Thiessen Wins Inaugural Cascadia Title!

The attendance for Cascadia’s inaugural year at WBC was 90 unique players. There were a total of 175 player starts (155 in Heats and 20 in elimination rounds) in 44 games (39 in Heats and 5 in elimination rounds).

Cascadia is a thrilling game with very close scores. Over the 44 games played in this year’s tournament, the first place score was only 4 points higher than the second place on average. In 19 of the games, the difference was only 2 points. The per person average scores were 59 in Wildlife, 32 in Habitats, and 2 in Nature Tokens for an average total score of 93.

The average scores per game for each of the Wildlife were: Bear (48), Elk (49), Salmon (49), Hawk (53) and Fox (38).

Heat 1: 55 players were divided into 13 4-player games and 1 3-player game. The highest Wildlife score was 76 by Bronwyn Woods. The highest Habitat score was 42 by John Myers. The most Nature Tokens was 8 by Rob Kircher. Bronwyn Woods had the highest overall score of 111.

Heat 2: 48 players were divided into 12 4-player games. The highest Wildlife score was 79 by Shane McBee. The highest Habitat score was 40 by Chris Burnett and Curt Collins. The most Nature Tokens was 8 by Pascale Lafreniere, who also had the highest overall score of 109.

Heat 3: 52 players were divided into 13 4-player games. The highest Wildlife score was 69 by Hung Nguyen and Luca Allaria. The highest Habitat score was 43 by Tricia Wolff. The most Nature Tokens was 8 by Luca Allaria. The highest overall score was 106 by Barb Roeper.

Semifinal: There were 31 participants in the Heats who won at least one game. Matthew Thiessen won all three of his Heat games. There were 6 participants who won two games during the Heats. All of the top 16 ranked players appeared ready to play in the Semifinal. Three of the four Semifinal games were won by 4 points higher than the 2nd place finisher, and one of the games had incredible ending scores of 103-102-102-94. In that game, Curt Collins unfortunately took home the distinction of tying with Matthew Thiessen for 2nd place, but got 3rd on a tiebreaker. The highest Wildlife score of the four games was 72 by Rob Kircher. The highest Habitat score was 40 by Chris Burnett. The most Nature Tokens was 6 by Anastasia Tircuit. The highest overall score was 103 by Rob Kircher. Matthew Thiessen and Anastasia Tircuit were the two closest 2nd place finishers to take home 5th and 6th place laurels.

Final: Michael Thiessen went heavy on Hawks right from the start, and eventually established two parallel strings of Hawks to position many other wildlife between them (Territorial). Pascale Lafreniere developed an early Salmon run, and then branched out to other wildlife. Rob Kircher concentrated at first on pairs of Bears, and also scored strongly with Elk. Chris Burnett was more diversified in wildlife, but began building habitat points. Wildlife scoring was Michael (66; 27 in Hawks), Rob (60; 19 in Bears and 18 in Elk), Pascale (54; 15 in Salmon) and Chris (49; 15 in Hawks). Chris had concentrated on Habitat scoring, getting high bonuses in three habitats. Habitat scoring was Chris (40), Rob (35), Pascale (33) and Michael (28). Michael and Chris ended with three Nature Tokens each. Final total scores were Michael (97), Rob (95), Chris (92) and Pascale (87). Congratulations to these F\finalists and to all those who participated!