Powers Wins Ra! In First Tournament!

The turnout for Ra! was down as expected but only by 20%. We went from 174 to 140 which is exactly 20%. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I can definitely live with these numbers for the first year back. I want to take this opportunity to thank John Jacoby once again for donating the fabulous prizes. I wasn’t sure if we were going to have prizes this year but John came through again as he has for over 10 years now (maybe even longer you know how time flies). I can’t believe this was my 18th year as GM for Ra!.

The most attended heat was the first Heat again as it has been since we moving to the beginning of the convention. We had 17 tables with 82 participants. Heat 2 had 13 tables with 64 participants. Heat 3 had 14 tables with 69 participants. And the dreaded 9am Heat 4 drew 40 participants on 8 tables. Each year I contemplate cutting down to 3 heats but do I really want to ignore the fact that will still get 40 participants. That’s more than some tournaments get in their entirety.

We had 10 multiple heat winners who earned a bye into the Semifinal led by Alex Bove who broke out of his slump with 3 Heat wins. Just about half of the single Heat winners showed up for the Quarterfinal. After a brief deliberation we decided on 5 tables of 4 (with one table of 3) with 1st and 2nd moving on to the Semifinal. That gave us 4 tables of 5 for the Semifinal (actually 2 tables of 5 and 2 tables of 4) and a 4 player Final.

The Quarterfinal winners were Ryan Romanik, Natasha Metzger, Jefferson Meyer, Bobbi Warczak, and Maria Traini. Also moving on to the Semifinal were Kevin Wojtaszczyk, Matthew Thiessen, Ken Horan, Chad Martin, and Barb Roeper.

Semifinal 1 ended in a tie between Chad Martin and Lyman Moquin. Chad getting into the Final by virtue of his 14 sun as tiebreaker (Lyman’s sun was 13 – WOW!). Lyman did earn 5th place laurels for his effort.

Semifinal 2 saw Rodney Bacigalupo edge out former champions Rich Meyer and Alex Bove by 4 and 5 points respectively to make the Final for the 2nd consecutive year. (That was impressive).

Semifinal 3 saw Antony Saccenti make a return to the Final as he bested his opponents by 11.

Semifinal 4 saw newcomer Aubrey Powers best a strong table that included a 2-time champion.

The Final was set and newcomer Aubrey Powers blew away the field by 23 points!

Congratulations to Aubrey for becoming the 2nd youngest (Alex Lange was younger) to make the Final and the youngest to win it all!

Thanks to everyone who challenged covid to attend this year’s WBC. I hope you returned home in good health.