ticket to ride   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

2013 WBC Report  

 2014 Status: pending 2014 GM commitment

Hilary Haagen, VA

2013 Champion

Event History
2004    Alan Kaiser     151
2005     Blair Morgen     160
2006    Eric Monte     157
2007     Brittany Bernard     191
2008     John Faella     201
2009    Kyle Greenwood     220
2010    Anni Foasberg     206
2011    Patrick Monte     207
2012    Henry Allen     203
2013    Hilary Haagen     247

Euro Quest BPA Event History
2004    Daniel Karp     45
2005    Tom Dunning     39
2006     Virginia Colin     49
2007    Virginia Colin     51
2008    Donna Davis     48
2009     Josh Githens     68
2010    Eric Monte     66
2011    Sceadeau D'Tela     78
2012    Liz Anderson     57

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Jay Fox            NJ    13     84
  2.  Virginia Colin     VA    11     70
  3.  Eric Monte         NY    10     70
  4.  Steve Shambeda     PA    12     69
  5.  Henry Allen        FL    13     68
  6.  Hilary Haagen      VA    13     60
  7.  Anni Foasberg      NJ    10     60
  8.  Kyle Greenwood     HI    09     60
  9.  John Faella        RI    08     60
 10.  Patrick Monte      NY    11     50
 11.  Lori Miskoff       NJ    11     48
 12.  Daniel Karp        MD    04     48
 13.  Tom Dunning        NY    09     44
 14.  Brittany Bernard   PA    07     40
 15.  Blair Morgen       NJ    05     40
 16.  Richard Irving     CA    13     36
 17.  Donna Davis        PA    08     36
 18.  Nico Parauda       NJ    08     36
 19.  Robert Cranshaw    RI    05     36
 20.  Larry Loicano      PA    07     32
 21.  Liz Anderson       NY    12     30
 22.  Rich Meyer         MA    12     30
 23.  Sceadeau D'Tela    NC    11     30
 24.  Josh Githens       SC    09     30
 25.  Alan Kaiser        OH    04     30
 26.  Vien Bounma        NJ    12     29
 27.  Curt Collins II    PA    11     27
 28.  Trella Bromley     FL    13     24
 29.  Grant LaDue        NY    10     24
 30.  Jamie Tang         MD    08     24
 31.  Andrew Metrick     PA    06     24
 32.  Norman Rule        MD    11     21
 33.  Thomas Idzikowski  MI    11     20
 34.  Philip Shea        VA    09     20
 35.  Michael Richey     VA    06     20
 36.  Eugene Yee         MD    12     18
 37.  Peter Eirich       MD    10     18
 38.  Tom DeMarco        NJ    10     18
 39.  Kathy Kilroy       PA    09     18
 40.  Jonathan Izer      MD    08     18
 41.  Tom McCorry        VA    04     18
 42.  Lee Mewshaw        MD    11     16
 43.  Arthur Wines       PA    07     16
 44.  Mike Backstrom     MN    06     16
 45.  Jim Fishkin        FL    05     16
 46.  Henry Dove         MD    12     12
 47.  Mark McCandless    LA    10     12
 48.  Tom Stokes         NJ    08     12
 49.  Anne Norton        NJ    08     12
 50.  Eyal Mozes         NY    08     12
 51.  Jeff Meyer         MA    06     12
 52.  Jean Francis Gagne qc    05     12
 53.  Arthur Field       SC    04     12
 54.  Tamara Houde       VA    04     12
 55.  Sarah Beach        MD    12     10
 56.  Mark Geary         OH    11     10
 57.  Haim Hochboim      il    11      9
 58.  James Freeman      VA    09      9
 59.  Bill Zurn          CA    08      9
 60.  Cathy Kratz        ID    04      9
 61.  Amy Rule           MD    07      8
 62.  Gordon Rodgers     PA    06      8
 63.  Bob Heinzmann      FL    05      8
 64.  Joe Millovich      PA    13      6
 65.  Andrew Emerick     CT    12      6
 66.  Raphael Lehrer     CA    10      6
 67.  Randy Buehler      WA    10      6
 68.  Alan Elkner        NJ    09      6
 69.  Shivendra Chopra   MD    09      6
 70.  Chris Goff         MD    08      6
 71.  Eric Haas          MD    04      6
 72.  Kathleen McCorry   NJ    04      6
 73.  Bryan Berkenstock  NJ    12      5
 74.  Max DuBoff         NJ    11      5
 75.  Winton LeMoine     CA    07      4
 76.  Amy O'Neal         VA    06      4
 77.  Bill Duke          MD    06      4
 78.  Barb Flaxington    NJ    05      4
 79.  Marsha Hamel       NJ    05      4
 80.  Todd Raethka       NY    12      3
 81.  Rodney Davidson    AZ    11      3
 82.  Sam Atabaki        CA    09      3
 83.  Philip Taylor      NJ    08      3
 84.  Mark Guttag        VA    04      3
 85.  Davyd Field        SC    04      3
 86.  Michael Thompson   PA    07      2
 87.  Bill Salvatore     MD    06      2
 88.  Chris Entwistle    MD    05      2

