Brad Sherwood and Craig Moffitt	GM Jim Savarick keeps track of Barrington Beavis

Power Grid drew over 100 players for the sixth straight year; 54 played one heat, 37 played twice, and 21 diehards played in all three!

Heat 1 drew 64 players manning 12 5-player and one 4-player games with a map choice of Germany Deck 2 or Korea. Nine of these games were played on the Germany board.

Heat 2 attracted 60 players to 12 games split evenly between France Deck 2 and Central Europe.

Heat 3 saw 67 players play 10 games of USA Deck 2 or Japan. 10 of these games were played on the USA board and 4 on Japan. 11 of these were 5-player games and 3 were 4-player.

Player Comments (written on the event form for that game):

Heat 1:

· "100 electro for the 30 plant."

The buyer finished fourth. In a 4-way tie at 13, the winner powered 14 and was the person who built to 15.

· "26 plant sold for $77. No coal and almost no oil at end."

This was a game I played; Jeff and I were the only two in for the bid on the 26 on the last turn. If I had bought it I am sure there would be no Oil, but it was the only good plant left. I finished last and Jeff fourth. The person that ended it came in second by $2 with a 3-way tie at 13 power.

· "Very low power plants dominated the bulk of the game."

This was a 4-player game where four plants are randomly removed. They could have been some of the better plants.

· "All the high power plants appeared in the beginning of the game."

The market has trends. If the big ones come out early, then the small ones come out late and vice versa.

Heat 2:

· "I got shut out of the coal market and wasn't able to power my coal 4 plant. Consequently, no build on the last turn."

From their ending plants (#14 - 2 power for 2 garbage, #21- 4 power for 2 hybrid, #34 - 5 power nuke) the 21 plant must be the one talked about; I guess both coal and oil were bought out before this person could buy resources.

· "31 sold in Round 2, 32 dropped next but last player didn't have enough to buy. It went back up and didn't come down until end of step 2 and sold for $72"

The person that bought the 32 finished fourth. The person that bought the 31 finished second.

· "Two players with two cities each got completely enclosed on the second turn."

Sounds like the initial buildscaused the problem.

Heat 3:

· "At one point Dan had a 1, 2, and 3 wind plant."

Dan finished second (powering 16 to the winners 17). So not bad at all!

· "Nessa got the 40 plant for $40 in the last round."

Nessa won! It was a 3-way tie for first at 15 power and Nessa won by $29/$43.

· "Who needs phase 3."

This makes me think that the game ended in phase 2; the winner won with 15 while second and third registered 13.

Semis:

· "32 plant sold for $79. 26 plant sold for $73. Step 3 triggered during auction of final turn."

The 26 plant buyer won; the 32 plant owner finished last due to not being able to buy enough garbage for their 30 plant (they also ended with $11 so they would not have been able to buy the garbage anyway).

GM Comments:

For the second year in a row we had an abundance of qualifiers appear for the semifinals. Due to this, next year I will be including an as-needed quarterfinal round. Bye priority qualification will be given to the highest points earned. All players should appear for the quarterfinal round - if we don't get enough players the quarter will become the semi; and on the reverse side if there are enough byes then those players can opt to play an early semifinal if desired. I am thinking the quarter and the semi will be played on the same map.

Please don't seek answers to game related questions posthumously. Please stop play and seek the GM's guidance. There was a misinterpretation of the rules with how some games were played in regards to the Step 3 card coming out during the Auction round.

"If the »Step 3« card is drawn in Phase 2 (Auction Power Plants), treat the card as the highest power plant and place it at the end of the future market."

This means there should always be seven plants and the Step 3 card (making eight total plants) in the current phase.

