gettysburg  

Updated 11/23/2010

2010 WBC Report     

 2011 Status: pending 2011 GM commitment

Richard Beyma, VA

2010 Champion

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Event History
1992    Michael Uhrich     19
1993    Kevin McCarthy     17
1994    Allen Kaplan     18
1995    Vince Meconi     10
1996    Allen Kaplan     16
1997    Kevin McCarthy     22
1998    Kevin McCarthy     22
1999    Vince Meconi     10
2000    Vince Meconi     12
2001    Kevin McCarthy     18
2002    Vince Meconi     11
2003    Vince Meconi      8
2004    Allen Kaplan     28
2005    Jim Tracy     27
2006    Ed Menzel     33
2007    Ed Menzel     31
2008    Ed Menzel     33
2009    Ed Menzel     35
2010    Richard Beyma     35

PBeM Event History
2006    Barry Shoults     26
2008    Vince Meconi     28
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Ed Menzel          CA    10    190
  2.  Vincent Meconi     DE    10    172
  3.  Allen Kaplan       NJ    08     91
  4.  Dave Zimmerman     PA    09     78
  5.  Richard Beyma      MD    10     64
  6.  Ted Drozd          IL    08     62
  7.  Barry Shoults      MI    07     56
  8.  Jim Tracy          OH    09     38
  9.  William Place      PA    08     31
 10.  Greg Smith         FL    10     30
 11.  Tom Gregorio       PA    10     24
 12.  Mike Pacheco       CA    06     24
 13.  John Clarke        FL    09     12
 14.  Rob Doane          MA    08     12
 15.  Doug Porterfield   VA    07     12
 16.  Tom Grode          AZ    06     12
 17.  Michael Uhrich     PA    99     12
 18.  Chuck Stapp        NJ    03     10
 19.  Kevin McCarthy     OH    01     10
 20.  Bert Schoose       IL    08      9
 21.  Bruno Sinigaglio   AK    04      6
 22.  Ray Clark          CT    10      4
 23.  Wayne Morrison     FL    02      4
 24.  Robin Chiang       CA    08      3
 25.  Joel Ferich        PA    05      3
 26.  Buck Karpowitz     DC    03      3
 27.  Ken Whitesell      PA    00      3
 28.  Pete Pollard       TN    02      2
 29.  Bryan Van Nortwick NC    01      2
 30.  Roger Knowles      OH    01      1
 31.  Victor Hutcherson  MD    00      1

2010 Laurelists                                          Repeating Laurelists 

Tom Gregorio, PA
2nd

Vince Meconi. DE
3rd

Greg Smith, FL
4th

Ed Menzel, CA
5th

Ray Clark, CT
6th

Past Winners

Michael Uhrich, PA
1992

Kevin McCarthy, OH
'93, '97-'98, '01

Allen Kaplan, NJ
'94, '96, '04

Vince Meconi, DE
'95, '99-'00, '02-'03

Jim Tracy, OH
2005

Ed Menzel, CA
2006-2009

Richard Beyma, MD
2010
     

A couple of multi-year champs in other games try their luck in Gettysburg as Tom Gregorio and Ray Freeman tussle. Tom's 5-2 record qualified him to advance.

Mark Gutfreund and Pat Mirk play in the Preliminaries of Grognardcon as hex gamers made the rounds of classic hex wargames.

Grognards Indeed

Richard Beyma took the Gettysburg '88 crown defeating Tom Gregorio in the Final. Richard was playing in only his third WBC Gettysburg tourney and Tom in just his second. Richard finished with a 9-5 record while Tom went 6-3. The GM took 3rd at 6-1 and veteran Greg Smith finished 4th with a 9-6 mark. The tournament field apparently believed that the only way to keep defending champ Ed Menzel from beating his oponents in the playoffs for the fifth straight year was to keep him out of them in the first place, which they managed to do by "holding" him to a 9-3 mark in the preliminary rounds. The 68 total games played was an all-time record for this event.

