santa fe rails [Updated October 2003]  

2003 WBC Report     

 2004 Status: pending December Membership Century Vote

Andy Lewis, DE

2003 Champion

2nd: Jeff Bakalchuk, NY

3rd: Rob Kircher, RI

4th: Tom DeMarco, NJ

5th: Karl Musser, MD

6th: Lee Presser, NY

Event History
2003    Andy Lewis     28


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 Laurels
Rank Name

From

Last
Total
 1. Andy Lewis

DE

03
20
 2. Jeff Bakalchuk

NY

03
12
 3. Rob Kircher

RI

03
  8
 4. Tom DeMarco

NJ

03
  6
 5. Karl Musser

MD

03
  4
 6. Lee Presser

NY

03
  2

All Aboard II

Your GM, Andy, for a second consecutive night takes players on an Alan Moon train ride. This time 27 engineers join him on the Santa Fe Rails. The first round consisted of seven tables where the winners and one randomly selected second place finisher would advance to the semi-finals. The runner-up was selected at random due to the wide variations in scores due to play style which can occur as you will see below. I will list the range of scores from first to last for each game (with the difference between first and second in parentheses) so everyone can see what I am talking about.

Game 1: 189 to 158 (19)

Game 2: 182 to 133 (28)

Game 3: 167 to 123 (18)

Game 4: 159 to 128 (2)

Game 5: 130 to 96 (9)

Game 6: 107 to 63 (23)

Game 7: 102 to 66 (19)

We ended up adding another second place finisher to the semi-finals as one of the winners had another commitment which they told me about when their game finished; I appreciated that so I could plan for it - thanks Chris.

In the semi-finals, there were two games of four with the top two scorers from each game advancing to the final. These games couldn't have been more different if the players had conscientiously tried.

Semi 1: 211, 180, 178, 163

Semi 2: 102, 97, 92, 90

So the finals were set and the four intrepid engineers (Tom DeMarco, Jeff Bakalchuck, Rob Kircher, and the GM) gathered around the table for a third and final time this evening. The game was a tight, tense, but very friendly game with no one seeming to have a handle on who was ahead at any given time. There was a lot of jockeying the different train lines for position especially with all four short lines coming in and playing a major role not only by connecting cities but as importantly in limiting other railroads access to lines. In the end, I pulled out the victory: 143, 134, 119, 100.

The best example of jockeying in the tournament was in the first round when Frank Cunliffe lead a campaign with the other players in his game to make it so that the green line would run out of track one space short of Canada to prevent one of his opponents from doubling his score there only to draw the other Canada card on his next turn.

I would like to thank all the participants. I'm very happy that the numbers worked out so that I could play too; not because I ended up winning, but because I really enjoy this game and had a great time playing with all my opponents who maintained an absolutely fun atmosphere while doing their darndest to mess with all their neighbors.

 GM      Andy Lewis  [1st Year]   16 Gosling Drive, Lewes, DE 19958
    alewis@gmtgames.com   NA

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