Who knew gamers are so smart?	Bruce Bernard, Drew DuBoff and Gordon Stewart see colors.

Ingenious bounced back after an off year to post its second highest attendance without resorting to a fourth heat, presumably aided by a switch to Class B status with a welcoming demo. Fortunately, there were enough copies! I’d personally like to thank everyone who brought a set for helping to maintain the event and keep it accessible. Special acknowledgements to Andy Latto and Laurie Wojtaszczyk, who lent their sets even though they weren’t sure they could attend. 

The tournament continued with just three heats after years of operating with four, but new this year was a demo and a welcoming Class B designation. Six people attended, either to learn the game or for a refresher. The card system with seat numbers got everyone playing within a few moments. The first heat had 18 four-player tables. Unfortunately, a game had to be adjudicated, but all the other games in the tournament finished on time, and Ingenious will continue to use a one-hour slot. The Wednesday heat drew 24 tables and the Thursday start had a solid 17 tables. The lowest winning score in the heats was ten, which did the trick five times. At the other end of the scale, six players managed a perfect score of 18. Those scoring disparities continued into the elimination rounds.

The three heats produced nine double winners, who automatically advanced. Special congratulations go to former Juniors champion Aidan McNay, the only person to achieve three Preliminary wins. 13 people finished with a win and a second, so their margins of victory and defeat were calculated to produce 16 qualifiers for the semifinals. The Tiebreakers became irrelevant, however, when exactly enough qualifiers and alternates appeared to fill the 16 slots.

In one of the most exciting moments of the tournament, Adina Weiss ingenioused three colors in a single turn, eventually scoring a perfect 18 to triumph at a semifinal table that included defending champion Meghan Friedmann. Shannon Keating earned sixth place laurels for her 17-point runner-up finish. Ben Carter scored 13 at his table to defeat Yoel Weiss on a tiebreaker, giving Yoel fifth place laurels for his close second. David Metzger bested 2012 champion Joe Yaure and top-seeded Aidan McNay 15 - 14. Ewan McNay narrowly missed a perfect score and finished with 16 to Doug Galullo’s 14 to win his game, ending the day of 2008 champion Andy Latto. 

The Final found the players developing blue first. A mass of blue appeared near the side of the board and soon everyone had between nine and 11 in the color. Suddenly, Ben made a blocking move to close off the blue section, and blue became scarce for the rest of the game. Adina opted for more dual-color plays in the early going while Ewan focused mostly on blue and orange. He soon developed a large lead in orange, reaching 13 when the other players hadn’t much focused on it yet. The next colors to receive some attention were yellow and purple. Purple didn’t become very popular, but red did and was developed simultaneously with yellow. Ben and David shot up in orange and were only slightly behind Ewan. Green was extremely scarce at this point. In one of the game’s key moments, Ewan passed up a defensive opportunity in yellow to instead ingenious yellow and block off a small clump of green. A huge line of yellows remained after this first ingenious, allowing the other players to catch up in yellow. Red development had largely stalled; Ben was weak in red although the others were mediocre in it. Green opened back up, and David scored the game’s second ingenious in green. Adina led in purple but was first to discard and redraw because she desperately needed orange. Purple was the last color to receive major focus. Ewan made a key play to gain a couple points in blue, which looked like it was going to be a decisive color despite its early popularity. Adina ingenioused green and yellow in the same turn but faced big issues in red. Ben attained the lone orange ingenious; no one else ever exceeded 13 in orange. With blues still rare, Ewan exchanged tiles. Adina ingenioused purple and made a key play in the purple block to pick up some blue and orange. Meanwhile, Ewan ingenioused purple and scored a couple points in blue to take the overall lead on his last turn. With the last play of the game, Adina blocked Ben from getting red. When the board filled, Ewan stood victorious with 12 points. He ingenioused two colors and scored 13 in the other three colors. David took second with 11, Adina took third with 10, and Ben was fourth with eight. Red was the lowest color for all but Ewan, whose lowest was green. The close Final was definitely a testament to the players’ skill. Congratulations to Ewan on a well-deserved victory!

Before I conclude, I’d like to publicly thank Yoni Weiss, my invaluable GMing partner, who passed up other events to make sure everything ran smoothly. He freely gave advice, helped at the heats, and provided moral support. This event would’ve collapsed without him, so I’m truly grateful for everything he did.

It was a pleasure GMing for the first time. See you all next year!  

Yoel Weiss, Steve LeWinter and Natasha Metzger are smart.	Romain Jacques, Peter Gathmann and Lynda Shea test their smarts.
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