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Transamerica (TAM) WBC 2024 Event Report
Updated November 1, 2024
75 Players David Wolfe Event History
2024 Champion & Laurels
 

Wolfe Masters The Art Of Railbuilding!

Thank you everyone who joined us for the last opportunity for plaques, laurels and fun at WBC! For 2024 we had a 7% increase in participants with 75 player starts (there were 70 starts last year). For consistency in play, I am continuing to use the number of players to determine the preliminary Heat table size. With exactly 75 players, I chose to seat everyone at 5-player tables which would give 15 winners and then add the 10 best second places to give 5 tables in the Semifinal with winners that would continue to a 5- person Final.

Competition was extremely tight again this year during the preliminary round with 2 tables determined by tiebreaker for the win and 60% of games determined by 2 points or less. Two tables had only 3 points difference from first to fourth place and three tables had 3 points from first to third place.

An occurrence during one of the preliminary games of special note had four players place their initial markers adjacent to each other to start one of their rounds. This was also one of the games decided by tiebreaker so this seemed to be an effective strategy. Maybe we’ll see more of this tactic next year.

The Semifinal was also very competitive with another tiebreaker and three of the five tables decided by one point or less. Two of those tables again had 3 points difference between first and fourth place.

For the first round of the Final David Wolfe was randomly selected to start, followed by Richard, Norman, Jeff and Doug. David led off placing his marker in NYC with everyone else placing west of the Mississippi River with Norman and Doug both also placing in cities to start. Doug and Richard connected first immediately followed by Norman and Jeff connecting leaving David isolated until well into the mid game. Doug finished his cities first, but everyone else was not far off with Richard being furthest away with 3 points. Norman had 1 point putting him in second place and David and Jeff in a tie for third with 2 points each.

Richard led off the second round placing his marker in Kansas City, likely hoping to avoid the isolation problem that David experienced starting the first round. Apparently, no one wanted to be isolated this time and everyone placed their markers in the central US between Dallas and Denver. But with this close placement no one connected on their initial moves. Jeff did connect with Norman on his second play soon followed by Richard connecting to Doug. Doug on his third play completed connecting all players and the race was on with everyone jockeying to complete cities while trying to avoid helping their competitors. Norman finished his cities first with Doug being 1 point away, David and Richard both being 2 points away and Jeff 3 points away. Still a very tight game with Norman and Doug tied for first with 1 point each, David in third with 4 points and Richard and Jeff tied for fourth with 5 points.

Norman led off the third round placing his marker in Kansas City which seemed like it might be the beginning of a trend. Initial placement was even tighter this round if a bit further north with everyone placing between a little east of Oklahoma City to Denver and Doug placing just northeast of St. Louis. No early connecting this time as everyone spread away from each other quickly getting to their initial cities with three city connections made on second plays. David made the first connection to Norman followed by Norman connecting to Richard. Doug made the next connection to the group with Jeff following up on his next move to connect everyone. The race was on after this for everyone to connect to their east and west coast cities with much jockeying of position to not aid other players when possible. David got the last play into Portland to win the round. Richard and Jeff were close with 1 point each followed by Norman and Doug with 3 points each. This created a three way tie for first with 4 points each for David, Norman and Doug. Richard and Jeff were not far behind though with 6 points each so it was still anybody’s game.

Jeff started off round 4 northeast of Omaha ending the brief Kansas City start tradition. Initial placements were in a similar region to last round except for Richard and Norman placing in the Rockies (Richard in Santa Fe and Norman between Helena and Denver. Norman connected first this time in Denver where he connected with David. Next play David connected to Richard. After this everyone focused on the north and west coast cities with connections to the other players occurring as everyone joined the drive. With connections to Seattle in the north and Sacramento to San Diego in the south it appears like all the west coast cities are complete. The oranges will be a quick race with only a couple players moving southward along the west side of the Appalachians and Boston being the only Orange city connection. A quick rush southward along the coast connects up New York and David finishes the round with a connection to DC. David is now the sole leader with 4 points, Norman, Jeff and Doug are tied with 7 points each and Richard has fallen behind with 11 points.

Doug leads off the Final round with a placement in Kansas City harkening back to Richard and Norman’s initial placements. But with a break from the last couple rounds, almost everyone else scatters with David placing near Winston, Richard does place near Kansas City, but then Norman places in Buffalo and Jeff is a little closer in Denver. Richard connects first to Doug which isn’t a surprise with the close proximity of their initial placements. Jeff is next to join up with them, also not a surprise with being the other Midwest initial placement. David is eventually the next to connect moving north and west out of Atlanta while bypassing Memphis. Norman is the last to connect by joining up in Omaha. A flurry of connections occur throughout the country after this with everyone needing different colors still to connect. Doug connected to El Paso, David to Chicago, Richard to Washington DC, Norman to Salt Lake City, Jeff to Boston and Doug finishing up the round connecting Portland and Seattle. Doug scored zero this final round, followed by Jeff with 1 point, David and Richard both with 2 points and Norman with 4 points.

It was a well-played game by all but David came out the winner with 6 points, Doug a close second with 7 points, Jeff an equally close third with 8 points, Norman fourth with 11 points and Richard in fifth with 13 points. These were five excellent competitors and it was a great way to finish up the tournament and the convention.

Thank you to everyone who participated and I hope everyone enjoyed the games. I look forward to continuing as GM again for 2025. I want to thank Andy Latto for the wonderful spreadsheet he creates for the WBC GM’s which makes the recordkeeping for the tournaments so much easier!

Please contact me with any thoughts you have to make this tournament even better at kbreza42@gmail.com.

 
2024 Laurelists Repeating Laurelists: 2
Faust, Doug L Jackson, Jeff Rule, Norman Irving, Richard Kaltman, Claire
2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
He is outnumbered at this table of Sharks (Ladies). Where should I start my railroad?
Nick Henning looking for one last chance at Laurels. Finalists with GM Kevin Breza.
 
GM  Kevin Breza [3rd Year]