Spencer Repeats After Leaders Enter Pit!

In the past I have often used a board called the cross to hold the first flag in the race. I have a favorite spot for that flag that tends to result in a good deal of the chaos we all love in Roborally. This year, I decided to experiment, not with different boards, but with different orientations of the cross during the heats. I was pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of some of these new orientations, and it is likely they will be seen again in the future.

Some very interesting things happened in Roborally this year, In spite of missing many of our international friends, our numbers were slightly up over last year.

Additionally, for the first time since 2009 we have had a win by the defending champion, A feat only previously accomplished by the legendary Brad Johnson, who did it twice, in 2004, as well as in 2009. And finally, this was one of the closest, most spectacular Final I have witnessed in the 25 times I have run this event. Early in the game Alex Gesings spinbot managed to acquire the Scrambler option, but before he could even put it to use he was hunted down, in a spectacular display of programming prowess by Keith Boone's Twonky and had the first loss of a robot.

Over the course of this game, all six players lost at least one robot, but the real excitement of this game came in the approach to the final flag. Keith's Twonky and Ewan McNay's Hammer bot were neck and neck coming into the last flag. Keith planned a move that required Ewan to push him. When Ewan did not, his program took him off into a pit, but not before he gave Ewan a push that sent him also into a pit. Keith's archive point took him mostly out of the race for first, but Ewan was archived much closer to the flag. Close behind those two however came Keith's brother Evan driving the zoom bot, now it was he and Ewan again going neck and neck for flag three. Evan had a slight edge on Ewan, but his card draw was not favorable, and once again both robots ended in a pit. Finally, along comes reigning champion David Spencer who, three turns ago, thought he was out of this race, he was closely followed by Keith finally returning from his distant archive point and Ewan was right on his trail as well. David's luck with cards was better than his predecessors, and he was able to reach the final flag a mere register phase before Keith, with Ewan close behind. As we had reached the end of our three hour time slot, the rest of the field was decided by the adjudication rules. Alex Gesing by this time had managed to pull slightly ahead of Evan Boone giving him the 4th position by the Optimal hand rule Evan pulled off fifth, and our previous unmentioned 6th went to Evan Cagwin, who managed to finally touch the 2nd flag as the game was ending.

All in all, it was a thrilling end to a great tournament and I look forward to what next year will bring.