Preliminary games were played at the Grognardcon from Saturday through Tuesday, and at the WBC proper from Tuesday through Friday. Friday night, t13 players who had played the required minimum number of games (three) to qualify for the playoffs were ranked, with the top four advancing to the single-elimination rounds. The qualifiers were, in order, Vince Meconi (6-0, 90 Points), Greg Smith (9-5, 72 Points), Richard Beyma (7-5, 70 Points), and Tom Gregorio (5-2, 66 Points). Richard Beyma was the only player to repeat from last year's final four. Places 5 through 10 were captured by, 5th, Ed Menzel (9-3), 6th, Ray Clark (4-2), 7th, Ted Drozd (3-3), 8th, Charlie Drozd (3-6), 9th, John Clarke (2-6), and 10th, Jeff Lange (2-3).

In the Saturday morning semi-finals, #1 Meconi faced #4 Gregorio, and #2 Smith squared off against #3 Beyma. Gregorio's Confederates, bidding 7.0, killed or flipped very few of Meconi's Union on July 1, but began to rough them up on Turn 9. The Federals finally quit on Turn 14 with a KO looming. Meanwhile, Beyma bid 5.5 for the Confederates against Smith. The South's infantry proved very resistant to North counterattacks and did not suffer their first step loss until Turn 15; the Union resigned four turns later.

Richard thus reached his second consecutive Final and Tom's initial playoff appearance guaranteed a first-time champion. Richard took the South for 5.5 and his Grey juggernaut promptly rolled over Tom's Blue. While not suffering a single unit killed or flipped, the Confederates captured Culp's Hill, Cemetery Hill, and hex I11 and added 12 points for Union dead and stepped units. Final score: Confederates 23, Union 10.5, a Southern knockout on Turn 8.

The GM's 4-0 mark as the Grey earned him Best Confederate Player honors, edging Tom Gregorio and Ray Clark, each 4-1. Best Union Player at 5-1 was Ed Menzel; Greg Smith with four Union wins was the only other player with more than two. Veteran gamer but first-time Gettysburg player Ray Clark's 4-2 record and 6th place finish, best among the seven freshmen, garnered him the Rookie of the Year award.

The South won 43 games to 25 for the North; there were no ties. 60 games used the Campaign Scenario, with the Confederates on top in 41 and the Union in 19. Six games used the short July 1 scenario, with the Federals winning four. Two games featured the rarely used July 2 scenario; both won by the Union. In the Campaign Scenario games, there were 50 Confederate bids ranging from 1.5 to 10.0 Victory Points, with the South prevailing 33 times and the North 17. Eight of the ten such games with no bid were won by the South. In the six July 1 scenario contests, there was one Confederate bid, three games with no bid, and for the first time ever in this scenario, two Union bids. Neither July 2 scenario game had a bid. Overall, the average bid was 3.25/Confederate for all games and 4.19/Confederate for games in which there was a bid. Both averages have moved steadily upwards over the past five years.

Average game length clocked in at 3 hours and 10 minutes, the second longest since we began timing in 2004. Longest games of the tourney were two 8-hour endurance contests, both involving Greg Smith. In the first, the GM's Federals staggered past Greg's Rebels by 66.5-63, a rare contest decided by the bid (in this case, 4.5). The two sides combined had a mere 30 factors and five unflipped units at game's end. Greg's fortunes as the Blue weren't any better in losing his semi-final to Richard Beyma's Grey over an identical 8-hour time frame. At the other end of the spectrum, John Sharp and John Clarke ripped through their game in just 15 minutes, shortest on record (it was Sharp in a Confederate 1st day KO).

Again this year, first thanks go to Bruno Sinigaglio for running the Grognardcon from Saturday through Tuesday afternoon. Thank you also to a foursome of Assistant Gamemasters, Ted Drozd, Ed Menzel, Greg Smith, and Bill Thomson, who helped run the tournament. Finally, Bill Morse deserves appreciation for completely automating the scoring at the WBC for all the Grognardcon games, including Gettysburg '88. Thanks to the work of these six gentlemen, it was the easiest event to GM yet.

Five-time champ Vince Meconi gives way to new champ Richard Beyma despite going 6-0 in the Prelimianry rounds.

New champ Richard Beyma tackles Ray Clarke in the Preliminaries. Ray went 5-2 to earn 6th place laurels.
 GM      Vincent Meconi [7th Year]   105 Churchill Ln, Wilmington, DE 19808-4355
   VMeconi@verizon.net    NA

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