Dave Finberg, Chris Byrd and Angela Collinson go truckin'	GM David Finberg and his finalists

"Those Space Delivery guys just don't know when to give up" was the theme for Galaxy Trucker 2014. As in previous years, fewer options in the qualifying heats allowed a number of less experienced players to get their feet wet, but the more experienced players rose to the top, with many of the previous semifinalists returning to the elimination rounds again.

There was some minor confusion in one of the semifinals with both of the leaders thinking one player had won, but the count showed differently. We're still thinking about how best to solve this. Some kind of better recordkeeping during the game would help, but that slows things down. If anyone has some suggestions feel free to send me an email.

Three of the semifinals were tight, with runners-up averaging around 90% of the winner's score. The fourth game was a romp by Karl Henning during a week when the Henning brothers could seemingly do no wrong. He scored almost as much as the other players combined. Those players who cared to comment seemed to enjoy the balance of Rough Roads and Evil Machinations.

In the Final, the first round gave us Deja Vu and Meteoric Inversion, a tricky combination. Karl Henning gave up after building for a score of 0, while Jim Fardette quickly cashed out for $10. David desJardins and Sceadeau D'Tela stayed in longer, but David was only able to scrounge up $10 also, while Sceadeau quickly trailed. Everyone was forced to concede before the finish.

The second round was the determining session with the cards showing Made to Order, and Somersault. Karl built a fantastic ship, and was able to finish the race for a commanding lead after David gave up. That turned out to be critical as a combat zone was lurking. Karl zoomed to the front with $58, while the only other player to gain cash was David, who gained only $9.

The fourth round was Parasites and Bad Luck, a difficult combination. David managed to build the center cage to protect his center tile from the right hand rule parasites, but an unlucky intruder cracked his defenses. Sceadeau bravely attempted to fly his 2-tile ship to the end, but bowed out with a gigantic pile of losses. David's aggressive attempt to capture first left him with some losses when he came up short, and Jim snuck into second. Karl showed his semifinal victory was no fluke, as he cruised to the win, marking the Hennings as the family to beat in the future.

This appears to be one of the few games that Nick Henning did not win this year, but his karma rubbed off on brother Karl.