Birnbaum, But Not Marvin, Captures Second Title in Attack Sub!

The second to last tournament start of WBC got underway on Sunday morning with submariners looking to stalk their way to the elusive century plaque. While the field was filled with a lot of veteran captains, only four of the top 10 laurelists came for another tour. Giving hopes to many that maybe this just might their year.

The tournament remained with its tried and true format of three Swiss Rounds followed by Single Elimination Rounds. An hour is allotted for each round, but rarely does a game last the entire time limit. This year there were a couple of captains who were done two rounds in under 20 minutes total. In fact, the entire tournament including the Single Elimination Rounds was completed before the end of the allotted time for Quarterfinal.

Three captains came through the Swiss rounds undefeated. Four of the 5 captains who advanced with 2-1 records had their 2nd win coming in the 3rd round.

The Quarterfinal saw a reversal of fate for the top seeds from 2024 where 3 of the top 4 had lost. This year only one upset occurred:

• #1 Aaron Birmbaum (last year’s #4 and only non-upset winner) defeated Brady Detwiler
• #2 Buck Karpowicz defeated Keith Hunsinger
• #3 Jay Schoenen was upset by Jim Eliason
• #4 Jeff Lange Sr defeated Drew Doughan

No top 10 laurelists made it to the Semifinal.

In the Semifinal, Aaron took out Jeff and Buck defeated Jim setting up a Final with the top 2 seeds from the Swiss Rounds. Both were in the top 15 of laurelists and will be moving up next year.

Buck won the draw and choose to play the Falklands scenario and go first. Aaron took the Argentines. Buck’s Swiftsure was able to get off the first shot but missed. Aaron used Contact Reduction extensively and very successfully to hide. His luck was not as good at bringing in the San Luis where he failed 5 times. The Salta did get off a shot which missed before the Swiftsure opened range. A stalemate through the first deck. As the second deck opened, the San Luis finally arrived on scene and the Argentines went hard on the sonar while the Swiftsure was alternating between cycling cards and unsuccessfully trying to reduce Contact. In the end, the luck was not with Buck and the Swiftsure met its fate. He had only gotten off that one early shot. Aaron becomes a two time champion and will look next year to try to tie Rob Schoenen with a third title.