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Jeff Mullet, Kevin Wojtasczyk, Andy
Latto and Cally Perry |
Scot Palenshus and Nate Hoam ponder
their options in the Final. |
A Shortage of Camels
The first WBC Yspahan tournament went very smoothly.
I was hoping for a few more boards in the mulligan round Tuesday
night, but the players that participated had a great time.
In fact, one table had the players laughing so hard, some
of them were crying. That table was manned by Chris Trimmer,
Chris Gnech, Sean Vessey and Arthur Field. As most WBCers know,
it's not often Arthur does badly in any game. But this particular
game Arthur's luck was so horrible, the other players couldn't
stop laughing at every bad die roll and every useless card draw,
including Arthur himself. By the end of the game, the winner
Chris, nearly lapped the last place Arthur in victory points.
After the first round and semi-finals concluded, the Final
table included Chris Trimmer (who had already won his team game),
J.R. Tracy of ASL fame, Nate Hoam and his roomate, first
time WBC attendee Scott Palenshus.
Something very odd happened in the first "week"
(round) of the game that I have never seen. In the seven "days"
(turns), not one person rolled more than one camel. This made
it nearly impossible to buy any buildings the first round. In
fact, J.R. was unable to erect a single building the entire first
turn. And the only way for the others to build was through card
play. Scott built one with the card that lets you build with
only gold and no camels. Chris and Nate were able to build one
with the card that let you convert gold to camels and vice versa.
At the end of Round 1, Chris had 7 points, J.R. 11, Nate 16
and Scott led with 17 points.
The next round, everyone started rolling plenty of camels
and the game got back to normal. Chris was making a comeback
of sorts, but he was using the same strategy that got him to
the Final and it just wasn't working quite as well. Chris likes
to set himself up to draw lots of cards, but the dice weren't
cooperating and he was having to spend his entire turn just drawing
a card. And the card didn't seem to help him much. J.R. struggled
a littile for the second straight turn. And Nate and Scott enjoyed
another good round.
At the end of Round 2, J.R. had 28 points, Chris 32, Scott
37 and Nate jumped in front with 45.
The final round, Chris continued to have below average luck
with the dice and the cards. Scott began to stall and had trouble
with his last buildings. Nate continued his steady, strong play.
J.R. almost had a miraculous come from behind victory. J.R. sand-bagged
a few cards for some very clever points at the end. Alas, he
was just too far back to pull out the win.
The final score was Nate 78, JR 76, Scott 72 and Chris 66.
It was a very enjoyable tournament and a fun, fast-paced Final.
Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I hope Yspahan will return
to the WBC in 2009. Thanks to everone who played and those that
helped out to make it easy on me.
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