Kevin Breza, Vassili Kyrkos and Peter Tu blame it on the dice.

Laurie Wojtasczyk seeks refuge from the Juniors with Nick Henning	Mirror, mirror on the wall ... who is the best Ra player of them all?

For the third year in a row RDG posted a large increase in attendance making it an event which has grown every year since its debut. Again the majority of the field was composed of folks playing for the first time. These new folks scored very well, eliminating many of their predecessors from advancing out of the preliminary rounds. Not all previous finalists were so afflicted, however. Previous laurelists Randy Buehler, David Meyaard, Rob Kilroy, Chris Greenfield, and Curt Collins II all advanced to the quarterfinals.

The preliminary heats were again a mixture of nail biters and runaway victories. There were four games with a range of 3 points or less between all four players. Over 40% of the games played were decided by two points or less. On the other hand, blowouts were also in evidence with Alyssa Mills and Rob Kilroy both winning their games by a 19-point spread. The most interesting preliminary game was the Alex Henning, Randy Buehler, Rob Kilroy, and Anita Lundry marathon wherein all monuments were built in the second epic and both the pharaoh and boat tracks were completed by multiple players midway through the third epic. Alex won the game with a final score of 78; the others all scoring in the 60s. The highest score of the tournament was logged in the first round by Greg Rowe who scored an impressive 87 points with Angela Collinson notching an equally impressive 73 points for second place. In so doing, she failed to advance while being the only other player to score over 70 points in the tournament.

56 players won at least one preliminary game to qualify for the quarterfinals. Of those, 16 (29%) failed to show, leaving 40 to run the gantlet for the coveted 4-player Final. Gordon Rodgers, Peggy Ng, Curt Collins II, and Chad Gormly outlasted the rest of the field to win seats at the Final table.

The pace of the Final was somewhat above average. The sun advanced at a rate yielding three to fours turns each epoch. Each player had 11 turns, slightly faster than the 12-turn average of a normal game. The early strategies were widely varied. Gordon started with a Boats/Pharaoh strategy, Curt with a Boats/Monuments strategy, Peggy was heavy into Civilizations, and Chad evenly spread between all four areas. Gordon was able to flood his boats after the first epoch and lead with 18 points. The second epoch saw each player doubling down on their strategy. Gordon was able to max out his boats and flood again and in doing so scored a whopping 20-point epoch. Peggy again scored big in Civilizations, gaining 10. Curt, who continued to press Monuments, was hit by a costly disaster and ended the epoch without gaining a single point. Likewise, Chad was unable to roll a Civilization and gained only one point.

The end game saw fate reject everyone but Chad, who adopted a Monuments/Pharaoh strategy and racked 25 points for the last epoch. However, the game ended too quickly, leaving Chad with a 4th place finish to show for a score of 40. Curt continued to press Monuments and shifted to a bonuses strategy, scoring eight from bonuses alone and 30 for the epoch. This boosted his score to 41, just enough to claim third place. Peggy also shifted to a Monuments/Pharaoh strategy and was able to score 19 points for the epoch which gave her second place by one point on a score of 42. Gordon's luck had turned. He spent the entire epic trying to flood his boats and failing again and again. He ended the game by rolling two Civilizations (useless), two Boats (useless), and one Sun. Although he did max out Pharaohs and scored a bonus giving him an abysmal seen points for the last epoch. But those seven points, given his strong start, were enough! They enabled Gordon to tie Peggy's score at 42 . The tie-breaker was his and so was the title.