Bernard Triumphs in 7 Wonders!

This year's 7 Wonders tournament attracted 126 unique people, with 176 games played. Most people played in two Heats. There were 75 players in the first Heat, 100 in the second Heat, and 93 in the third Heat. In Heat 3, after I had assigned all the tables, I had a last-minute player come in wanting to play. I would have had to say no if they hadn't brought a copy of the game. However, with the addition of that copy of the game, I was able to let five more people enter the tournament this year. Don't forget to bring copies of the game.

This year the new advancement provided by the board was used: First place is 1,000 points, second 100 points, third 10 points, fourth 1 point. This system worked very well. The ties were broken by the total points scored in the games.

We had 63 players in our Quarterfinal, with the cutoff for qualifying as one first and two seconds. The player who was the first seed had four wins and two seconds. The last qualifier playing in the Quarterfinal had two seconds. So, even if you don't have a first, please come by the Quarterfinal to see if you will be able to play. This year, we had two tied games in the Quarterfinal where they tied in points as well as coins, giving both players the win for advancement purposes.

In the Final, Brandon Bernard made good use of Ephesos starting with paper and being surrounded by Alexandria starting with glass and Halikarnassos starting with cloth. This allowed Ephesos to play all the science structures (greens) right from the beginning for the win twice. It seemed like a risky strategy, but it paid off big.

The statistics from all the games played in the 2023 tournament showed that Rhodos and Ephesos were the best-performing cities with 30% and 29% first-place wins, and the worst were Halikarnassos and Olympia, with only 21% and 19% of the time being first.

The statistics from all the games played in 2019 showed that Rhodos and Halikarnassos were the best-performing cities with 38% and 28% first-place wins, and the worst (Not including Babylon) was Olympia and Ephesos, with only 22% and 14% of the time with first.