air baron [Updated October 2005]  

2005 WBC Report     

 2006 Status: pending 2006 GM commitment

Robert Sohn, NJ

2005 Champion


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Event History
1996    Jack Jaeger      118
1997    James Garvey      110
1998    Fred Minard        94
1999    Ken Rothstein      117
2000    John Coussis     109
2001    Jack Jaeger       72
2002     Chris Storzillo       73
2003    Jonathan Fox       68
2004    Michael Musko       80
2005    Robert Sohn       75

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  John Coussis       IL    05     91
  2.  Ken Rothstein      NY    05     82
  3.  Robert Sohn        PA    05     74
  4.  Chris Storzillo    NJ    04     70
  5.  Michael Musko      IN    04     50
  6.  Jack Jaeger        VA    01     50
  7.  Jonathan Fox       FL    03     40
  8.  Peter Busch        OH    00     36
  9.  Chuck Krueger      MA    02     30
 10.  Steve Katz         VA    01     30
 11.  Andy Gardner       VA    04     25
 12.  Pat Richardson     VA    05     24
 13.  Jimmy Fleckenstein VA    03     24
 14.  Bruce Bernard      PA    00     24
 15.  John Wetherall     PA    01     20
 16.  Richard Fox        FL    03     18
 17.  Gary Presser       NY    00     18
 18.  Joe Pellicia       ME    99     16
 19.  Michael Destro     NJ    04     15
 20.  Pat Mirk           FL    01     15
 21.  Brian Schott       MD    05     14
 22.  Brandon Bernard    PA    03     12
 23.  Dee Ann Gehring    IN    00     12
 24.  Winston Forrest    VA    99     12
 25.  Bryan Eshleman     NC    04     10
 26.  Jim Fleckenstein   VA    02     10
 27.  Shantanu Saha      NY    03      8
 28.  Eric Shaffer       AZ    02      5
 29.  Bob Foster         ID    01      5
 30.  Tom Bissa          MI    05      4
 31.  John Chung         WA    03      4
           

2005 Laurelists

Pat Richardson, VA
2nd

John Coussis, IL
3rd

Ken Rothstein, NY
4th

Brian Schott, MD
5th

Tom Bissa, MI
6th


Past Winners

Jack Jaeger, VA
1996, 2001

James Garvey, NY
1997

Fred Minard, PA
1998

Ken Rothstein, NY
1999

John Coussis, IL
2000

Chris Storzillo, NJ
2002

Jonathan Fox, FL
2003

Michael Musko, IN
2004


Fare Wars ... a wargame for capitalists

The 2005 battle for airport dominance has come to a close. The move to Lancaster seemed to have little effect on attendance for this event despite the absence of a nearby major airport. Over the course of four heats, a total of 75 different players tried their hand at the airline industry - a number only down five despite the loss of BWI.

Let's get on to the financial number crunching. Overall the scores covered a large range, from a high score of 374 achieved by Scott Fenn, to an impressive low of -21, yes that's negative 21, by your own GM. It just proves that you don't need to be an expert to be a GM. Or maybe I was just trying to lend an air of realism in these days of bankrupt airlines.

The average winning score of the five-player games for all heats and the semi-finals was 353. Only four five-player games were adjudicated, with an average winning score of 220. Two six-player games yielded an average score of 280, with one requiring adjudication. The airline that proved to be the most successful was World Domain. The ultra powerful "Big Blue" World Domain airline won 37.04% of the games. Taking a co-pilot seat to them was Jet Stream (purple), racking up 18.52% of the victories. Riding in the coach section was Trans Toucan (red) with 14.81%, Olympic (yellow) and Sky High (orange) both with 11.11%, and in the cargo hold riding with the pets was Aero Flamingo (green) with only 7.41%.

Now that you know which airline to choose next year you need to know where to start your enterprise. What good is a new shiny blue airplane if you don't know where the most profits are to be made? The break-down of the first hub controlled by the winning player was as follows.

Welcome to Miami (MIA), the city of choice with 33.33% of the victors selecting it as their first hub. Whether it was golf, beaches or the nightlife you were looking for, Miami was the place to be in 2005. Swimmin' pools and movie stars drew the airline industry out west. This year saw 22.22% of the victors choosing to start their business in Los Angeles (LAX). The "Motor City" Detroit (DTW) claimed third with 11.11% of the victories. The remaining city hubs producing winners were ORD, JFK, SFO, DIA, PHX, and HOU, all producing one each for a 3.70% shot at victory.

The final five were a veteran crew - including two former champs. I took advantage of their experience to excuse myself to make a 3 PM start in another event - leaving instructions to contact me if needed. The Final proved to be what one might call a series of unfortunate events unless your name was Robert Sohn. The bank roll was a 5. To open, Robert purchased Minn - St. Paul. This spoke was drawn twice before his next turn giving him an additional $16 to invest. So why not buy the $9 St. Louis? Minn-St Paul and St. Louis are promptly drawn again. Sohn rolls his good fortune into the first Jumbo. By Turn 5 he has accumulated over $50 cash on hand, and this seems like quite a War Chest. so no one is too surprised when he declares Fare Wars.

He then steam rolls the rest of Chicago (ORD / 20 market), Detroit (DTW /40 market), Dallas (DFW /80 market), and takes over half of Atlanta (ATL / 50 minor share). This conquest of the southeast gives him 290 market share and $35 cash on hand, for a winning total of 325. Since the finals started at 3pm and Sohn won the game in less than 15 minutes, the players had time to eat a late lunch and play in a 4pm game. And this tournament had three games requiring adjudication at the three-hour mark! But the best was yet to come. Feeling frisky, our finalists decided to have a little fun with their absent GM. Answering a summons for help, the GM found himself the suddenly harangued arbitrator of a donnybrook between five very upset finalists with visions of physical mayhem ... until they all broke out laughing. "Gotcha" indeed!

Moral of the story - keep these guys busy trying to beat each other so they don't have time to harass overworked GMs!

 GM      Joshua Githens  [1st Year]   NA
    NA   NA

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