Gnech Outlasts The Rest Of The Rail Barons!

The Empire Builder tournament got off to a strange start this year, even before the first game was played. Long-time GM Bob Stribula realized on the first Saturday that he was too ill to attend, so he called Jeff Jackson to ask him to take over as GM. Of course, everyone missed Bob’s friendly face and unique style, and we were not able to run the planned feature games of Bob’s latest designs, Irish Rails and Möbius Rails. But with the help of assistant GMs Trella Bromley and Jay Spencer, we were able to keep the trains running on schedule, despite having a lot fewer game copies than normal.

Qualifying Heats – Three Rounds

We had 62 unique players play 30 games, with 117 seats filled. A little down from 2019, but higher than 2018.

Top Five Finishers: Jeff showed his chops and took the top seed by being the only winner in all three heats. Trella, Glen Pearce, Jim McFarlane, and Mark McCandless rounded out the top five seeds by being the only other players to win two qualifier games.

Blowout Wins: Among the 30 qualifiers there were four blowouts, where the winner’s score was more than double that of second-place. In order of blowout percentage, those conquerors were Harald Henning (India, 250 to 86), Jeff Jackson (EB, 306 to 131), Glen Pearce (Russian, 252 to 117), and Ken Gutermuth (China, 277 to 132). Some games just go like that!

Closest Games: 12 of the 30 games had close finishes, where at least one other player finished with more than $200. Three of those 12 ended with three players over $200. Two games finished with two people over $250. One was a China Rails in Heat 2, where Mark McCandless won with 275, edging out Harald Henning who had 265. But easily the nail-biter award goes to an India Rails from Heat 1, where the final scores were Roger Jarrett 268, Chris Gnech 261, Mark McCandless 245, and Sam Packwood a distant fourth at 197!

Fastest Game: For this informal award we had three contenders. Bart Pisarik won a three player Nippon Rails in 1:31, with all three players finishing at $180 and over. Trella Bromley wrapped up a British in 1:43, which had four players but was an easier win. Finally, Ken Gutermuth took 2:10 to win a four player China (see blowout, above), but he managed to do so with only nine deliveries. Ken notes that he could have done it in eight deliveries if the tax card hadn’t slowed him down. We’ll call the fastest game competition a three-way tie.

Memorial Medallion: Bob’s traditional medal, explained in his words:
“The Train Gamers Memorial Medal rewards expertise across the entire series of Crayon Rails. Specifically, it is determined by the best total finish in three qualifiers NOT including Eurorails and Empire Builder. This medal is awarded in memory of our lost friends. Since our last gathering in 2019, we unfortunately had to add Mike Zorrer and Eve Secunda to this list.”
Trella won the medal with a first, a second, and a first - playing British, India, and China Rails, respectively.

Games played during the qualifiers were:

• Empire Builder – 9
• Eurorails – 4
• China – 4
• British – 4
• India – 3
• Iron Dragon – 3
• Australian – 1
• Nippon – 1
• Russian – 1

Semifinals

We advanced the top 25 players to the semifinal round. We had 24 unique winners, plus Chris Gnech (remember that name) who was the only non-winner in the top 25 with three second place finishes in the qualifiers. Two of the top 25 didn’t make it to the semifinal, so the number 26 seed Matt Spencer and 27 seed Eric Brosius squeaked into the semifinals.

Table 1 featured three past champions with Jeff Jackson (2018), Harald Henning (2008) and Eric Brosius (2007), plus Luke Koleszar and Katie Kolt. Harald got off to a strong start and never really looked back. Eric stayed just behind him for most of the game, making a late run to reach $235 but stuck there. Jeff had bad disaster luck early but recovered to get into the running. He tried to execute a desperate end-game shot at a delivery and a spec load for the win, but was foiled by yet another disaster to finish third with $182. Near the end, Eric and Jeff silently conspired to keep the winning Sugar load from Harald’s train, but Harald dismissed their feeble effort and found an alternative path to the victory.

