Henning Captures Railways Title!

For the second year in a row, Railways of the World returned to the WBC on a sponsor exemption. Twenty-nine railroad gamers competed in the tournament. Over half, sixteen, did not play in last year’s tournament. Three Heats a Semifinal, and a Final were played. Harald Henning improved on his Semifinal appearance last year to win the Final and take the title.

Twelve Heat games were played, with the England and Nippon getting played the most (three times), followed by Europe with two plays. Single plays of the Eastern US base game, Canada, Australia, and Mexico accounted for the rest of the games. Nine of these games were played with four players, while the other tables had only three compete.

Nineteen people came for Heat 1, splitting into four games of 4-players each and one 3-player game. Five different boards were played – the base (Eastern US) map, Europe, Nippon, Great Britain, and North America (Canada). Assistant GM Rick Miller won easily on the Eastern US map, taking only six shares (loans) for the entire game. Due to the initial cards including the Railroad Executive card (which allows two actions in a single turn), the initial auction got as high as $30. Most tables used the rule requiring losing auction bidders to pay half their bid, which tends to increase the number of shares taken during the game. Chet finished in second in the game, despite taking 30 shares, 25 more than the next most, by building the Western Link. The closest table was the Europe board, with Rodney Bacigalupo edging Jim Fleckenstein 63-62. Other winners were Jonathan Towne, Jeff Wu, and Eric Alexopoulos.

Another three tables (with four, four, and three players each) competed in the second Heat. Each table played a different title, with six new players joining five players returning from the first round. The closest of the second round games was on the Australia board, where Paul Grosser won 87-84 over Chris Wildes. The Nippon board was the second closest, with Rick Miller edging Chris Trimmer 86-81. Jim Fleckenstein had the easiest win, 105-84 over Pierre LeBoeuf.

Semifinal:With 29 participants, BPA rules allowed for up to fourteen in the Semifinal, but the number was restricted back to twelve for a more manageable Semifinal round. The players were seeded based on the results of Heat play and the Heats Most Wins – Timing standard tie-breakers.

As a result, the Semifianl was three tables of 4-four players each. Players were to be seated at the three Semifinal tables by rank, with Table 1 matching seeds 1-6-7-12, Table 2 seeds 2-5-8-11, and Table 3 with 3-4-9-10. Unfortunately, confusion in the rankings for positions 2 through 8, mostly due to ranking by heat number played versus game played, resulted in the actual placement of 1-2-3-11 at Table 1, 4-5-8-10 at Table 2, and 6-7-9-12 at Table 3. The Rails of Europe map was chosen for all three Semifinal games.

At the first Semifinal table, Rick Miller continued his winning streak with an easy victory over Chris Wildes and Dan Winnowski. The second table was a little closer, with Jim Fleckenstein beating Chris Trimmer. The last table was the closest, with Rodney Bacigalupo edging Harald Henning 69-67. Harald’s close loss was enough to qualify him as the wild card for the Final.

The three Semifinal winners and the best second place finisher advanced to the Final on the England map. The final matched four preliminary round winners Harald, Rick, Rodney, and Jim. A bid of 13 earned Rick the right to go first, letting him make the first delivery and deliver a 4 point service bounty. Rodney got the bonus for the first 3 point delivery. Rick delivered a wrong color cube, failing to get the passenger (4 color) bonus, which Rodney scooped up. Ultimately, Harald’s winning margin was helped by getting the two largest passenger line bonuses.

Final scores were:

1. Harald Henning (68)
2. Rick Miller (52)
3. Rodney Bacigalupo (49)
4. Jim fleckenstein (49)

I would like to thank our returning and new players, and I hope the event will continue to add attendees next year. We will probably need to win the trial vote next winter to get back into the WBC, so please publicize this event if you wish for it to continue. Thank you also to my assistant GMs, Steve and Rick. My 2 main takeaways remain “Please bring copies of the game” and “Show up for the Semifinal, you never know what might happen”. I hope to see you all again in 2026.