And Other Equally Unpronounceable
Stuff ...
In the first round of the Adel Verpflichtet tournament at
the WBC, each entrant plays four games, scoring points for finishing
position (1st = 5 points, 2nd = 4, 3rd = 3, 4th = 2, 5th = 1).
The ten entrants with the highest total points advance to the
semifinal. In the semifinal each player plays two games. The
four winners and the best second place finisher advance to a
single winner-take-all final.
In the first round the most impressive performance was turned
in by Abby Cocke. She won all four of her games, scoring 20 points.
She averaged 7.5 spaces past the finish line (a total of 30 spaces
out of a possible 52), and finished with at least a
ten-card set each time.1997 champ Thomas Stokes and last year's
fourth-place finisher Carolyn DeMarco each had one win and three
seconds to score 17 points. Greg Crowe, John Pack, and three-time
champ Ray Pfeifer each had one win and a total of 16 points.
There were six players with 15 points vying for the last four
slots in the semifinal. The tiebreaker was the total spaces
past the finish line. Frank Arndt finished two of his games with
11 and 10 spaces past the finish
for a 21 (second best tiebreaker after Abby), Mike Hodkins had
15, Greg Mayer14 and Mark Neale (who averaged 11.75 cards in
his finishing sets) had 12 to grab the last slot. Patrick Mitchell
had 15 points with nine spaces and last
year's runner-up Mark Geary had 15 points with eight spaces,
losing the tiebreaker.
In the first two semifinal games, Abby and Thomas won while
John and Greg Crowe finished second. In the last two semis, John
and Greg Crowe won with Ray and Frank finishing second. Ray's
second place at three spaces short of the finish was better than
Frank's13 spaces, so he won the last spot in the final for the
second year in a row with the best second-place finish in the
semis.
In the final, Abby was collecting cards, looking for another
big finish in a close game. But John used the strategy of exhibiting
often with a smaller set. John opened up a large lead and each
of the others seemed unwilling to exhibit against him or steal
from him. Uncatchable, John won by exhibiting and crossing three
spaces past the finish line with a five-card set. Thomas had
the second best set with nine cards, getting the 4-space bonus
to finish in second place. Abby had the largest set with 10 cards,
but the 8-space bonus could only advance her from fifth to third
place. Greg finished fourth with a 4-card set and Ray finished
fifth with a 6-card set. We hope to see John, a newcomer to this
event, come back again next year to defend his title.
Stats:
Black won 13 of the 44 games played, Yellow won only four games
while finishing last in 13 games. Black was last only four times.
Last year Blue had the most wins/least losses, while Yellow again
had the least wins/most losses.
Greg Mayer had the largest set at the finish of his fourth
game, ending with 15 cards in a winning effort. Greg Crowe won
the second game he played, finishing without a set.
In 11 of the games played, only one player crossed the finish
line. In 19 games two players crossed, three players crossed
in nine games, and four players crossed the line in five games.
In Ray's first game, all of the four players crossed the line,
also producing the tightest grouping (four players in a six-space
stretch).
Michael Destro finished 18 spaces ahead of the second place
finisher in his first game for the biggest lead in the first
round, while John Pack used his Run-Run-Run strategy to finish
an incredible 24 spaces ahead of second place in his second semifinal
game. Both Michael and John's finishes were the most advanced
wins at 12 past the finish line (13 spaces
is the maximum possible).
Lance Ribeiro edged Carolyn in their first game eight cards
to five when both finished five spaces past the finish for the
closest 1-2 finish. The most common position for the winner was
five spaces over the line (eight times), followed by four spaces
over (six times) and nine spaces (five times).
Half of last year's entrants (20 out of 40) returned to this
year's tournament. The first games of Round 1 consisted of 58
players (12 boards), the second games had 54 (11 boards), the
third games had 45 (nine boards), and the fourth round games
had 34 players (seven boards).
The
Junior version attracted 15 little art collectors. When all the
buying, showing and thievin' had finished, the top six future
threats were:
1st. Tim DeMarco
2nd. Erica Kirchner
3rd. Daniel Collinson
4th. Jessica Finkeldey
5th. Ashley Collinson
6th. Alex Henning
|