Table 2 featured the two most recent champions Trella Bromley (2016, 2017, 2018) and Bart Pisarik (2012, 2019), plus Bill Peeck, Olin Hentz, and last-second qualifier Matt Spencer. Which of the two multiple-time champs advanced to the final? Neither! Matt blew them all away with nobody else even reaching $200. Olin was second with $174, with Bart third at $172. Trella states for the record that one more turn would have taken her from fifth place to second, for whatever that’s worth…

Table 3 included Glen Pearce, Todd Augenstein, Jamie Tang, Chris Meyer, and Chris Gnech. This was a close, hard-fought battle from start to finish, with four players finishing above $200. Chris Gnech won it with $252, with Glen close behind at $240, then Todd and Chris Meyer both at $206.

Table 4 had Jim McFarlane, Debbie Gutermuth, Michael Murtagh, Ron Secunda, and Jim Fry. Bad luck plagued a couple of players and in the end Jim Fry won fairly easily with $256, followed by Jim McFarlane at $186 and Debbie at $177.

Table 5 featured past champ Ken Gutermuth (2013), Vegas-insider dark-horse favorite Roger Jarrett, Mark McCandless, Barb Roeper, and Winton Lemoine. Winton managed to win from fifth position by focusing east when everyone else went west at the start, then brilliantly gaining two turns on the field by positioning himself on the correct side of the Ohio River when the big flood hit. Roger was a close second at $236, with Ken not far behind at $211.

ON TO THE FINALS!

Jim Fry was unable to play, so Glen Pearce stepped into the fifth seat as the best second place finisher in the semis, and Roger Jarrett was elevated to the Sand Plaque (sixth) position.

Winton started the game with a build from Madrid heading towards Nantes to set up a Cattle run to Seville. He later took advantage of the experimental $12 Chunnel rule and was rewarded with much more than his money back in rider’s fees. He wound up in third with $195.

Harald, contemplating Winton’s first build, realized that he could open with Cork to Ruhr with a Cork spec load by using Winton’s track, and started in Seville. He got his Super Freight quickly, and made steady progress, but his cards never really came together and he finished in fourth with $160.

Matt had a strong start with two Orange loads from Valencia. He played the classic Spain to England strategy, got his Super Freight reasonably early and finished strong to almost pull off a victory, finishing a surprisingly close second with $252.

Chris and Glen raced each other to Italy out of the gate, but Chris was able to snag the ideal route to Napoli, so Glen’s game got off to a rough start. Glen tried to salvage it by shifting strategies and even tried for the miracle run to Oslo and Stockholm via the $16 ferry from England, but he just couldn’t recover from the start and finished fifth with $102.

Chris on the other hand, was able to use his initial runs south to upgrade to Heavy and pull off an early triple run of two Tobacco and a Marble. He quickly went Super and was off to the races. He built all majors except Madrid and never went to Spain until his final run.

Just like he started the game with an excellent three load run from Italy, Chris ended the game with a massive $135 million triple run for the win. He had to pay for other players’ track for most of his final 12 turns, but the overall run was large enough to make it work for him to finish with $259, just ahead of Matt’s late-game surge..

Congratulations to Chris Gnech, 2022 WBC Empire Builder Champion!

Special Notes from the (Substitute) GM

None of the top six seeds from the qualifying heats won their semifinal game (Glen got into the final as first alternate). The top three finishers in the final were the number 25, 26, and 23 seeds, and the top two had not won a game in any of the heats. Anything can happen in those five player games!

Thanks to everyone who brought games, and particularly those who were willing to share them even when they weren’t playing.

Thanks to Jay Spencer for his general assistance, and especially for dashing to his car in the pouring rain to get a game copy in order to make things work for all the players in Heat 3.

Thanks to Trella Bromley for handling all the computer work for registration, data entry, and scoring.

Thanks to Bob Stribula for trusting me with the tournament and for all his efforts over the years.

And the most special thanks to everyone who made it, in spite of all the ongoing challenges life has thrown at us in the past few years. It was especially nice to see a number of first-time players, including a few who learned or brushed up on the game during the Demo. It was a great combination of serious competition and lots of fun. See you in 2023! (“Oh, and Bob asks that you reserve the blue loco for him.”)