Bott, George - Squad Leader: George helped new players get a game played and coached them during the game. He played all players in the top 10 players. His attitude and calm demeanor helps to bring more people to the event. Nominated by the GM.

D'Tela, Sceadeau - Moon Colony Bloodbath: Enthusiasm for the game and teaching multiple times before and during the event. He taught people, pointed out mistakes, and shared strategies. He celebrates other's wins and achievements more than his own and really helped make this C Event welcoming to new players. Nominated by the GM.

Emery, John - Brass: John is a great benefit to the gaming community. He exhibited patience in guiding newer players at his table through the intricacies of Brass: Birmingham. I have witnessed this behavior in other games at WBC, namely The Napoleonic Wars. Nominated by the GM.

Keller, Kevin - 1775:- Rebellion: Kevin stayed in the tournament and taught the game to a late arrival so that person could still learn to play the game. Then, when the single elimination total was odd, he offered to pay as an eliminator so the round had an even number. His thoughtful teaching and comradery was an inspiration o everyone involved in 1775. Nominated by the GM.

Lange, Alexander - Star Wars: Queen's Gambit: In the Semifinal, Alex blocked all reinforcement hexes and used his remaining troops to clear most of the droids in the Palace. Darrel, his opponent, pushed through and managed to break Alex's hold on the first floor, reducing Alex's forces to just a queen, Obe-Wan Kenobi, and two palace guards, with Anakin three spaces away from victory. The game had been running long so Darrel extended his arm to concede to Alex. Alex reminded him that he only had to kill two palace guards and refused to accept the concession. Darrel revealed his last order card, an Intruder Alert Card, which let him move and attack with his last two Battle Droids. They each killed a Palace Guard and Darrel won the game. Alex's determination to play a close game to its conclusion, rather than advancing to the Final deserves recognition. Darrel reached the Final and won the tournament for the first time. Nominated by the GM.

Miller, Matt - Memoir ‘44: Helping me at the check-in table Friday morning was Matt Miller, a strong player who has earned Laurels for the past three years, and who had won his Mulligan match the night before. At some point after Round 1 had begun, I needed to step out for a couple of minutes, so I asked Matt to keep an eye on the room and answer any questions for players, and in fact players did start asking him questions. Even after I returned, people kept coming to Matthew with questions, and I noticed he had started walking around the room, looking in at all the tables – basically supervising the room. I normally don't monitor the room as continuously as he did. On one or two tricky questions, he came to me for definitive answers, but basically Matthew was pro-actively taking a load off my shoulders, which gave me an opportunity to work on my tournament paperwork. Most notably, we had one table where both players were inexperienced and had a lot of questions, so I asked Matthew to hang out with them to answer their questions more readily. He could have easily camped out next to the table his brother was playing at or wandered into a dozen other tournament rooms but, without being asked, he stayed around and helped out far, far beyond the couple of minutes I'd needed him for. In recognition of the help he was giving, I gave him a field promotion to AGM (I always have more AGMs than I need) and invited him to AGM officially next year. For being such a team player, unasked, so far above and beyond the call, Matthew earned my vote for Sportsmanship. Nominated by the GM.

Powers, Aidan - Dune: Aidan agreed to drop out of the 3rd Heat to allow room for another player to join, despite the fact it could jeopardize his chance of advancing to the Final. Nominated by the GM.

Rynkowski, David - Diplomacy: David agreed to sit out Round 1 because we had too many players, then agreed to take over a players game when they had to leave because of a family emergency. In Round 3, he agreed to play on 2 boards simultaneously because we were short a player. Nominated by the GM.

Stanton, Ryan - Star Wars: Outer Rim: Ryan through random draw twice was assigned to a table with new players. Despite his own personal score ( he scored ZERO points out of the necessary 10 to win in one game ) he nevertheless took the time to patiently help the new players, never requiring the GM to help and demonstrated good sportsmanship in doing so when he could have focused on his own game. Nominated by the GM.

Wildes, Chris - Scythe: In the Scythe final, Chris realized that he had not taken two bonuses from an encounter card, which was his privilege as Polonia. He had only taken one. The table was willing to allow him to take another, but he declined, feeling that it wouldn't be right. Chris repeatedly allowed others to use his copy of the modular board even in rounds he was not playing. He was gracious when it was not returned to him in the same condition it was lent. Nominated by the GM.

Honorable Mention:

• Bender, Angela
• Burdett, Bailey
• Collins, Chris
• Drueding, Tom
• Dunn, Charles
• Hamel, Bob
• Klercker, Nick
• Nelson Jr, Marc
• Saccenti, Scott
• Stern, Jon