kaiser's pirates   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

2013 WBC Report  

 2014 Status: pending December 2013 Membership Trial Vote

RJ Gleaton, SC

2013 Champion

Event History
2007    Joel Tamburo      33
2008     Phil Barcafer     41
2009     John Emery     41
2010    Kevin Emery     39 
2011    Matthew Bacho     40
2012    Jim Day     35
2013    RJ Gleaton     39

 Laurels

 Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
   1.  Matthew Bacho      MD    11     42
   2.  Joel Tamburo       IL    09     40
   3.  John Emery         SC    10     35
   4.  RJ Gleaton         SC    13     30
   5.  Kevin Emery        SC    10     30
   6.  Phil Barcafer      PA    08     30
   7.  Bryan Collars      SC    13     27
   8.  Daniel Lawall      NJ    12     24
   9.  Jim Day            MD    12     20
  10.  Mike Horn          FL    13     18
  11.  Rob Winslow        NY    08     13
  12.  James Kramer       SC    13     12
  13.  Scott Beall        OR    12     12
  14.  Greg Schmittgens   KS    11     12
  15.  Nick Kiswanto      VA    10     12
  16.  Eric Ritter        PA    09     12
  17.  Stan Buck          MD    08     12
  18.  Tim Rogers         SC    11     11
  19.  Ben Collinson Sr   MD    13      9
  20.  Bill Beckman       SC    11      9
  21.  Mark Hinkle        NH    12      8
  22.  Andy Lewis         DE    07      8
  23.  Gus Collars        SC    13      6
  24.  Mark F. Smith      SC    10      6
  25.  Bruce Young        SC    10      6
  26.  Roberto Sanchez    NY    09      6
  27.  Steve Caler        OH    07      6
  28.  Richard Bliss      CA    12      4
  29.  David Rohde        NC    09      4
  30.  Melody Thompson    SC    12      2
  31.  Frank Mestre       NY    07      2

2013 Laurelists                                                  Repeating Laurelists: 0

Mike Horn, FL
2nd

James Kramer, PA
3rd

Ben Collinson Sr, MD
4th

Gus Collars, SC
5th

Bryan Collars, SC
6th

Past Champions

Joel Tamburo, IL
2007

Phil Barcafer, PA
2008

John Emery, SC
2009

Kevin Emery, SC
2010

Matthew Bacho, MD
2011

James Day, MD
2012

RJ Gleaton, SC
2013
     

Bryan Collars and Eric Ritter are Kaiser's sailors.

Stan Buck, Wayne Morrison, RJ Gleaton and Michael Ussery

Sinking Ships During the Great War ...

The Future Belongs to the Young ... or is that the Present?

Only one thing was certain heading into the 2013 tournament: we would have a new champion. James Day, the game's designer and defending champion, found himself unable to attend WBC this year, leaving the field wide open.

Except for Jim's absence, it was a good year for the tournament. We had more people playing more games more often, we saw a good number of new faces, and we had a full house for elimination rounds. Overall, the revised tournament format, which limited semifinalists to 16 and seeded them first by wins and then by overall points through three rounds seemed to work. Still, data I've collected over the past two years suggest that the increased competition at a 4-player table doesn't fully compensate for the increased availability of points at that same table, so next year's seeding will include some sort of point-leveling between 3- and 4-player games. This GM greatly appreciated both the eagerness of the new players and the patience of more experienced competitors.

KPR is a game of good card play and lucky dice where even the best plan can come to naught. We saw this in the first heat, for example, when Matt Baccho, the only KPR Centurion, successfully hid the damaged Nurnberg in an Island Refuge and then failed his repair rolls for the next four turns, leaving that ship unavailable to hunt merchantmen (and score points!).

Competition was fierce throughout the heats, and we ended with 14 individual winners and a couple additional doughty players qualifying for the semis. There, caution (and the desire not to set the table for the next player) seemed the order of the day -- three of the four semifinals were amongst the lowest scoring games of the tournament, despite at least one player at most tables running out of German ships -- a situation that, admittedly, limits your score but tends to increase someone else's by quite a bit.

In the end, despite thw presence of at least five former finalists, the Final was crewed by four new to the tournament, including 13-year-old RJ Gleaton, who had advanced into the semis as first alternate. As is tradition, the Final was a full three-round game, assigning round points at the end of each deck. The first play of the game was a card draw by RJ, after which the other players decided to go for early points. Ben Collinson, Sr., drew first blood, and both Fair Seas cards were played in the first turn. James Kramer invested heavily in German ships, only to have four of his raiders hampered by a Rendezvous Missed. Still, James managed to take the round, followed by Ben, Mike Horn and RJ.

James chose to sacrifice two cards on the first deal of Round 2 to keep his two best raiders, the Wolf and the Berlin. None of the others kept more than one. RJ experienced the highs and lows of the game in this round, opening by sinking three merchantmen with mines but then having his warship, the Karlsruhe, damaged by each of his opponents before it finally went down. RJ kept the lead, for the round, followed by James. The second round ended with James leading with seven round points, followed by RJ and Ben at five, and Mike with four.

Again, James sacrificed two cards to keep the Wolf and Berlin in the third round. This time, though, the strategy may have hurt him as he struggled to get points while the other three players actively avoided giving him extra chances to score. Mike, who'd been at the bottom, came out gunning and sank two German ships and an AMC to reach 74 points before anyone else had more than 15, and the chase began. RJ finally managed to intercept and sink the Wolf, and then, after Ben damaged Mike's Nurnberg, James missed the shot and RJ sank it to become a serious threat. The round ended with Mike in the lead, followed by RJ, Ben, and then James in a very distant fourth having managed to sink only one merchantman the entire round. The game ended in a three-way tie for first with RJ taking the victory on the most-victory-awards tie-breaker. Ben was the hard luck fourth, ending just one round point below the others.

Mafia members Gus Collars and Bill Beckman raid the high seas often.

GM Tim Rogers oversees his finalists.
 GM      Tim Rogers [2nd Year]  NA
    stetson@mindspring.com   NA 

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