gettysburg   

Updated Nov. 23, 2012

2012 WBC Report     

 2013 Status: pending 2013 GM commitment

Ed Menzel, CA

2012 Champion

Event History
1992    Michael Uhrich     19
1993    Kevin McCarthy     17
1994    Allen Kaplan     18
1995    Vince Meconi     10
1996    Allen Kaplan     16
1997    Kevin McCarthy     22
1998    Kevin McCarthy     22
1999    Vince Meconi     10
2000    Vince Meconi     12
2001    Kevin McCarthy     18
2002    Vince Meconi     11
2003    Vince Meconi      8
2004    Allen Kaplan     28
2005    Jim Tracy     27
2006     Ed Menzel     33
2007    Ed Menzel     31
2008    Ed Menzel     33
2009    Ed Menzel     35
2010    Richard Beyma     35
2011    Ted Drozd     42
2012    Ed Menzel     30

PBeM Event History
2006     Barry Shoults     26
2008    Vince Meconi     28
2011    Mike Pacheco     36

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Ed Menzel          CA    12    237
  2.  Vincent Meconi     DE    11    176
  3.  Richard Beyma      VA    12    106
  4.  Ted Drozd          IL    11    102
  5.  Allen Kaplan       NJ    08     91
  6.  Dave Zimmerman     PA    12     81
  7.  Barry Shoults      MI    07     56
  8.  Mike Pacheco       CA    11     54
  9.  Jim Tracy          OH    11     54
 10.  Greg Smith         FL    12     42
 11.  William Place      PA    08     31
 12.  Tom Gregorio       PA    11     27
 13.  Doug Porterfield   VA    11     24
 14.  Kevin McCarthy     OH    12     19
 15.  Bill Thomson       TX    11     18
 16.  Dan Overland       MI    11     12
 17.  John Clarke        FL    09     12
 18.  Rob Doane          MA    08     12
 19.  Tom Grode          AZ    06     12
 20.  Michael Uhrich     PA    99     12
 21.  Chuck Stapp        NJ    03     10
 22.  Bert Schoose       IL    08      9
 23.  John Sharp         FL    12      6
 24.  Dennis Nicholson   NY    11      6
 25.  Bruno Sinigaglio   AK    04      6
 26.  Ray Clark          CT    10      4
 27.  Wayne Morrison     FL    02      4
 28.  Robin Chiang       CA    08      3
 29.  Joel Ferich        PA    05      3
 30.  Buck Karpowitz     DC    03      3
 31.  Ken Whitesell      PA    00      3
 32.  Pete Pollard       TN    02      2
 33.  Bryan Van Nortwick NC    01      2
 34.  Roger Knowles      OH    01      1
 35.  Victor Hutcherson  MD    00      1

2012 Laurelists                                            Repeating Laurelists: 

Richard Beyma, VA
2nd

Gregory D. Smith, FL
3rd

Kevin McCarthy, OH
4th

John Sharp, FL
5th

Dave Zimmerman, PA
6th

Past Winners

Michael Uhrich, PA
1992

Kevin McCarthy, OH
'93, '97-'98, '01

Allen Kaplan, NJ
'94, '96, '04

Vince Meconi, DE
'95, '99-'00, '02-'03

Jim Tracy, OH
2005

Ed Menzel, CA
2006-2009, 2012

Richard Beyma, MD
2010

Ted Drozd, IL
2011
   

Greg Smith battles second-ranked and five-time champ Vince Meconi. GM Vince, the once dominant player in this event has not won for a decade.

Four-time champ Kevin McCarthy opposes sixth-ranked Dave Zimmerman. Like Vince, Kevin has been absent from the Final for over a decade.

Grognards Indeed

One for the Thumb ...

Four-time champ Ed Menzel topped Richard Beyma to claim his fifth title. Ed, who finished 7-2 for the week, won the tournament four years in a row from 2006-2009, but missed the playoffs the last two years. For his part, Richard (10-2 this year) won in 2010 and reached the Final for the fourth straight year. Frequent playoff contender Greg Smith took third at 7-8 and three-time champ Kevin McCarthy finished fourth with a 3-4 log. The 30 entrants and 56 total games played were lower than last year, although the number of games played was still the fourth highest in tournament history. How much the declines in entrants and games played were due to the tropical rainforest conditions prevailing in Lampeter is hard to say.

