You can almost hear the slots ringing in the background ... as Greg Thatcher, Jim Savarick, Alyssa Mills, Aaron Kaltman and Gordon Stewart plot their buys.	Are Mary Ellen Powers and Marilyn Flowers building the Cosmopolitan casino for ladies or just out on a lark playing the slots?

In Vegas Showdown players are challenged to bid for and place basic and specialty rooms in an effort to build the best Hotel/Casino on the Vegas strip. In the preliminaries, 4-player games were the preference; with 5-player games used only if necessary. In previous years, that meant that we only used 5-player tables to round out the numbers. However, this year in the second heat, there was a serious lack of tables in the Wheatland room, so we had many 5-player games because of space limitations, even though some tables had to be sent to the Heritage room to find space to play. These sorts of issues were reflective of the “good” problems an event has when it draws a record attendance. The signs for this could be seen from the first heat when 14 games were played. Even with the 5-player games in use during the second heat, 11 more games were played. Although I have had more than 25 winners in previous years, I had never yet had to turn away a winner (due to many opting not to advance) for the semifinals. After two heats, it was becoming increasingly likely that I would have to turn away winners this year. The third round increased from six games played in that heat last year to 14 this year. The total games played increased almost 50% from 27 to 39. The huge growth in the number of games caught me by surprise. Despite printing out what I thought was “plenty” of extra game recording score sheets, I ran out.

Along with the record number of games, there were a record number of multiple winners (5). Dominic Blais, Eugene Yee, Kevin Burns, Rob Kircher, and defending finalist Steve LeWinter all managed double wins.

The high number of 5-player games made it more difficult for game winners to pull off the sort of unusual high scores or events that I usually report.

Double winner Steve LeWinter accomplished the first winner’s board recorded in this tournament that had no restaurant tiles. If that alone was not impressive enough, he won by a comfortable margin of seven despite purchasing a Space Age Sports Book and not placing it.

Double winner Eugene Yee emerged victorious in the closest game of the heats with a top to bottom margin of just four points. Eugene had 42, Jason Crognale 41, Mary Ellen Powers 41, William Bleier 39, and Marilyn Flowers 38. Another very close game was recorded with but five points from top to bottom. However, a misunderstanding of the rules (you SPEND your money to get points at the end) meant that the winner via tiebreak was not properly identified at game end. I discovered this when looking at the game log afterwards and the mistaken winner (Tim O’Flynn) also realized and caught me later to make sure I caught it. The real game winner was Bonnie Neubauer (51 pts and $3) over Tim (51 pts and $1), Henry Dove (48), Sara Vanderwal (47), and James Freeman (46). The mistake may have cost Bonnie a semifinal slot, as she was one of the few top qualifiers not to appear.

One of the other double winners, Dominic Blais, recorded the highest score (79) in the tournament. I found that particularly noteworthy in that he did it in a 5-player game and with second place (Kyle Smith) also attaining a very high score of 71. Dominic’s high score was driven by the 5 Star Steakhouse and Dragon Room.

There were no huge “diamond” games from any of the heat winners this year. The highest this year was from Chase Johnson. He pulled off 10 diamond points on his way to the biggest winning margin of the tournament. He scored 77 points and finished 23 ahead of Dan Boyle. The biggest winning margin in a 5-player game was an 18-point margin by Ben Scholl (64) over 2013 champion Doug Faust. Ben’s victory was fueled by a rare two Sports Book combination.

Last year, the GM’s eldest son, Alex Freeman, became the youngest player (then 10) to play in the tournament. This year his age record was bested by two young(er) guns. The son of the defending champion (Mike Kaltman), Aaron (9) and the GM’s youngest son, Andrew (8) showed that the game while full of strategic depth is still accessible to kids in the single digits. The “kids” pulled off some impressive showings for their age. In one of his heats, Aaron finished only six points behind double winner Rob Kircher. Alex finished one point behind former finalist Nick Page in one of the heats and was on track to win the game if it had lasted one more turn. Andrew won one of his heats (in a close game of one point over Grant LaDue and two points over Kevin Barry) to put himself in contention for a semifinal slot. Both the Freeman kids put their elder clan members in their place, as neither their father nor their grandfather (James) managed finishes in the top two despite playing in all three heats.

Former champion Randy Buehler, cemented his crown as the “Lounge King.” Last year, he set a then record with five lounges on his winning board. This year he did himself one better with a winning board containing six lounges. He won his preliminary 4-player game by 12 over Antony Saccenti with six lounges, two slots, one restaurant, three fancy restaurants and a buffet. (It should be noted that he accomplished the five-lounge win in a 5-player game.)

The “dominating income” game seems to be a style that is losing favor. Or should I say losing effectiveness? Only Kevin Burns pulled off a win where he secured the full ten points by having the lead in both population and revenue.

