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Three-time champ Dan Henry was denied
again this year. In all, six former champs with 11 shields were
present in what is widely regarded as among WBC's most competitive
tournaments. |
Ray Freeman and defending champ Ed
Menzel face off in one of seven rounds. With players of this
caliber among the also rans you know you've been in a tournament. |
Rising Sun III
95 games of tense Pacific WWII action! Suspense right
down through Round 7! 39 players vying for the Top Honors
in the 17th Victory in the Pacific Championship Tournament!
Congratulations to Darren Kilfara (6-1), of Great Britain. After
seven rounds ending in a 61 Tournament-Point tie with Andy Gardner
(6-1), Darren won the tie-breaker on Strength of Schedule to
take the Wood home with him across the Atlantic.
The Nagumo Award, for Best Japanese play, goes to Andy Gardner
and Mike Kaye, each with five Japanese wins. The Halsey
Award, for Best Allied Play, is shared by Darren Kilfara, Dan
Henry, Bob Hamel and Joe Powell, all with three Allied wins.
Basic stats: 95 games played, and one bye. 60 IJN wins
; 63.2%. 31 Allied wins; 32.6%. 4 ties - 4.2%. Average
bid for IJN in games featuring a non-zero bid: 3.86 POC. Average
bid for IJN including all 95 games: 3.54 POC. There were
eight games played with no bid. One game utilizing NT1
featured a 1.0 POC bid for the Allies! Round 1 began
with 24 players - 12 games, increasing to 13 games for Round
2. New players brought Round 3 to 15 matches, and Round
4 featured 16. Round 5 had 14 games, Round 6 had 13, and
the final Round 7 completed the Swiss-style tournament with 12
tense games.
Format changes this year included first round matching based
on arranging players by AREA ranking and matching top-half to
bottom-half. With 24 players, #1 played #13, #2 played
#14, #3 played #15, and so on. The second change was to
bring strength of schedule into the tie-breakers. In fact,
the tournament ended in a 61-tournament-point tie between Darren
Kilfara and Andy Gardner, which Darren won based on his slightly-tougher
opponents' records. Mike Kaye took fourth from John Pack
on a tie-breaker, also, since both Mike and John finished at
5-2. Games finishing in a tie played a prominent part this
year, as Dan Henry's tie against Charlie Drozd gave him tournament
points to overcome the two 52 point 5-2 players for third, and
then allowed John Sharp (ViP GM) (4 wins, 2 losses, 1 tie) to
sneak into sixth place in front of three players tied for seventh
with 4-3 records.
Best Improved Player, new for 2007, goes to Mark Booth. Mark's
record this year of 4-3 earned him 9th place in this "SeaofSharks."
Victory In the Pacific Play By Email
The Fourth BPA Victory in the Pacific PBeM tournament has
come to a wild end. After six rounds of single-elimination competition,
Charles Drozd -- commanding the victorious Allied fleets -- has
achieved decisive Victory in the Pacific. The competition began
in 2005 with 35 entrants. Charles started as the third seed.
His semi-final victory was a close game against the top seed,
Dan Henry, as the Japanese. In the Final, Charles triumphed over
Darren Kilfara (originally the sixth seed) who bid 4 POC for
the Japanese. The tournament saw 14 Allied victories, 18 Japanese
victories, and 1 draw. 16 games used the two most popular PBeM
adjustments, I-Boat Raid and CPO Withdrawal (including all but
one game during the last three rounds). 9 games used other combinations
of the PBeM balancing adjustments. Average bidding was 3.58 for
the IJN. Bidding ranged from 2 to 6! No bid was less than 3 from
the second
round onward. Dan Henry had the best quip of the tournament,
"Allies lose Enterprise. Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not
a repair dock." The top six Laurels went in order to 1)
Charles Drozd, 2) Darren Kilfara, 3) Dan Henry, 4) Philip Watkins,
5) Larry Meyers, and 6) Scott Fenn. Congratulations to all! Charles
had 3 IJN wins, 2 USN wins, and 1 bye (as did each of the top
three finishers). For a complete history of the current tournament,
see
www.gameaholics.com/vitp_bpa/vitp_bpa_single_elim_05.htm. |