caylus  

Updated 11/29/2008

2008 WBC Report  

 2009 Status: pending 2009 GM commitment

Sam Atabaki, CA

2008 Champion

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 Laurels Laurels

Event History
2006    Jeremy Spencer     72
2007     Andrew Gerb     44
2008    Sam Atabaki     43

Euro Quest Event History
2006    Peter Putnam     20
2007     Peter Putnam     25
2008     Sam Atabaki     20
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Peter Putnam       MD    07     67
  2.  Andrew Gerb        MD    08     56
  3.  Sam Atabaki        CA    08     52
  4.  Jeremy Spencer     NC    06     40
  5.  Rich Meyer         MA    08     30
  6.  Michael Kaltman    PA    08     26
  7.  Rod Spade          PA    07     22
  8.  Raphael Lehrer     MD    07     12
  9.  Chris Trimmer      TX    07     12
 10.  Tom DeMarco        NJ    06     12
 11.  Christine Frattali WA    06     12
 12.  Tom Browne         PA    06     10
 13.  Jeff Meyer         MA    08      9
 14.  Marc Berenbach     MA    07      9
 15.  Alex Bove          PA    08      8
 16.  Ken Rothstein      NY    06      8
 17.  Jim Castonguay     PA    08      6
 18.  Alfred Smith       NC    07      6
 19.  Kevin Walsh        NY    08      8
 20.  Lance Slitka       MD    06      4
 21.  Louis Gehring      IN    08      3
 22.  Jack Jaeger        VA    06      2
 23.  Bill Zurn          CA    08      2

2008 Laurelists                                             Repeating Laurelists:

Mike Kaltman, PA
2nd

Rich Meyer, MA
3rd

Jeff Meyer, MA
4th

Andrew Gerb, MD
5th

Louis Gehring, IN
6th


Past Champions

Jeremy Spencer, NC
2006

Andrew Gerb, MD
2007

Sam Atabaki, CA
2008

Caylus comes with lots of the colored wooden "bits" for which Euros are known.

 Our finalists go for the gold. Only Richard Meyer managed a return trip to the Final

Steady as she goes, but needing a new hand at the helm ...

In 2008 we repeated the 2007 format by only having two heats instead of three. Attendances remained steady with a drop of only one player. The Tuesday heat was well attended, accounting for 36 of of the 43 total for the year. Wednesday, afternoon drew 20 players, including seven new faces, but considerably less than Tuesday night, probably due to conflicts with similar Euros. The one difference was that we played all 4-player games and eschewed 5-player matches. This seemed well received since games can be finished in about two hours. We saw a wide range in scoring with totals ranging from the 50's to 90s depending on the strategy of the players.

The semi-finals filled four tables with the winners advancing to the Final.  Once again, only one of the finalists managed to repeat, indicating that the field was very competitive. The Final featured Mike Kaltman who squeezed by defending champion Andy Gerb, Rich Atwater and Rod Davidson in a ridiculously close semi-final by a 78-78-77-68 tally. This tie-breaker win was redemption for Mike who was on the short end of a similarly close Final at the last Euro Quest. Californian Sam Atabaki was the hot player coming into the round scoring 106 in the heat and 92 points in the semi. The last two seats were held by the always dangeous father and son team of Jeff and Richard Meyers.

Richard took the early lead in the Final; 16 to Mike's 10, Sam's 8 and Jeff's 7 after the Dungeon Phase. The game tightened in the Castle Phase with Richard at 33, Sam 33, Mike 27 and Jeff 27. In the end, the hot hand won out as Sam beat Mike late in the game with four batches to three to gain the critical late favors. The Final score was Sam 90, Mike 74, Richard 73 and Jeff 65. This capped a very impressive run for Sam who averaged 96 points per game and a 12 point margin of victory.

From a strategy perspective in most games there was a battle between the strong building favor technique and the early wood building including the mason strategy. These two approaches were used most often and to the best effect. However, the prestige point favor track, money dominance and even the widely considered weakest track resource track were used effectively.

For next year's event, I would recommend keeping the two-heat format with Tuesday night and another TBD, but reducing the number of semi-finalists to 16. At the present time, I am not planning to GM this event in 2009 so anyone wishing to bring it back should act accordingly.


2008 Euro Quest Laurelists

Sam Atabaki, CA
1st

Andrew Gerb, MD
2nd

Alex Bove, PA
3rd

Jim Castonguay, PA
4th

Kevin Walsh, NY
5th

 GM      Peter Putnam (1st Year)  NA  
   pputnam1966@yahoo.com   NA

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