Amy Rule and John Wobbeking are part of the 100-player field.

BPA's #2 and #17 ranked gamers try their hands at Ingenius.	The GM and his shrinking inventory of games.

Darth Meghan takes her throne!

I'll start with the mantra I have every year. BRING A COPY OF THE GAME TO THE TOURNAMENT. As usual I had to shoo away late arrivals from the Friday night heat. There's only so much I can do if I am short games. I can often sneak in a few last minute players, but if you don't bring a game and you get there right before the cutoff time, you're taking a chance. Even if you come in formal prom wear.

Once again, a nice mix of old fogeys and young 'uns shared a table to prove how ingenius they were. If you're looking for a game the whole family can play, go no further. The rulebook is a two-sided sheet with lots of pictures and the game takes under an hour.

This year the event dropped a heat but still managed triple digit attendance for the 7th straight year. Three heats meant fewer players which meant fewer games which meant fewer winners which means I have to do a rethink on the advancement rules. In a perfect world I'd love to have one win and you're in, but that would probably require a quarterfinal and permission for those are hard to come by. Timewise it wouldn't be too bad as it would still be done before noon on Sunday. I'm not sure the numbers would work though. That's something for me to work on over the summer.

This year's semifinals were manned by the usual suspects with one refreshing change: no CABS members! The survivors who reached the Final included 2012 champion Joe Yaure, two frequent laurelists in Meghan Friedmann and Rebecca Hebner, and Luke Koleszar representing the old guard. Or at least as old guard as it gets in Ingenious.

As usual, the Final was a defensive struggle with relatively low scores. Just like last year, yellow was the battleground and provided the low score for all four players. Rebecca was the first player to fall off the pace and, in the time honored tradition of Ingenious and most other multiplayer games, immediately blamed her failures on the person sitting to her right. That was Meghan and it was Rebecca who gave her the "Darth Meghan" title for repeatedly blocking Rebecca's potential plays. This of course is perfectly normal and expected play between experienced players and got zero sympathy from the GM or the other players.

In the end, both Joe and Luke had their chance to win but didn't have quite the right tile when they needed it. Meghan did and won her first Ingenious championship. Final scores were: Meghan 11, Luke 10/12, Joe 10/11, Rebecca 9.

Alyssa Mills is a victim of Jedi mindtracks from Darth Meghan.	GM Pete Stein and his real smart finalists.
Budding geniuses ... look out Ivy League - here they come.	When you're smart you don't need a GM.

 Ingenius Junior

Chris Yaure runs two events at WBC and still finds time to help out in the Juniors room. Or rather, gets his family to do so. Son Joe was tasked with much of this year's effort. As if that wasn't enough the GM provided extra non-plaque prizes for the young 'uns as well.

There were 26 potential Rhodes scholars in attendance on Wednesday morning vying to see who was the most ingenious. The top six were:

~ 1st: Aidan McNay, age 11

~ 2nd: Tessa Lytle, age 12, who won this event last year

~ 3rd: Luke Morris, age 11

~ 4th: Sarah Morgen, age 11

~ 5th: Zachary Morris, age 9

~ 6th: David DeAcereto, age 10