A New Pharaoh Has Appeared!

Before I tell you how this year's Ra! tournament went, I'd like to extend once again my thanks to Steve Scott, who shepherded this event through 20 years before stepping down as GM. Steve features prominently in this story, and that seems fitting to me.

This year saw 141 competitors play 67 individual games of Ra!, including the Quarterfinal, Semifinal, and Final. Total attendance was slightly down, but the number of tables was the same as last year. We had a lot of repeat customers!

Some notes from the Heats:

• We had 56 total tables, the same number as last year
• The average winning score at those tables was 43.7, with 9 players scoring 50+
• The highest score in a game was Winton Lemoine’s 59
• Two tables featured winning scores of 29, with one being the barn burner of the tournament. David Platnick had 29 with Kevin Wojtaszczyk and Bob Wicks tied at 28 while Richard Irving and Anna DeRosa were one point back, tied at 27. It was the closest tournament game of Ra! I've ever seen
• Our only triple winner was Matt Stankey, but 9 others won 2 games to earn byes to the Semifinal

Six Quarterfinal games narrowed the field down to 20 for the Semifinal. This round included Ron Hodge, in only his second Ra! tournament game ever, scoring a tournament high 63 points (this is what we call foreshadowing) and Matt Calkins missing the Semifinal by a mere point.

In order to ensure a five player Final, we took the 4 Semifinal winners and the best second place finisher through to the Final. Those winners were former champions Steve Scott, Jeff Meyer, and Aubrey Powers and new finalist Michael McKibbin. The aforementioned Ron Hodge earned the 5th spot at the Final with the closest 2nd place in the Semifinal, while Mike Kaltman would unfortunately have to settle for 6th place laurels, moving him ever closer to top 10 all-time!.

The final was epic. The scores were fairly even after the first epoch, with Ron and Jeff in the lead with 12, Michael at 7, Steve at 6, and Aubrey at 5. But round 2 was not kind to our players, as Aubrey was the only one to escape with a positive score. The score was now Aubrey 9, Jeff 7, Steve 6, and Michael and Ron 5 apiece. Steve had the pharaoh lead locked up but no other permanent tiles on his board; Michael had a growing collection of monuments, while the other three players had more diverse portfolios, but it was anyone's game heading into the final round.

Michael went out very early as three lots of advantageous tiles rocketed his score to 40, but his suns were very low. Aubrey went out next, winning a single gold tile to join Michael in the clubhouse T 35. Aubrey and Michael knew something the rest of the table did not know, though the GM knew. Aubrey had locked up highest suns and Michael’s suns were lowest. So, while it appeared that Michael was winning, Aubrey was actually in position to win on tiebreaker.

Jeff passed on an opportunity to take tiles that would get his score to 36, reasoning aloud that since Michael had 40, 36 was not enough to win. But Jeff forgot to deduct 5 points from Michael’s score, so he would actually have put himself in the lead by winning the bid! When a second opportunity came for Jeff to raise his score to 36, he went into a deep think and realized that Michael was only at 35, so 36 would be enough to win if Ron or Steve did not catch up.

Now Jeff, Aubrey, and Michael were out with 36, 35, and 35 respectively and only Steve and Ron remained. Unfortunately for Steve, there weren't enough tiles left in the bag to get him the points he needed to win, so he had to keep drawing and allow Ron to take the lion’s share of the remaining tiles. Ron’s hot streak in the tournament continued, as when the dust settled, he was able to amass 39 points for the win. Jeff (36), Aubrey (35/16), and Michael (35/9) were 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, and Steve took home 5th place laurels with 23 points.

Congratulations to Ron Hodge, who proved that all you need is a chip and a chair to make a run at Ra! Thanks to everyone who played. I'll see you next year!