Taylor Tu and Jennifer Gorman	Rachel LaDue and Mary Ellen Powers
Dave Meyaard's nimble flicking fingers were no help vs Chris Kizer.	Rachel Long battles the eventual champion.

For the fourth year in a row RDG has posted an increase in attendance. This year a large portion (over 40%) of the field was made up of folks joining the tournament for the first time. These new folks scored very well, eliminating many of the veterans from advancing past the preliminary rounds. Only two previous finalists Gordon Rodgers (2013 1st place) and Randy Buehler (2010 4th place) were able to advance to the quarterfinals. Both were eliminated prior to the semifinal round. Fully half of the semifinalists and three of the four finalists were new to the tournament this year.

There were some great games played in the preliminary rounds. Honorable mention goes to Sara VanderWal for scoring a 71 and being the only player to score over 70 in the tournament. Also noteworthy was Steve Lollis for winning his game with 67 point in a game where all four players finished over 60 points. Mike Kaltman demonstrated the strength of a well-played monuments strategy by rolling multiple 5 of a kind to win his game with an impressive 66 points. Finally, kudos to Ben Gardner and Matthew Thomson for being the only other players to win a game by scoring at least 60 points.

The most impressive single roll of the preliminary rounds award goes to Pat Gallagher. The game was almost over with only one spot left on the RA track. There was a four-way tie for Pharaohs and his Nile had not yet been flooded. With a single throw of the dice Pat rolled three boats to flood his Nile, a single Pharaoh to take the lead in Pharaohs, and a sun to end the game. This one throw of the dice scored Pat an impressive 20 points which nearly tripled his score. Unfortunately, this was not enough for Pat to win the game as Joe Yaure had already scored 38 points for the win.

The tournament had 61 players winning at least one game in the preliminary rounds, all of whom quaified for the quarterfinal. 14 of those 61 failed to show leaving 47 to battle it out for the coveted 4-player Final. Andrew Emerick, Christian Griggs, Kenneth Horan, and Sara VanderWall beat the rest of the field to win seats for the last round.

The pace of the final was average for most games as each player received 12 turns, averaging four throws of the dice per epoch. The first was very subdued as the strategies began to emerge. Andrew and Sara both adopted an early game Pharaohs strategy while Ken and Christian favored boats. Ultimately the first epoch was controlled by Sara and Christian's use of disasters to keep the others at bay and granting Christian the early lead. Christian was the only player to emerge out of the first epoch with more points than he had at start. The second epoch Andrew switched to a monuments strategy, abandoning the Pharaohs all together. Ken, Sara, and Christian all adopted a civilizations strategy with Ken additionally continuing to press his boats and Sara pressing her Pharaohs. Ken was able to flood his Nile granting him the lead at the end of the second epoch with 27 points and a great board position. Going into the last epoch Sara and Christian were lagging behind Ken slightly and Andrew struggled to score a meager 17 points.

The third epoch saw a total shift in play from everyone. All players went for civilizations early, locking four of the five civilization spots. Ken raced to the end of the Pharaohs track and switched back to his boats strategy but failed to flood the Nile which cost him dearly. As a result, Ken finished in fourth place with a score of 36 points. Christian switched to a monuments strategy but was only able to capitalize 14 points with them, leaving him in third place with 42 points. Sara also raced to the end of the Pharaoh track, scored all five civilizations, and eight points in monuments to bring her total to 48 points for second place. Andrew had a masterful third epoch. He was able to score 10 points in civilizations and a very impressive 25 points in monuments taking him from last in the previous epoch to first when it counted with 52 points to win the tournament.

GM Scott Buckwalter with his four finalists.