Acquiring Civilization ...
Euphrat & Tigris (E&T) drew 47 entrants, down
19 from 2002 and 2001. The 2003 tournament used essentially the
same format as the previous two years: players were only guaranteed
to advance to the semi-finals if the player won the first heat
game he/she played in, whether that game was in heat 1, 2 or
3. This year, a player whose best finish was a single 2nd place
finish advanced to the semi-finals. All but one game played in
the tournament were four-player games.
In response to this year's decline in attendance, the GM is
hoping to run the entire tournament on a single day next year
to avoid having the E&T semifinals and finals conflict with
Puerto Rico as they did this year. The number of heats
will be reduced from three to two, but the remainder of the format
will be essentially the same with a player only being required
to play and win in one of the two heats to advance to the elimination
round.
Three finalists from last year: defending champion Jeff Cornett,
Craig Moffitt and Eric Freeman made the semifinals. However,
only Jeff advanced to play in the final and defend his title
against his daughter Ann Cornett, 1999 champion John Kilbride
and Lance Ribeiro. This marked the second final in 2003 matching
Jeff against one of his children as he lost to his son Scott
in the Napoleon final
Lance, as the 4th Dynasty, jumped out to an early lead and
hung on to win 8-18-8-7 (Blue-Black-Green-Red) over Jeff 6-6-6-6
(2nd Dynasty), John 5-8-22-7 (1st Dynasty) and Ann 9-3-6-5 (3rd
Dynasty).
This year, players going 1st won seven games, players going
second won four, players going third won five and players going
fourth won five. The slight advantage in having an earlier player
turn is the reason that player order continues to be used to
break ties. Also, this year, players were seeded in the semi-finals
so that players who played the 4th and 3rd dynasty in their qualifying
heats were more likely to play as the 1st and 2nd dynasty in
their semi-final games.
The GM would also like to thank his Assistant GM: Stuart Hendrickson,
for assisting him in running the tournament this year and for
helping to fill out four-player tables as necessary, even though
he could not attend the semi-finals for which he qualified.
Finalists (l to r) John Kilbride,
Jeff and Ann Cornett, and Lance Ribeiro.
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