Preliminary games were played at the Grognardcon from Saturday through Sunday, and at the WBC proper from Monday through Friday. Friday night, the 13 players who had played the required three games to qualify for the Final 4 were ranked, with four advancing to the single-elimination rounds. The qualifiers were, in order, Richard Beyma (9-1, 64 points), Ed Menzel (5-2, 62 points), Greg Smith (7-7, 60 points), and Kevin McCarthy (3-3, 54 points). Richard Beyma was the only player to return from last year's final four. Fifh place was secured by John Sharp (3-4). He took home the coffee table book The New York Times Complete Civil War 1861-1865 for being the highest finisher not to win a plaque. Other top finishers were: Dave Zimmerman (3-3) 6th, Vince Meconi (3-3) 7th, Jeff Lange (3-1) 8th, Charlie Drozd 9th, and Ted Drozd 10th.

In the semifinals, #1 Richard Beyma faced #4 Kevin McCarthy and #2 Ed Menzel squared off against #3 Greg Smith. Richard's Confederates, bidding 5.5, secured a turn 15 resignation from Kevin, in advance of a near certain July 2 Rebel knockout (the Grey was leading 48-22.5). Meanwhile, Ed Menzel's Rebels rolled over Greg Smith's Federals; even a bid of 10.5 could not keep the boys in Blue on the field past Turn 11.

In the Final, Richard again took the South for a bid of 11. The Confederates were forced to hand over the chit to Ed on Turn 6 when suffering a double flip in an all-infantry assault on Cemetery Hill. The reroll resulted in a single flip against the Grey. With the chit in hand and no reason to hand it back, Ed then proceeded to slowly grind down the CSA, leading to an eventual July 2nd concession. Ed's 4-0 mark with the gray won him the Best Confederate Player designation on a percentage basis over Richard's no less impressive 9-2 tally. Jeff Lange's 3-0 record as the Blue edged Vince Meconi's 3-1 log for Best Union Player honors.

One notable feature of this year's tournament was the introduction of a Revised Order of Appearance for both sides. In the revised version, the game begins on the 10 AM turn, or Turn 2. The Confederate troops which in the current rules arrive on Turns 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 now are delayed one turn, to Turns 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 respectively. Union troops arriving on Turns 1, 2, and 3 arrive on Turns 2, 3, and 4 instead. Its usage was optional this year, and it was not used in the playoffs. However, reviews were unanimous that this change improved play balance by reducing the Confederate edge. For this reason, the Revised Order of Appearance will become standard for Scenario 5, our default scenario (3-Day Campaign) at future WBCs. It is not advisable to use the Revised Order of Appearance for the July 1 scenario, which already favors the Union.

This year, the South won 30 games to 26 for the North. 47 games used the campaign scenario, with the Confederates winning 30. Nine games used the short July 1 scenario, with the Federals winning all nine. Six of those nine July 1 scenario games were played in pairs, with the best total score determining the winner for Victory Point purposes and AREA reports. In the campaign scenario games, there were 40 Confederate bids ranging from 1.0 to 12.0 Victory Points, no Union bids, and seven games in which neither side bid. There was one Union bid of 2 among the July 1 scenario contests. The average bid was 4.32/Confederate for all games and 5.75/Confederate for games in which there was a bid. The former average equaled last year and the latter was slightly lower, no doubt due to the usage of the Revised Order of Appearance.

Average game length clocked in at 3 hours and 41 minutes, the longest by 20 minutes since we began timing games in 2004. Game length ranged from an 8.5-hour ultramarathon between the GM and Mark Gutfreund down to a 60-minute skirmish between Bert Schoose and George Karahalios.

Again this year, thanks go to Bruno Sinigaglio and Bill Morse for running the Grognardcon portion of the event. Thanks also to Assistant Gamemasters Ted Drozd, Ed Menzel, Greg Smith, and Bill Thomson for helping run the tournament. Finally, Bill Morse deserves continued appreciation for completely automating the WBC scoring for all the Grognardcon games, including Gettysburg '88.

Defending champ Ted Drozd tackles Lembit Tohver.

A pair of familiar adversaries meet once more in the Final.

 GM      Vincent Meconi [9th Year]   105 Churchill Ln, Wilmington, DE 19808-4355
   VMeconi@verizon.net    NA

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