McSenn Spins Hospice into Gold for the Win!

This year continued the format change with corn seats starting a coin down, University cost at 7 and Factory costing 8. The GM’s software was updated to provide random table and seat assignments as well as randomly distributing the 3-player games. This completely replaced card drawing. The simplified tie-breaker rules resulted in 6 players qualifying for the last 3 spots and a roll-off loomed. Fortunately, there were enough no-shows to put all the qualifying players into the Semifinal. Next year, the GM will propose more detailed additional tie-breakers.

Jon McSenn won the game having built a Hospice for his first building and getting 3 Quarries going. Money stayed tight throughout the game. You can see a transcript of the game at https://www.playboardgamesbetter.com/2023/08/puerto-rico-at-wbc-2023/. A video of the game will also be added. The link will be on the page above.

Notes from the players: One game had universities sold out before factories, but the winner didn’t use either. The game was decided on tie-breakers, though.

Here is some analysis of the results:

This year, the distribution of finishes for each seat were:

Seat 3 has some advantages, but not as much as before. Seat 4 had fewer chances to win because of the 5 3-player games The 4 Semifinal games were each won by a different seat and the Final was won by seat 2.

The distribution of winning strategies showed a greater than typical success for building over shipping. Roughly dividing the wins into three categories gave the following win counts : Shipping 17, Mixed 6, and Building 25.

Games ends were triggered evenly between all the buildings and all the colonists, with just a couple of VP chip depletions: VP ran out 3, Cannot fill boat 21, Town filled 22, and Unknown 2. Several games listed as town filled also had the colonists run out before the round ended, a common occurrence.

The results of this year’s Puerto Rico tournament were submitted to Meeple League (meepleleague.com). All players’ results are included in the annual Puerto Rico rankings on that site.

Thanks especially to my assistant GMs, Rob Kircher and Marcy Morelli.

Thanks to all my players for their support and patience, I look forward to seeing you next year!