2013 Laurelists                                                 Repeating Laurelists:

Richard Irving, VA
2nd

Trella Bromley, FL
3rd

Henry Allen, FL
4th

Jay Fox, NJ
5th

Joe Millovich, PA
6th

Past Winners

Alan Kaiser, OH
2004

Blair Morgen, NJ
2005

Eric Monte, NY
2006

Brittany Bernard, PA
2007

John Faella, RI
2008

Kyle Greenwood, HI
2009

Anni Foasberg, NJ
2010

Patrick Monte, NY
2011

Henry Allen, FL
2012

Hilary Haagen, VA
2013

GM Claire Brosius "conducts" her Final as Henry Allen fans his huge hand.

Mega-Train hits the rails in 2013! ...

So many tickets, so little time!

Ticket to Ride set a record in 2013 with 249 riders in its sixth straight year of 200+ players. The first two heats each had 152 people -- 38 4-player games. The ballroom was stuffed with Ticket to Ride and Ra competing for tables, but everyone found a place to play, with a few overflowing into the hallway.

The new system for sorting players into tables worked like a charm. During the heats, players could choose between Ticket to Ride Europe, Ticket to Ride 1910 Mega-game, and the original Ticket to Ride USA. Every table was soon on the train and chugging along. My two stalwart conductors, Sarah Beach and Nikki Bradford, kept the check-in line moving to the "bin sort" where each player could line up next to an orange cone that had a flag marking their variant of choice.

Many of the games produced interesting results. In several games, the runner-up would have won if they had noticed one spot where their route did not connect to a city they needed. The 1910 Mega-Game variant lends itself to high scoring games, and we had quite a few. Romain Jacques had a WBC record high score of 224. One quarterfinal game had massive scores across the board. Eric Brosius led it with 166, followed by 159, 132 and 131. The fourth place score of 131 in that game would have won most of the other games in the tournament, including the Final.

In the Final, defending champion Henry Allen repeated his 2012 strategy of holding a fistful of cards for most of the game, playing only key sections during the early stages. At one point almost half the deck was in his hand. But Henry's defense of his title was not to be, as Trella Bromley, Rich Irving and Hillary Haagen thwarted his effort.

Near the end of the game, Henry had a connected network in the east and a small section in the west that included Seattle, Vancouver and Calgary. He had six orange and six yellow cards in his hand and twelve trains left, and needed to connect Duluth to the western section to fulfill his tickets. He first played six yellow cards to connect Seattle to Helena. On Trella's turn, she fell on her sword -- she couldn't connect her network, and Henry wasn't going to connect his either. She used three orange cards and three locomotives to build Helena to Duluth. This blocked Henry from making his connection and dropped him to fourth. Rich Irving made the most tickets, but could only claim second place as Hillary Haagen ended with the highest ticket score and the longest route. Trella was third, right on Rich's heels, and a spot higher than she would have placed if she hadn't blocked Henry. Almost immediately after Trella's play, Henry realized that if he had played the orange cards first, he would have had two options (Seattle to Helena or Calgary to Helena) and would not have been vulnerable to a blocking move.

Even with the biggest heats and the most players ever, the Ticket to Ride train ran smoothly and on schedule. Get on board for 2014 when we will be a North American Tournament Regional qualifier for the 2014 Ticket to Ride World Championships!

The depot is full of munchkins.

Ed Beach is part of the Beach family GM team for TTR.

 Ticket To Ride Junior

29 pint-sized travellers contested GM Matthew Beach's Juniors tournament with six new top passengers emerging. Top honors went to:

1st: Donte Saccenti (12) who won for the second year in a row, Look out adults! Here he comes ...

2nd: Sophie Bels

3rd: Ethan Shipley-Tang

4th: Ryan Sokolowski

5th: Brandon Wines

6th: Sam Shambeda

 GM      Claire Brosius [5th Year]   NA 
    NA    NA

2013 Previews | View the Icon Key | Return to main BPA page