Saint Petersburg (SPG) PBeM Reports Updated September 20, 2024

2024 PBeM Tournament
 

Fifty-seven players participated in the 2024 Saint Petersburg PBEM tournament. Over three rounds, eighty-three games were completed. In each round, four simultaneous games were played and players were ranked according to their cumulative results using a 1000-100-10-1 scoring system.

Jeff Wu led in Round 1, winning all four of his games. Three other players earned three wins: Randy Buehler, Ryan Feathers, and Chris Wildes. The cutoff for the Semifinal was the top 19, who needed a score of 1210 (one win, two second-place finishes, and one third-place) and good tiebreakers to advance. Chris Gnech took the final spot, advancing over Bryce Bender by .0002 on the tiebreaker.

In the Semifinal, Cary Morris was the only player to win three games to finish on top of the standings. Two wins were required to make the Final and Cary was joined by Harald Henning, Andrew Martin, Chris Wildes, Ryan Feathers, Sam Wolff, and DJ Borton. After narrowly making the semifinal, Chris Gnech finished as the top player with a single win to end up in 8th place.

Just as in the previous tournament, four players won games in the final round. Chris and Harald each won one game to finish 3rd and 4th respectively. Cary earned two wins for 2nd place. Sam followed in his father’s footsteps, winning three games to keep the Saint Petersburg PBEM championship in the possession of the Wolff family. The top six finishers were:

  1. Sam Wolff
  2. Cary Morris
  3. Chris Wildes
  4. Harald Henning
  5. Ryan Feathers
  6. Andrew Martin

Chris Gnech had the highest winning score of the tournament with 134, while Rob Kircher earned the lowest winning score with 41. Dominic Blais had the highest non-winning score with 108. The average winning score across all games was 78, down from 84 last year.

Once again, statistics were gathered related to initial seat and phase order. As in the past, players starting the game with the Aristocrat phase were the most likely to win, at a rate of 49%, up from 40% in previous years. Players buying Workers first again had the lowest win rate at 11% (down from 17% in 2022). Starting with the Building phase improved slightly (23% vs 20% in 2022) to be the second best position, while Upgrades dropped from 22% in 2022 to 17%.

The seat order Aristocrats - Upgrades - Workers - Buildings won 62.50% of the games in which it appeared, and 12% of all games played in the event.

Over three PBEM tournaments (236 games), the first Aristocrats seat holds a 43% win rate, followed by Upgrades (22%) and Buildings (21%). First Workers seat lags significantly behind, winning 13%.

Congratulations to all of the laurelists and thank you to everyone who participated in the event.


2023 PBeM Tournament
 

Over three rounds, forty-nine players completed seventy-three games during the 2022 Saint Petersburg PBEM tournament. Four simultaneous games were played in each round and players were ranked according to their cumulative results using a 1000-100-10-1 scoring system.

Rob Kircher was the only player to win all four games in the first round. Four other players won three games: Andy Latto, Dominic Blais, Ryan Feathers, and Chris Wildes. Seventeen players advanced to the semifinal round and a score of 1210 was required (one win, two second-place finishes, and one third place). Ray Wolff edged out Rob Flowers for the last spot by .02 on the tiebreaker.

After squeaking into the semifinal, Ray proceeded to win all four of his games in the next round to advance to the final for the second year in a row. He was joined by fellow 2021 finalist Andy Latto, Francois de Bellefeuille, Chris Wildes, DJ Borton, Keith Levy, and Lynn Chalfoun. The required score for the final was 1102.

Four players won games in the final round. DJ and Andy each won one game to finish 3rd and 4th respectively. Chris won two wins for 2nd place. Ray continued his dominance from the semifinal, winning three games and adding a second-place finish to improve on his 2021 performance by one spot, claiming the 2022 Saint Petersburg PBEM championship. The top six finishers were:

  1. Ray Wolff
  2. Chris Wildes
  3. DJ Borton
  4. Andy Latto
  5. Francois de Bellefeuille
  6. Lynn Chalfoun

Over the course of the tournament, Rich Shay had the highest winning score with 128, while Rodney Davidson earned the lowest winning score with 46 in a game that featured a three-way tie for second place. DJ had the highest non-winning score with 114. The average winning score across all games was 84, up from 79 last year.

