Youells Rides Boats To Victory!

One key to winning is to know how your opponents are going to bid. When playing against most opponents, you must learn bidding styles by studying their bids during the game. In this year’s finals, Kevin Youells took advantage of his knowledge of Jeff Cornett’s bidding style having been his assistant GM for many years. Jeff had been to the finals and won several times before. This was Kevin’s first time in the finals.

The decisive moment was when Kevin bid extremely low for cards needed to climb his pyramid. The boat total was below average. Keven knew that Jeff would not ruin his boat by bidding defensively. Ultimately, he accomplished all his goals at a modest price.

Other players bid defensively. Harald Henning outbid Kevin more than once, but Kevin just got the cards he needed later. After getting stuck with these cards, Harald could never get his game together. Everything seemed to go wrong for Harald in this game. His card deals were never the right cards at the right time.

In the second round, Loc Nguyen bids aggressively for cards he knew Jeff needed to climb his boat. He did this twice and he was correct in his thinking. Jeff overbid Loc twice with bids of 12 for high cards good in his color. Jeff took high boat and eventually topped his pyramid but at a price that would ultimately prevent him from winning.

Eric Brosius played a patient game waiting for his pyramid colors to come up. Others were still able to bid him up with card shortages in the first two rounds. Eric never got any of the bargains he was hoping for by waiting later.

In the end, Jeff was the only person to top his pyramid with the 20-point bonus. Keven and Harald got 10-point bonuses. Kevin got high boat twice earning 70 total points that way. Loc was second earning a total of 45 boat points.

Final scores showed a big gap in win points across the field – Kevin 99, Jeff 94, Loc 72, Harald 54, and Eric 52.

Harald got the GM’s nod for the sportsmanship award. He knew he had no chance of winning halfway through the game, but he quietly played out the game without complaining but still immersed himself in how he could improve his score.