Totals for the Final were as follows:

Name	C.O.H.	# Plants	Plant	Mats	Cities	$ Earn	Rank/Cities Powered
Phil Becker	7	6	176	121	236	490	12 -- 4th
Matt Calkins	37	5	135	100	296	518	15 -- 1st
Tim Horne	113	6	122	65	208	458	12 -- 2nd
Eric Raymond	17	5	180	170	135	452	8 -- 5th
Wooly Farrow	87	5	117	76	235	465	12 -- 3rd

The Final was played on the Baden-Württemberg board. This map's rules changes make for a completely different game. In the auction round if all players pass on plant purchasing then two plants are removed instead of one; however in the building phase you do not destroy plants that are equal to or less than the number of cities built. Phase 1 and 2 are switched which means you determine player order after purchasing plants; which also means you keep Turn Order from last turn, no matter how many cities you built, through the auction round. Lastly there are only six cities per region instead of the usual seven. The finalists were almost totally new to the rarified air of a Final. Only Matt Calkins, seven years removed from a third place finish, had been there before.

Turn 1: Woolly Farrow V purchased the 4 plant for $7, Tim Horne purchased the 5 plant for $6, Eric Raymond purchased the 3 plant for $3, Phil Becker purchased the 9 plant for $9, and Matt Calkins purchased the 10 plant for $10.

Wooly purchased three coal and Tim purchased two, which left Matt only paying $5 for his two coal! Eric purchased two oil, and Phil purchased the last $3 oil. Eric built two cities in the NW up around the out of play till stage 2 city (Sinsheim and Heidelberg), Wooly built one city in the center with multiple connections (Stuttgart), Tim built just north of the out of play till stage 2 western city (Baden-Baden), Phil built one city in the south at a central location of (Tuttlingen), Matt then built his two cities on a diagonal NE of Wooly (Goppingen and Ludwigsburg) giving himself a semi corner of 4-5 cities and leaving Phil the entire south with a western building expansion option also.

Turn 2: Matt paid $14 for the 12 plant, Tim paid $14 for the 13 plant, Phil paid $8 for the 8 plant, Eric paid $19 for the 19 plant and Wooly picked up the 23 plant for $23. Phil built to three cities, Wooly and Tim built their second city, while Matt and Eric stayed at two cities.

Turn 3: No one wanted to allow the 26 to drop and Phil bought the 24 plant for $24. Matt spent $17 on resources (stocking up), Phil & Wooly spent #12, Eric spent $11, and Tim spent $6. Matt built to four cities, Eric built to three, Phil stayed at three and everyone else stayed at two. Though Matt built to four cities and received $54 he would enter the next round still in last place turn order.

Turn 4: Tim bought the 22 plant for $22 and Matt bought the 26 for $26. Tim, Wooly, and Eric built to four cities; while Phil and Matt built to five.

Turn 5: Wooly picked up the 18 plant for $18 and Tim the 20 plant for $20. Tim and Eric built to five cities. Wooly remained at four cities and Phil and Matt remained at five.

Turn 6: Phil paid $60 for the 25 plant, which only drew bids from Matt. Eric purchased the 15 plant for $15 and Wooly paid $21 for the 21 plant. Wooly built second and built to six cities, ensuring that stage 2 would start. Eric also built to six while everyone else stayed at five cities awaiting stage 2.

Turn 7: Everyone passed in the auction round which meant two plants were removed. Tim and Wooly built to nine cities, Phil to eight, Matt and Eric to seven.

Turn 8: Eric managed to acquire the 32 plant for $68, Matt paid $55 for the 31 plant, Tim picked up the 27 plant for $27, Phil grabbed the 28 plant for $28, and Wooly was left with no plants he desired. Eric purchasing the 32 while Matt got the 31 meant that yet again Matt would take Turn Order. This was a trend throughout the game, and Matt would get to buy resources and build first. Matt built to 13 cities and powered all of them, Eric and Phil each built one more to go to eight and nine respectively which meant that everyone was at 9 cities except for Eric and Matt.

Turn 9: Step 3 arrived during the auction round. Wooly paid $41 for the 34 plant, Eric paid $75 for the 30 plant, Matt paid $30 for the 29 plant (giving him 15 power capacity), Tim gained the 33 plant for $33, and Phil got the 35 plant for $35. Matt built to 15, ending the game and winning his second title of the week. The final statistics can be found in the table above.

Erin Wingo and Thomas Tu	Phil Becker, Patrick Shea and Romain Jacques