Acquiring Civilization ...
The tournament drew 20 night owls to its first heat which
started at 10 PM on Wednesday and ended shortly before midnight.
32 showed up for the second heat at 1 PM Thursday, including
several players from overseas who were attending the WBC this
year as participants in the World Diplomacy Championships. 19
played in the third and final heat, necessitating the playing
of the only 3-player game of the three heats. Overall, E&T
drew 49 entrants. Although most games were played using the Hans
im Glueck version of the game, several players did bring the
recently released Mayfair version, renamed in English as "Tigris
& Euphrates".
Chetan Radia from London became the first E&T winner from
overseas as he denied defending champion Ananda Gupta the 1st
place plaque for a 2nd year in a row. Other highlights of the
tournament include Ted Simmons qualifying for the
semi-finals at the ripe old age of 12 (Ted almost made it to
the semi-finals last year when he won his first heat, but finished
4th in his second heat) and Rob Kilroy displaying his homemade
E&T game.
Using his woodworking and miniature terrain making skills,
Rob created an over-sized E&T game having a painted and textured
playing surface into which he carved the namesake rivers of E&T.
Rob also created and painted his own wooden playing tiles, leader
pieces, scoring cubes and monuments. The drawbag for the game
was made out of a pair of blue jeans and in place of the disaster
tiles of the regular game, Rob provided plastic insects and arachnids.
The players at Rob's table in the 3rd heat requested the chance
to use his board, and when the game was in progress, it was quite
a sight to behold.
Although qualifying for the semi-finals was based on a player's
best two finishes, all 16 players who won at least one game during
the three heats advanced to the semifinals, with Ananda Gupta
winning both his heat games and Aaron Fuegi winning two out of
three. Unfortunately, despite having 16 automatic qualifiers
and eight alternates, only 13 players posted for the semi-finals,
necessitating that three of the semi-finals be three-player games
while the remaining semi-final was a four-player game. The three
highest qualifiers were allowed to play in the three-player games
In the finals, Chetan was able to consolidate a position in
one corner of the board and rack up a steady stream of victory
points in all four colors that the other players were unable
to match.
Unlike 1999, when the players playing third (Dynasty 3) won
12 of the 39 tournament games, this year the players playing
second racked up the most wins, winning over half of the games
in the tournament. Listed below are the results for all 19 four-player
tournament games this year. In the four three-player games played,
the player going first won all four games.
|
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
4th |
Dynasty 1 |
4 |
8 |
3 |
4 |
Dynasty 2 |
10 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
Dynasty 3 |
1 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
Dynasty 4 |
4 |
4 |
7 |
4 |
|