As with last year, statistics were gathered related to initial seat and phase order. Once again, players starting the game with the Aristocrat phase were the most likely to win, at a rate of 40%, the same rate from last year. Players buying Workers first again had the lowest win rate at 17% (up from 10% in 2021). Starting with the Upgrades phase again ranked 2nd, with a win rate of 22% (down from 29% in 2021), while the Building phase remained steady winning 20% of games.

The seat order Aristocrats - Workers - Buildings - Upgrades won 56% of the games in which it appeared, and 12% of all games played in the event.

Congratulations to all the laurelists and thank you to everyone who participated in the event.


2022 PBeM Tournament
  A total of 80 games were played by 49 participants over the course of three rounds during the 2021 Saint Petersburg PBEM tournament. In each round, players completed four simultaneous games and were ranked according to their cumulative results using a 10-6-3-1 scoring system.

In the first round, six players won three out of their four games: AJ Jiang, Ray Wolff, Chris Gnech, Rod Davidson, Lumin Sperling, and Andy Latto. Another six players won two games, and a total of twenty-four players advanced to the semifinal.

Ray Wolff continued his strong performance in the semifinal round by winning all four of his games. Ray won seven of his first eight games in the tournament. He was joined in the final round by Michael Swinson, Eugene Yee, AJ Jiang, Andy Latto, Marc Gibbens, and Chris Gnech.

For the final round, Eugene, and Chris both earned two victories. Chris’s remaining two games were 4th place finishes, which due to the scoring system in place dropped him down to third in the standings. Eugene on the other hand complimented his victories with 2nd and 3rd place finishes, propelling him to the top of the standings and victory in this year’s tournament. The top six finishers were:

  1. Eugene Yee
  2. Ray Wolff
  3. Chris Gnech
  4. Marc Gibbens
  5. Michael Swinson
  6. AJ Jiang

Over the course of the tournament, Lumin Sperling had the highest winning score with 132, while Andy Latto earned the lowest winning score of 37 in a game that featured a three-way tie for first. Francois de Bellefeuille had the highest non-winning score with 112. In arguably the closest game of the tournament, AJ Jiang won with 48 points while his three opponents tied on 47 points. The average winning score across all games was 79.

Throughout the tournament, statistics were gathered related to seat and phase order. Players starting the game with the Aristocrat phase were the most likely to win, at a rate of 40%, and correspondingly had the highest average finish (2.05) and highest average score (71). Conversely, players buying Workers first managed only a 10%-win rate, with the lowest average finish (2.89) and score (63). Starting with the Building or Upgrade phase placed in between those two, with Upgrades favored in terms of win rate (28.75% vs 21.25%) and average finish (2.375 vs 2.69).

Additionally, I examined how these statistics were affected by the order in which players gained priority for the given phases. As mentioned above, starting the Worker phase in the first round produced the worst results, but leading that phase in the 2nd or 3rd round resulted in a greatly improved win rate (35%, 33% respectively), average finish (2.25, 2.15), and average score (69, 70).

For the Building phase, having phase priority in the 4th round produced the highest win rate (35%), average finish (2.15), and average score (70). On the other hand, having first selection of Buildings in the 2nd round led to the worst results: 17.5%-win percentage, 2.79 average finish, and 64 average score.

As described above, leading the Aristocrat phrase in the first round resulted in the best performance. The win rate decreased steadily from there, with 4th round Aristocrat priority having the lowest win rate at 13.75%. However, choosing first on this phase in the 3rd round produced the lowest average finish (2.9) and average score (64).

Lastly, Upgrade phase priority produced the most even results, with win percentages all ranging from 20-30%, average finishes from 2.38 - 2.59, and average scores from 66-67 for all positions. However, there does appear to be a slight advantage to choosing Upgrades first in the 1st and 4th rounds.

Once again congratulations to Eugene and to all the laurelists and thank you to everyone who participated in the event.