Truly Brother vs Brother ...
It
was a small, but dedicated, turnout for this year's tourney.
The competition was fierce, yet cordial. The format was similar
to last year's with a couple of adjustments implemented. The
first scenario was Bentonville utilizing a uniform chit pull
for the Confederate's first turn. This seems to work well in
minimizing the wild fluctuations that could result from game
to game. The second scenario was Bull Run, followed by Pea Ridge
for the third and final preliminary round. The finals pitted
the top scoring Union commander against the top scoring Confederate
player. The final round was altered in an effort to quicken the
outcome. Bull Run was used for the championship with two games
being played, one from each side of the map. The previous formatwas
one game of Pea Ridge, but this usually turned out to be a very
long scenario.
David Metzger regained his championship form from years past
to dominate the field. His rebels managed to obtain numerous
victory stars in the first round of Bentonville, barely lost
a ten-turn game of Bull Run in round 2, then pushed the Union
off the map for a decisive Pea Ridge victory. In the finals,
pitted against 1999 champ Michael Sincavage, Evans' brigade proved
critical. When Metzger controlled Evans, he escaped the Stone
Bridge to meet the Union forces coming down Sudley-New Market
Road. When Sincavage had the Confederates, Evans died quickly
allowing the Union forces to decisively obtain the hilltop.
Michael got into the finals with a surprisingly quick first
day Union victory over George Young's rebels in Pea Ridge. Combined
with his Union victories in Bentonville & Bull Run he had
to sweat out tie breaker points with Rick Young to determine
the best Union player of the day. Michael got the nod over Rick
by having his rebel opponents score more points than Rick's adversaries,
thus knocking out the defending champion.
The overall results saw Metzger as the only Confederate victor
in Bentonville, along with two draws and three Union victories.
The 3-1-2 record from the blue point of view, countered the overall
rebel advantage of 69-34-47 over the life of this event. The
second round of Bull Run resulted in two Confederate wins and
four Union wins. This is in keeping with the previous results,
although total figures were not available for this scenario.
The third round Pea Ridge was diminished by drop-outs, with only
three games played. One rebel victory versus two federal wins
can be compared with the overall Union advantage of 62-59.
The poor turnout this year will once again force the membership
to return this game to the Century group via the ballot. Expectations
were high, but conflicts, as always, claimed some no shows, and
again cut the field beneath 16.
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