Saccenti Captures Stone Age Title!

Stone Age had 133 players with an average of 19 tables per heat and produced 42 unique winners for the Semifinal. This is a small increase of 7 players, average of 17 tables, and 38 unique winners from 2019. The three heats produced 4 triple heat winners, 4 double heat winners, 15 one heat win with another placement winners, and 22 one heat winners. Seven automatic byes were given for the Semifinal. For the Quarterfinal, players were ranked and placed in tables NCAA tournament style with first-round card and hut information available and in ranking order chose which seat position to take. Only 20 people showed up for the Quarterfinal, allowing 4 more people with byes to the Semifinal.

The Final consisted of Nate Heiss, Donte Saccenti, Cliff Ackman, and Chad Martin (a returning 2022 finalist). The bids for turn order were 3 (Heiss), 0 (Saccenti), 0 (Ackman), 0 (Martin). The game went 11 turns, which is the same number of turns from the 2022 Final. Saccenti won with 220, Heiss with 179, Martin with 162, and Ackman with 152. The end was triggered by Huts taken and almost all cards bought. Only Heiss was able to get all 10 people out and starved one turn.

On the first turn, the two decent cards were in the first two slots - the tablet with hidden deck card and green pot with 7 food card. Instead of a farm which is the usual first move, Heiss took the pot card allowing Saccenti to take the farm (which he also took in the second round). In the second round, Saccenti also received a third farm from a Heiss dice bar roll. Saccenti was able to take farms several more times as Heiss took either cards or people. Also, Saccenti eventually was able to build up to 8 people during the game.

Some of the interesting rounds were round 7 where Heiss and Saccenti rolled all 6s for their resource rolls, while Ackman rolled 3 ones in the wood resource (which also happened to Martin in round 9). Round 10, where Saccenti was going first, out came the 3 hut multiplier in the 3rd spot (which Saccenti took) and Ackman rolled five 6s in the gold resource spot (which he used in a 1-7 hut in the last turn which had another 1-7 hut available for Martin).

Saccenti emerged as the champion (finally after multiple tries by family members over the years in the Final) with pre-final score of 117 with 7 for resources, 4 for civs, 54 for farms, 6 for tools, 8 for people, and 24 for huts = 220. Heiss had pre-final score of 76 with 2 for resources, 40 for people, and 12 for huts = 179. Martin had a pre-final score of 93 with 1 for resources, 32 for tools, 12 for people, and 24 for huts = 162. Ackman had pre-final score of 103 with 1 for resources, 36 for civs (one of the unique civs was from the hidden card draw), 4 for farms, and 8 for tools = 152.