BPA

Despite a struggling economy and a less than enthusiastic response to food vouchers, WBC again reached new heights. No less than ten events drew in excess of 100 players, led by Puerto Rico which shattered all previous attendance records by drawing 217. Vendor operations were again cut back by a day to preserve gaming room and curtail vendor expenses. The Pre-Cons were expanded to three and three additional mini-cons were added as WAM debuted in February and Waterloo in October for card-driven wargames while Euro Quest appeared in November for the Euro enthusiast.

The 2003 WBC yielded eleven successfully defending champs plus 58 rookie winners—folks taking home wood for the first time. In all, 30 states and four nations were represented in the winner's circle. There were eight multiple winners led by Dave Metzger of Glen Allen, VA who again got downright selfish while carting home four shields for a Grand Slam with wins in Across Five Aprils, A House Divided, Hellas and War of 1812.

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This achievement, although coming on the heels of another four-bagger last year, again came with an asterisk as only one of them was a Century event and/or had at least 16 entrants and only 56 players were bested in the entire quartet. More impressive were the triples of Ken Gutermuth and Josh Githens who each bagged three Century events—topping 169 and 311 opponents respectively. However, Nick Benedict claimed Caesar honors with a double win in Britannia and Republic of Rome and several near misses in other events. Meanwhile, Bruce Reiff kept his streak alive—taking home his fifth Football Strategy championship to mark 13 straight year's in the winner's circle.