Young Santa and Virginia Melton watch Bob Wicks place his bet.	This young fella has Ken Samuels and Paul Weintraub surrounded.

Sacrifice for the Titan ...

We benefited from the record convention attendance with an impressive 13 games played in the first heat alone as our field broke the century mark for the first time in four years. Close games were the rule. Thirteen of the 33 preliminary games were decided by a single point. Another four were decided by tiebreakers, and one of those was a three-way tie! Even those with an eye on one of the medals awarded for various in-game achievements had to work for them, as many of those were also decided by a tiebreaker.

24 of the 31 qualifying winners appeared for the semifinal round. One alternate was accepted to complete five 5-player games. If anything, the competition stepped up a level, as three of those games were decided by two points or less. On the other hand, Matt Calkins used his own special ability of convincing other players that he wasn't a threat so well that, in the last round, he would have won regardless of which of the four remaining creatures perished.

The Final had a diverse accumulation of player styles and it was a treat to see how they interacted. At first it seemed to be a push. The first round had many more card plays than normal as the players were testing each other. Of course, this would mean that the draw deck would be exhausted in the end, limiting options.

Things really got exciting in the third round when Steve Shambeda played the Head Referee, exposing both Matt Calkins' and Jordan Shea's secret bets on the Titan. However, by this time new cards were dwindling, as were everyone's options. Even Devon Miller's usually effective negotiating skills were hampered, and Matt ended the game by choosing to kill one of his other bets to save his Titan. He and Devon were tied with 10, but since he had a bet on the creature he'd just killed, Matt won the tiebreaker and became the first two-time champion in our 16-year run.

In addition to the trophy cups for the finalists, I was happy to award five medals for various achievements, each named after one of the spectators in the game. The Mighty Minotaur went to the player who placed sixth sans fez, and Anna Rinko claimed it with her extremely close semifinal runner-up performance. Isaac Clizbe killed ten creatures in his heat games to claim the Battling Behemoth medal. In Heat 2 we had two players each lose 12 points on the last creature to die in their respective games, but since Jeremy Rice had a higher score the Shining Serpent medal was his. There was also a tie for the lowest winning score in a heat, but the Weary Warbear went to Joanna Melton, who had won her game on a tiebreaker. The Ardent Angel medal was won by Erin Wingo for her highest last-place score of 7 points, but unfortunately she wasn't present at the semifinals when I awarded the medals, so I still have it for her. Erin, if you see this, shoot me an email and we can make arrangements to get it to you. Congratulations to all of our medal winners.

Rob Kircher, Brendan Coomes and Harry Flawd try their luck at Table 1.

 Titan: The Arena Junior

The Juniors event drew 18 young players competing for a place in the 5-player Final, which consisted of the winner in each of the four preliminary games and the runner-up whose score was the highest percentage of their winner's score.

The Final started out friendly enough, with the betless Cyclops perishing for lack of support. Of course, as is the nature of this game, it wasn't to last as the Troll was second to go with a newly-placed 3-point bet from Mandy Mossman. Next to go was Alyssa Morgen's Unicorn, which got no support beyond her own firstt-round bet. In Round 4, Nick Metzger and Mandy each had four points showing on the Dragon, while Antony Saccenti and Adam Wojtaszczk had 5 points on the Titan, rendering both creatures' powers unusable. Despite this, Adam managed to kill the Warlock, which had bets from both Mandy and Alyssa. Despite heartfelt negotiations, the hapless Dragon was eliminated last by Alyssa, because it was the only creature of the four remaining that had none of her bets. Unfortunately for her though, it was revealed that everyone's secret bets had survived, and Adam emerged triumphant.

Congratulations, Adam, and well done to all of the finalists! Enjoy your trophies, and I hope to see all of you next year either back in the Juniors event or graduating to the adult version. Final standings: Adam Wojtaszczyk (11), Antony Saccenti (12), Nick Metzger (12), Alyssa Morgen (12), Mandy Mossman (11) and Giovani Petruzelli (11).