Thanks to a sponsor, Automobile returned again in 2024. Although it does not have a large attendance, there are some people who love to play it and prioritize playing it every year. I did hear from some players that they would prefer if I didn’t schedule both Heats late at night, so if it returns next year, I plan to schedule at least one of the Heats in the afternoon to try to draw more players.
There were 19 unique players this year, so with half the field advancing, that meant 9 people could advance to the semifinal. All 7 heat winners qualified, along with the one player who had a 2nd and a 3rd, and the closest 2nd who only played one heat, with the others who had seconds being alternates. One of the Heat winners was unable to play in the Semifinal because they had a conflict with another tournament, but an alternate was there to take his place. However, that would have meant playing three 3-player games for the Semifinal, and either a 3-player Final or allowing the closest 2nd to make it a 4-player Final. The game plays ok with 3 players, but is more competitive and tighter at 4 players, so the alternate was gracious and offered to (and then insisted he would) decline to take the spot so we could instead play two 4-player games for the Semifinal, with the winners and seconds advancing to a 4-player Final.
Both Semifinal tables had some interesting games, especially the first few rounds, with people taking some different than normal lines which created interesting challenges for the players.
The first Semifinal got the harder draw, with three former tournament winners (Matt Calkins, Francois de Bellefeuille and Rob Seulowitz) and #20 in Laurels (Ted Zellers) drawing it. In most games I’ve played, there are enough salesmen played to fill up or at least almost fill up, all the available salesmen slots, but in this game, there was only one salesman on the board when I looked at the table almost through the 2nd round. Because the players had used their actions to open additional factories instead of deploying salesmen, that resulted in far too many cars being produced and not nearly enough getting sold. In addition, one round the sales tiles came out particularly low, which caused Francois to have a lot of cars not being sold, which pretty much ended his game. Rob ended up winning the game with $4,300, and Ted had $3,680 for 2nd with both of them advancing to the Final. Matt finished with $3,360 for 3rd place and 6th overall laurels, while Francois ended with $2,820.
The second Semifinal had seemingly an easier draw, with only one former tournament winner (D.J. Borton), two with prior laurels (Haakon Monsen and John Morris), and one new player (Chris Sousa). Chris started the game by putting out 3 salesmen. Since John and Haakon followed by putting out 1 salesman each, Chris realized he would lose 2 of his salesmen unless he built something other than medium cars, so his first car factory was an economy factory. Haakon, who started with Durant and the first medium factory, followed with also building an economy factory in round 1. With no natural demand for economy cars in round 1, they both only sold economy cars using their salesmen, which slowed them down, especially Chris who did not build a medium factory in round 1 at all. D.J. meanwhile, seeing the economy factories being built, built both a single and then a double medium factory in round 1, and even without any salesmen sold 9 medium cars in round 1 to get a good head start. As the game went on, D.J. went big with building all his factories and producing a lot, but also taking both loans in round 2. Haakon meanwhile went very efficient, and didn’t take any loans all game. In the end, both strategies were equally valid, as D.J. and Haakon tied with $4,150 each. D.J. won on the tiebreaker, but since both 1st and 2nd advanced to the Final it didn’t matter much. John ended up in 3rd with $3,600 and 5th overall laurels, with Chris getting 4th with $2,570.
At the Final, the bidding went higher than in the Semifinal, as everyone wanted to start with Howard, Durant, or Chrysler, and no-one really wanted to be stuck with Ford or Kettering. In the end Ted Zellers bid $50 for Chrysler, D.J. Borton bid $40 for Durant, Haakon Monsen bid $40 for Howard, and Rob Seulowitz settled for Kettering for $0. Similar to what Chris did in the second Semifinal game, Haakon started by putting out 2 salesmen even though he probably wouldn’t be able to use both for medium cars, and so built an economy factory as his only factory in round 1. Along with Howard’s help he sold 4 economy cars, but the limited production in round 1 set him back for the game. Similarly, Ted built 1 medium plant and also built an economy plant in round 1, but only sold 3 medium and no economy cars. D.J. And Rob meanwhile each built 2 medium plants and built 7 and 6 medium cars respectively, giving them a good start.
In round 2 everyone sold all the cars they produced and all made similar levels of profit.
In round 3 Ted and Haakon lost 1 car that did not sell each, but otherwise everyone sold similar levels again.
In the final round cars were more overproduced, and everyone lost 2 (D.J. and Rob) or 3 (Ted & Haakon) cars tha did not sell. Ted didn’t build any new factories in round 3 or 4, instead double producing in the factories he already had, but that put him behind the sales curve and he didn’t produce much in round 4, which combined with his low sales in round 1 gave him 4th overall with $3,450. The low sales in round 1 and more lost cars in rounds 3 and 4 caused Haakon to get 3rd overall with $3,910. D.J. and Rob earned almost the same all game long, and in the end were only separated by $90, effectively 1 extra car sold instead of loss would have changed the winner. Rob finished with $4,320 and 2nd place, and D.J. took the win with $4,410, his second Automobile tournament win.
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