ave, Pittsbugh, PA 15226-2112 
   pestaab@comcast,net   NA

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