The three heats yielded 34 players who had won at least one game.  Of the top 26 qualifiers, only three did not show for the semifinals, the aforementioned Bonnie and former finalists Sceadeau D’Tela and Rob Flowers. Of the remaining two slots, 27th qualifier Jim Fry claimed one, while 28th qualifier Kevin Wojtaszcyk decided to decline his slot to allow 29th place qualifier Andrew Freeman a spot in his first adult event semifinal table. To date, I had not yet nominated a Sportsmanship nominee, but I did so this year after his extremely gracious gesture. Michael McCormick and Ryan Romanick were the two unfortunate winners who had to be turned away from the semifinal.

2014 runner-up Andrew Drummond again injected flavor into the tournament this year, by dressing in a leisure suit for his games. It seemed to be his good luck charm as he punched his ticket to the semifinals again. Alas, that is where his run for a return trip to the Final ended, as he (37), Haim Hochboim (32), Aran Warszawski (33), and Chase Johnson (33), fell to Rob Kircher (40).

The Final welcomed Redie Smith back for the first time since his 2012 championship run with a relatively comfortable seven-point win over John Corrado, with Kevin Burns, Adam Hurd, and Glen Pearce further behind.

Steve LeWinter returned to the Final for his third straight visit in emphatic fashion by winning his semifinal by the largest margin of any game in the tournament. A crushing 25-point win over Nick Page, with Roderick Lee, Patrick Mirk, and Francois de Bellefeuille even further behind.

Mike Kaltman’s first WBC title defense ended in the semifinals. The scores of his table were: Richard Boyes (77), Mike (64), Jeremy Oppenheim (60), Andrew Freeman (58, not too bad for an 8-year old kid), and Dominic Blais (55).

The last semifinal resulted in the closest game top to bottom of the tournament. Ben Scholl pulled off the win with 40 points and the money tiebreaker with $9 remaining to Greg Thatcher’s $1. The close finish made Greg a bridesmaid once again as he would repeat his 2014 sixth place finish. Eugene Yee (38 and $8), Jim Fry (38 and $1), and Randy Buehler (37) rounded out the extremely tight finish.

Slots went for cheap very quickly in the Final. By Turn 2, they were going for $7, and by Turn 5 they were going for $5.

• Turn 3: even with the cheap slots, Steve and Ben buy the Fancy slot for $9 which seemed like a pretty good deal.
  
• Turn 7: Steve grabs a Fancy Lounge for $18
  
• Turn 8: The Visionary card (one point for each overbid) comes in play. Richard bids $12 on a Fancy Lounge, Steve bids $15 (plus a point) and Redie bids $18 (plus a point). Richard then gets the High Rollers Room for $7
  
• Turn 10: Lounge lizard card flops giving Steve, Richard, and Redie 4 points, Ben 2, and Rob 0.
  
• Turn 13: The second Ad campaign comes out and Ben, Rob and Steve have the capital to trade $10 for five points.
  
• Turn 16: Theater appears - Steve buys the Dragon Room for $25 and even with that purchase has more money than Redie who is the only other player with the Fancy Lounge (two of them) prerequisite to get the Theater.
  
• Turn 18:  Good relations (must outbid by two) comes out. Steve only needs to bid $37 for the Theater to force Redie (with $44) out, although Steve did have enough cash ($50) to out-bid Redie even without Good Relations.
  
• Turn 20:  Game ends

Final Fame on the board at the end of the game: Steve 57, Redie 42, Richard 37, Ben 35, Rob 30

Ben finished with the highest Population (18) for five points and Richard second (17) for three points. Redie and Rob tied for third (16), so no one received third place points. Steve finished with ten population.

Ben and Rob tied for the highest revenue (16) for four points each. Steve finished third (14) for one point. Redie and Richard finished with 13 and 12 revenue, respectively.

Richard, Rob and Ben filled both sides and connected for 13 points. Redie completed one side and connected for eight points total, while Steve just had the connected bonus for three points.

Steve scored a tidy sum of nine in diamond points, with Redie at six and Richard with one.

Rob, Redie, Richard and Ben scored four, three, three and two points respectively for leftover cash.

Final Scores: Steve 70, Redie 59 (with five leftover cash), Ben 59 (with 0 leftover cash), Richard 57, and Rob with 51.

A summary of how Steve scored his points; 32 (from rooms) + 9 (diamonds) + 3 (connected doors) + 1 (third highest revenue) + 3 (master builder event, connected doors) + 4 (lounge lizard event) + 4 (slot king event) + 5 (ad campaign) +1 (visionary overbid) + 8 (publicity) = 70 points

Steve’s tableau at the end contained two Lounges, one Fancy Lounge, one Theater, two Slots, three Fancy Slots, and one Dragon Room. Similar to one of his preliminary heat wins, Steve again achieved victory with no Restaurant tiles, making it the second recorded winning board to accomplish this feat.

Will this be a technique that is used more in tournaments to come? Will that effect the relative prices paid for restaurant-based tiles? We will see next year at Seven Springs.

Lounge King Andrew Drummond forever in character.	GM Eric Freeman with his five entrepreneurial finalists.