san juan   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

 

2013 WBC Report  

 2014 Status: pending 2014 GM commitment

Bruce Reiff, OH

2013 Champion

     

Event History
2004    Jeff Mullet     123
2005    Bill Salvatore       48
2006    Bruce Reiff       43
2007    Peter Stein       42
2008    Tom Browne       44
2009     Tom Browne       74
2010    Raphael Lehrer     102
2011    Greg Thatcher       99
2012    Jason Levine       97
2013    Bruce Reiff       98

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Bruce Reiff        OH    13    104
  2.  Rob Kircher        RI    13     69
  3.  Tom Browne         PA    12     69
  4.  Jeff Mullet        OH    13     62
  5.  Raphael Lehrer     MD    10     46
  6.  Jason Levine       NY    12     38
  7.  Greg Thatcher      CA    11     30
  8.  Bill Salvatore     MD    05     30
  9.  Eric Brosius       MA    13     27
 10.  Nick Page          on    10     24
 11.  Pete Stein         OH    07     20
 12.  Bill Murdock       NY    05     18
 13.  Tom McCorry        VA    04     18
 14.  Bill Edwards       VA    13     16
 15.  Lexi Shea          CT    10     16
 16.  Nick Ferris        MD    12     12
 17.  Jeremy Billones    VA    11     12
 18.  Eric Freeman       PA    08     12
 19.  Nate Hoam          OH    04     12
 20.  Eric Lenhart       PA    05      9
 21.  Alan Kaiser        OH    04      9
 22.  Curt Collins II    PA    13      8
 23.  David Platnick     NY    07      8
 24.  Arthur Field       SC    06      8
 25.  Adam Fetzer        NY    12      6
 26.  Ken Schlosser      PA    11      6
 27.  Debbie Gutermuth   NC    08      6
 28.  Trevor Bender      WA    05      6
 29.  Bob Wicks Jr       CT    10      4
 30.  Peggy Pfeiffer     FL    09      4
 31.  Richard Irving     CA    09      4
 32.  Ken Richards       SC    06      4
 33.  Sean McCulloch     OH    12      3
 34.  Jennifer Gorman    PA    05      3
 35.  Chris Kamm         NY    04      3
 36.  Suzanne Tuch       NY    06      2

2013 Laurelists                                                 Repeating Laurelists:

Rob Kircher, RI
2nd

Bill Edwards, VA
3rd

Jeff Mullet, OH
4th

Curt Collins II, PA
5th

Eric Brosius, MA
6th

Past Winners

Jeff Mullet, OH
2004


Bill Salvatore, MD
2005


Bruce Reiff, OH
2006, 2013

Pete Stein, OH
2007

Tom Browne, PA
2008-09


Raphael Lehrer, CA
2010


Greg Thatcher, CA
2011


Jason Levine, NY
2012
   

Nicola Bradford vs Rod Bacigalupo

Inger Henning and Brandon Bernard exchange congratulations.

 Perrianne Lurie vs Angela Hoffman

 Bobbi Warczak vs Peggy Pfeifer

Lucky or Not? ...

After another well attended demo, I headed over to the ballroom. Even with more things going on Monday, San Juan continues to have great attendance numbers, flirting with a triple-digit field. My trusty assistant GMs had already entered nearly 100 players. But one notable among the missing was Tom Browne.

Tom has won or been in the Final multiple times. One year, we even resorted to the famous Greg Schmittgens buttons to fire everyone up to take him down (to no avail). This year the crowd was disappointed to discover that Tom wouldn't be able to attend WBC this year. Ok, maybe relieved is more like it.

The four swiss rounds got underway as scheduled. To qualify for the single elimination bracket, you had to win three times. Everyone who wins their first three rounds gets to go have lunch, while the 2-1's have to go hungry and play again. This year there were actually more players than ever who kept playing, even after being eliminated from advancing, just for the fun of it. This was nice to see and goes to show what a fun, quick game San Juan is. It also shows that nobody is exhausted yet on Monday.

The CABS crowd plays San Juan quite a bit throughout the year, so we often advance several Cabbies into the elimination bracket. Heck, even grumpy ol' Peter Stein won San Juan once! This year, perennial contender Sean McCulloch was "shamed" by being knocked out by a pair of Sheas. I would later avenge my teammate in true Cabbie style by knocking out Jordan Shea, myself.

Alas, after it was all said and done, the Final came down to Bruce Reiff and Rob Kircher. Neither player had a good starting hand. Rob began to play towards the purple building strategy, while Bruce took the risk of going for the Guild Hall strategy without having a Guild Hall. Using the "run and gun", he started quickly building small production buildings, forcing Rob to build smaller, less useful buildings to keep pace. Without the Guild Hall, Bruce was behind throughout in what was going to be a very low scoring game. To Rob's dismay, Bruce drew the Guild hall at the end and was able to pass Rob by one point, becoming the second multiple San Juan champion. Is anyone shocked that Mr Fourleaf Clover himself got exactly the card he needed at the end?

On a more somber note, right before the tournament began, my good friend and assistant GM Bruce Reiff found out his father had just lost his battle with cancer. Even though I could tell it was tearing him up inside, no one would ever know. As he does every year, Bruce gets up on a (really strong) chair and randomly matches opponents by drawing a card the players have completed. There he was butchering names, making up nicknames and getting digs in at old friends and generally entertaining the crowd, even though I'm sure he didn't feel like doing so.

I'm pretty sure Alan Reiff made sure that Guild Hall was right there where it needed to be at the end of the game for Bruce. And this was the first and only time, I was glad to see Bruce come out a winner.

Thanks to all who participated and I hope to see even more of you next year when we will once again try to break 100. The game is very easy to learn. There was at least one player taught at the demo who advanced. And as always, bring your copy of the game. Every year we have a shortage.

Chris Kizer puts his shiny new Duke degree to work vs Carol Haney. Did it help?

Rob Kircher was all that stood between Bruce Reiff and his 44th plaque. He wasn't enough.

 GM      Jeff Mullet  [7th Year]   NA
    jamullet@frontier.com    NA 

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