Kevin Lewis and GM Rob Flowers breathlessly await the next card play.	Thomas Morris, Eric Freeman, Yoni Weiss and Dave Buchholz try to qualify.

This was my tenth year running this event, so you would expect that I would do something special, perhaps give out some nifty prizes, right? However, I continue to run El Grande like a no-frills airline -- go for a minimum of hassle and just set up the games. I even use plain index cards to mark and assign tables, unlike some of the more ambitious (i.e., better) GMs.

Fortunately, even with a lazy GM this game is good enough to attract high caliber players. Attendance was slightly down, but the competition was not. Only Bryan Berkenstock managed two wins over the three heats. Yours truly failed to get any wins at all, but advanced with a couple of seconds.

We stuck with our usual three heats, trying to be done by Thursday. Two-hour rounds kept things moving, although we had a few new players, and the time limit is always tough on them. I'm reluctant to extend the heats to three hours in the future, but I do wonder if I should make this an A-level event.

The semifinals had a good mix of returning players and new faces. There was an especially strong showing from the "Jay's Basement" game club, who had six players in the semis. The Final featured former champs Curt Collins, Jay Fox, and Geoff Pounder. The 12th ranked Eric Freeman had made it to the last round twice, but never won. Bruce Duboff was the newcomer, but had just dispatched a pair of former champs in the semifinals so he was no easy mark.

Bruce started strong. In cooperation with Eric, they executed two scoring cards in the first round to open a 20-point gap between them and the pack, with Eric trailing by a few points. In the second round, Bruce again used a scoring card to widen his lead to 30 points, with Eric half that score, and the rest still at or near zero. Even after the Turn 3 scoring, Bruce maintained a 10-point lead over Eric and 20 over the rest. However, the low number of men placed on his turns, plus attacks had seriously compromised his board position.

During the next three turns, the typical jockeying to slow the leaders while controlling the Castillo took place. Through board position and scoring cards, the group tightened, with everyone within a few points except Jay, who trailed by 10.

An opportunity arose in Round 7 when a "Score the First Place in every Region" card was available. Eric was bidding last, and was in a good position to open a lead with the card. The bid to him was a 10, but Eric had no cards left over 9 so he had to settle for second pick as Bruce burnt the card.

Over Turns 7 and 8, both Eric and Curt managed to use a score card, once in the Castillo and once in Galicia, each of which benefitted the two of them and nobody else. They were opening up a substantial lead over the group. Then, in Turn 9, a "Score the 5's" came out. The defending champ, going first with the 1/13 combo, managed to lock down his home province (New Castile) with the King, but had only a tenuous hold on the 5 regions. When the card was scored, everyone received points but him, and this along with the last Castillo drop made the difference, giving Eric a decent lead and his first El Grande title.

Canada's David Gagne and Finland's Juhana Keskinen await Geoff Pounder's move.	The lucky ... err skilled ... finalists mug for the title shot during tSSShe Final.