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Deborah Anderson moves as Gary Dickson
and Phillip Shea watch. |
Steve Cuccaro, Nicole Bradford and
Adam Meldrom push space dust. |
Let's Do the Space Warp Again!
On Wednesday, 34 intrepid traders plied the galaxy in search
of fun & profit to kick off the 19th Annual Merchant of
Venus Tournament. As usual, victory in a heat virtually guaranteed
you a spot in the semi-final. In addition, to prizes of science
fiction DVD's for the finalists, all heat winners were awarded
stuff to "pimp" their Merchant of Venus games
including plastic rocket ships, replacement IOU counters and
deeds or a variant devised by the GM.
In the first heat, Bob Woodson took four turns crossing over
to the unfashionable (and unexplored) Western Spiral Arm of the
galaxy trying to find a place to unload his Space Dust. He finally
got a great roll, 665 for 17! On the 14th space he decided to
explore a "?" marker-only to find a Telegate. As the
Telegate 5 & Telegate 6 were already discovered, Bob was
sent back from where he came. OUCH! Bob easily wins the fictional
"Wrong Way Corrigan" Award.
In another game in Heat 1, Amanda Stockwell found four relics
in the treacherous Asteroid Belt. Wow! This greatly aided her
victory. The following players (including four former champions)
also qualified with Amanda for the semi-final from Heat 1: Vassili
Kyrkos, Ewan McNay, Eric Monte, Bill Crenshaw, Eyal Mozes, Luke
Koleszar, Steve Koleszar & Richard Irving.
Heat 2 was played in the vast, cold (The AC was cranked up)
, empty (at least emptier) spaces of Ballroom B. 24 players sought
business and pleasure amongst the stars. At one table, Debbie
Gutermuth won the race for the galaxy (That'd be a good name
for a game!) by discovering six planets before her erstwhile
competitors and easily winning. Other game winners for Heat 2
were: Gary Dickson, Rod Davidson, Steve Dickson, Paul Gaberson
& Joe Abrams.
23 more players took their last shot at interstellar glory
in Heat 3, which featured three games of note. One game used
the GM's Green Tater variant and proved GM's complete mastery
of the variant by finishing fourth in that game. Gary Dickson
proved that having the Jump Start is NOT a guaranteed win as
is commonly supposed, especially if there sre few telegates tightly
packed into one system. And Geoffrey Entwistle won his game with
the highest total score in the heats - mainly because he forgot
it was a game only to $2000 and declared victory two full turns
after making that total! Other Heat 3 winners with Geoffrey were
Charles Hickok, Daniel Hoffman, Marty Hoff, Philip "Mr.
Freighter" Shea and Steve Dickson (winning his second Preliminary
game).
There were enough qualifiers to field five semi-final games:
In Semi 1, it was discovered that spaceports are portable (especially
if they stick inside metal ships pirated from an old Parker Brothers
game called "Wide World") and Vassili Kyrkos edged
Charles Hickok in a tight race. In Semi 2, Debbie Gutermuth won
easily. In Semi 3, Luke Koleszar prevented the GM from making
his own Final. (AGAIN! Like Bob Hope always hosting the Oscars,
but never winning! ... OK, I'm over it now.) In Semi 4, Bill
Crenshaw found $160 in penalties on the first five turns of the
game OUCH! Philip Shea using a freighter (What else!) powered
away for the victory. In Semi 5, Joe Abrams won his way to yet
another Final.
In the Final, Debbie Gutermuth won a tight 5-player game to
$3000, by getting $2000 in deeds, locking out many key systems
and getting several early factories. But all players did a great
job of following Rule #1: Have fun!!!
2009
WBC Merchant of Venus Final Results:
Finalists, order determined by score in Final:
1)Debbie Gutermuth, $3175
2)Vassili Kyrkos, $2586
3)Joe Abrams, $1953
4)Philip Shea, $1723
5)Luke Koleszar, $1612
Semi-finalists, order determined by score in semi-final:
6)Charles Hickok, $2846
7)Richard Irving, $2543
8)Eric Monte, $2264
9)Steve Dickson, $2241
10)Bill Crenshaw, $2193
11)Amanda Stockwell, $2032
12)David Fritsch, $1994
13)Peggy Pfeifer, $1958
14)Geoffrey Entwistle, $1903
15)Eyal Mozes, $1722
16)Marty Hoff, $1683
17)Gary Dickson, $1671
18)Dan Hoffman, $1656
19)Kevin Koch, $1194
Preliminary Players (ordered by best score in Heat)
20)Paul Gaberson, $2123
21)Steve Koleszar, $2059
22)Ewan McNay, $2005
23)Rod Davidson, $2003
24)Gary Libby, $1940
25)Eric Wrobel, $1932
26)Michael Holmquist, $1861
27)Paul Bolduc, $1831
28)Steve Cuccaro, $1814
29)Christopher Ellis, $1811
30)Jason Wagner, $1757
31)Thomas Browne, $1684
32)Stephane Dorais, $1633
33)Mark McCandless, $1535
34)Bernard Beckerman, $1450
35)Chris Entwistle, $1441
36)Corey Kim, $1342
37)Patrick Monte, $1335
38)Philip Entwistle & Ken Gutermuth, $1325 (tie)
40)Nicola Bradford, $1210
41) Tony Newton, $1194
42)Wade Fowble, $1162
43)John Corrado, $1102
44)Patrick Maloney, $1042
45)Malinda Kyrkos, $1000
46)Derek Landel, $994
47)Deborah Anderson, $988
48)Adam Meldron, $958
49)Jessica Crandell, $909
50)Doug Faust, $874
51)Pete Gathmann, $851
52)Patrick Shea, $811
53)Bob Woodson, $601
54)James Gilmore, $600
55)Mary Ellen Powers, $578
56)Robert Hahn, $570
57)Norm Newton, $200
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It's SRo in Limerock unless you know
one of the players as the out-of-print Merchant continues
to draw well in its 19th year at WBC. |
Finalists Debbie Gutermuth, Joe Abrams,
Vassili Kyrkos, Phillip Shea, GM Richard Irving and Luke Koleszar
meet. |
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