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Cliff Ackman, Lori Miskoff and Daniel
Ottey |
Finlander Antero Kuusi downs twice-Caesar
Randy Buehler |
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Chris Long and Chris Burnett |
Jay Fox and Jennifer Visocnik |
Victory by a Half Point...
A strong quarterfinal field saw reigning champion Jeff Meyer and all six previous champions qualifying for the elimination rounds. Only one player, 2011 champion Kyle Smith, won games in all three heats, earning a bye to the semifinals. Of the remaining 53 players who won at least one game, 45 appeared for the elimination rounds giving us a perfect field of 15 3-player quarterfinal games. Next year we will be using byes rather than 3-player games, to increase the incentive for players who have won a game to keep playing future heats. Had we done so this year, there would have been six players with byes to the semifinals (the six players with multiple wins).
In the heat games,17 were won by the first player, 18 by second seat, 16 by third seat, and 13 by the last player, showing much less advantage to the first player than we've seen in past years. Combining this with previous data on Turn Order, over 351 games, 31% were won by the player going first, 25% by the second player, 23% by third, and
21% by the player going last.
Bidding for seats in the quarterfinals was very light, with only three bids of a full point (two for first, one for third seat) nine bids of a half point (six for first, three for last seat), and seven players going first and 11 going third without needing to make any bid for the privilege. In no case did the bid points affect who won a game. Five of the games were won by the first player, three by the second player, and seven by the player going last. The quarterfinals included many close games, with two decided on tiebreak and five more by a winning margin of five points or less.
Bids in the later two rounds were also low, with three players bidding .5 for first, and one bid of .5 for each of third and fourth places. But winner Antero bid .5 for first in both his games, so maybe position does make a difference after all!
The most exciting semifinal game saw Kyle Smith gambling by leaving a length 6 route on the board without a card in his hand to extend it. On his next turn, no card was available to extend the route, and an administrator and blind draw gave Kyle seven more cards to look at, none of which helped, forcing the route to be discarded. Had Kyle found the card he needed, he would have scored 189, losing the game to Jay Fox on tiebreak and winning fifth place laurels overall, With his final route discarded without scoring, Kyle turned in a final score of -8, the lowest recorded in any game of the past seven years.
A tight Final showed players very reluctant to use the administrator. The board was cleared of cards only twice. The first of these, on Turn 5, got Antero the often-sought-after Lodz card, which proved useful, since by Turn 11, only Antero had a house in Lodz. This enabled him to get the first world-traveler chit for six points, defeating Yoel by (after adjusting for Antero's .5 bid to play first) a .5 point margin of victory over Yoel, the narrowest margin of victory in a title game so far. |