robo rally   

Updated Nov. 10, 2014

2014 WBC Report   

 2015 Status: pending 2015 GM commitment

Keith Boone, MD

2014 Champion

Event History
1999     Daniel Lawall      40
2000     Bradley Johnson      41
2001     Jeff Ribeiro      44
2002     Jeff Cornett      42
2003      Brad Johnson      71
2004     Brad Johnson      61
2005      Bill Dyer      65
2006     Brad Johnson      56
2007     Scott Buckwalter      66
2008     Brad Johnson      68
2009      Brad Johnson      65
2010     Alexandra Henning      63
2011     Brad Johnson      72
2012     Chris Gnech      67
2013     Mark Geary      94
2014     Keith Boone      99

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Brad Johnson       IL    11    318
  2.  Alex Henning       CT    14     89
  3.  Bill Navolis       MD    12     67
  4.  Keith Boone        MD    14     50
  5.  Mark Geary         OH    13     50
  6.  Jason Levine       NY    10     50
  7.  Ewan McNay         NY    14     48
  8.  Jeff Finkeldey     OH    11     40
  9.  Scott Buckwalter   MD    07     40
 10.  Bill Dyer          IL    05     40
 11.  Jeff Cornett       FL    02     40
 12.  Jeff Ribeiro       NH    01     40
 13.  Dan Lawall         VA    00     39
 14.  James Kendrick     uk    08     36
 15.  Chris Gnech        PA    12     34
 16.  Ken Samuel         VA    12     32
 17.  Tamara Houde       VA    04     30
 18.  Tom McCorry        VA    11     28
 19.  Rich Shipley       MD    07     28
 20.  Cliff Ackman       PA    06     28
 21.  Nick Henning       CT    13     26
 22.  Steve Cuccaro      MD    12     24
 23.  Charles Squibb     PA    11     24
 24.  Brian Schott       MD    07     24
 25.  Lance Ribeiro      NH    05     24
 26.  George Seary       NY    01     24
 27.  Andrew George      NY    14     20
 28.  David Meyaard      NY    14     20
 29.  Ralph Gleaton      SC    08     20
 30.  Jeff Power         MI    05     19
 31.  David des Jardins  CA    03     18
 32.  Dan Mathias        MD    10     16
 33.  Brad Davis         VA    08     16
 34.  Jonathan Tivel     VA    04     16
 35.  Dan McGowan        ME    01     16
 36.  Craig Trader       VA    14     14
 37.  Winton LeMoine     CA    12     13
 38.  Curt Collins II    PA    09     12
 39.  Clyde Kruskal      MD    03     12
 40.  Rodd Polsky        PA    02     12
 41.  Vic Hutcherson     MD    00     12
 42.  David Davis        OH    99     12
 43.  Josh Githens       SC    09     10
 44.  David Kyle         PA    99      9
 45.  Scott Chupak       IL    09      8
 46.  Reiko Brooks       TN    08      8
 47.  Carl Sykes         SC    07      8
 48.  Mark Neale         RI    05      8
 49.  Kevin LeRow        MA    99      6
 50.  Haakon Monsen      no    13      5
 51.  Pat Mitchell       DE    03      3

2014 Laurelists
Repeating Laurelists:

Ewan McNay, NY
2nd

Andrew George, NY
3rd

Alex Henning, PA
4th

Craig Trader, VA
5th

David Meyaard, NY
6th

Past Winners

Daniel Lawall, VA
1999

Brad Johnson, IL
00, 03, 04, 06, 08-09, 11

Jeff Ribeiro, NH
2001

Jeff Cornett, FL
2002

Bill Dyer, IL
2005

Scott Buckwalter, MD
2007

Alexandra Henning, CT
2010

Chris Gnech, PA
2012

Mark Geary, OH
2013

Keith Boone, MD
2014

GM Houde with his finalists.

The year of the Deathmatch ...

The rules of Deathmatch - Rule 1 - Nobody talks about Deathmatch - Rule 2 - No flags - Rule 3 - No heads - Rule 4 - No shutdowns - Rule 5 - Last robot standing wins. For those who don't know the rules of Robo Rally, usually the game is played as a race to flags which must be touched in the order printed on them. Players receive a number of "heads" at the beginning of the game that they may trade in for new robots, and as you might imagine there are various ways that robots can be killed, including laser fire, pits, and various other weapons robots can acquire throughout the game. Shutdowns are a way for robots to recover any damage they may have taken by not moving for a turn. For the Deathmatch (the first ever Wacky Wednesday offering), table captains had the choice of four different gameboards, robots started in random pre-defined locations along the edge of the board facing toward the center (Or directly away from the edge depending on how you want to look at it.) Surprisingly, thee games take significantly less time than the typical three flag, two board race. The average game length seemed to be a bit over an hour, and the longest only ran two hours. Unsurprisingly we had the quickest ever winner of the Kaarin Engelmann Memorial Crash & Burn Award and Playing Aid during the Deathmatch. With Andy Latto winning the award. Andy was eliminated before I made it back to my own table after passing out timers to all the tables that needed them. My personal estimate for his time in game is under 1 minute. Other winners of the KEMC&B Award, for Heat 1, Ryan Friedman, and for Heat 3, our 2012 Champion, Chris Gnech.

The Deathmatch also provided one of the two most memorable moments of the tournament for me. The last table to finish had three people left on as we approached the two hour mark, including Assistant GM Mike Mahady, Ewan McNay, and Matt Kucic. At this point in the game Mike had two locked registers due to damage taken, so he was only getting three cards a turn to program but was off in a corner by himself. Ewan and Matt had both spent several turns on double wrenches on opposite sides of the board, and had just decided it was time to try to kill each other. Several moves later, as Ewan and Matt are coming up on each other, Mike, who has been desperately trying to keep his robot as far from the leaders as possible, ends up directly between them in the first opportunity where they could have hurt each other. Needless to say, this did not end well for Mike. or for that matter did it end well for Matt who ended up eventually being taken out by Ewan.

Ewan had a great run this year, winning in each of the three preliminary heats, as well as the semifinal. That ended in ironic fashion during the most memorable moment of the tournament, when Ewan and Keith Boone were neck and neck for the final flag. Both players actually misread a pusher on the board, the end result being that the pusher pushed Ewan off of the conveyor he was on into Keith. This caused Keith to be pushed onto the final flag, thus giving him the game. Note that this is not the first time Mr. McNay has appeared in memorable Roborally events. Read the report for the 2010 Roborally tournament in which Ewan played a deciding role in the final outcome of that game.

On a final note, I will give a hint of what's to come in 2015. For Wacky Wednesday, the theme will be Death Race 2015, and for those that make the Final, I am looking at shortening it a bit. ( I will still reserve 4 hours for it, but we've gone slightly over or had to adjudicate the final few places each year, and I'd like to be able to play out all six places within our allotted time slot, which means I will target something more like the semifinals in length.)

 GM      Marc F. Houde  [16th Year]  113 Lee St., Front Royal, VA 22630 
    houdem@gmail.com   202-487-6272

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