bitter woods   

Updated 11/15/2011
2011 WBC Report    

 2012 Status: pending 2012 GM commitment
Tom Gregorio, PA
2011 Champion

Links

AREA Boardgamegeek
Laurels Consimworld L2 Design Group

WBC Event History
1999    Phil Evans     19
2000    Randy Heller     16
2001    Rich Ogata     14
2002    Tom Gregorio     16
2003    Bob Ryan     17
2004    Bob Ryan     20
2005    Randy Heller     20
2006    Steve Likevich     21
2007    Tom Gregorio     21
2008    Tom Gregorio     22
2009    Tom Gregorio     26
2010    Bruno Sinigaglio     22
2011    Tom Gregorio     21

PBeM Event History
2000    Randy Heller     20
2001    Bob Ryan     27
2002    Tom Gregorio     25
2005    Phil Evans     27
2008    Bruno Sinigaglio     32
2011    Bruno Sinigaglio     23
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Tom Gregorio       PA    11    227
  2.  Randy Heller       NH    11    223
  3.  Bruno Sinigaglio   AK    11    132
  4.  Bob Ryan           MI    09    128
  5.  Phil Evans         fr    05     94
  6.  Bill Morse         VA    10     72
  7.  Forrest Pafenberg  VA    11     69
  8.  Steve Likevich     OH    08     57
  9.  Mike Mitchell      GA    09     42
 10.  John Grant Jr      CT    01     35
 11.  Rich Ogata         VA    01     30
 12.  Mike Pacheco       CA    05     24
 13.  Marty Musella      VA    11     21
 14.  Mike Kaye          MD    11     18
 15.  Buddy Sinigaglio   CO    08     18
 16.  Dan Tierney        CA    05     18
 17.  Lance Roberts      AK    11     15
 18.  Ed Witkowski       VA    10     15
 19.  Doug James         NC    06     15
 20.  Jeff Hacker        PA    10     12
 21.  Johnny Hasay       PA    11      9
 22.  Larry Meyers       AZ    11      9
 23.  Jeff Lange         ae    11      9
 24.  John Popiden       CA    04      9
 25.  Nick Frydas        uk    03      9
 26.  Kevin Hacker       PA    09      8
 27.  Jim Tracy          OH    05      7
 28.  Larry Hollern      TX    08      3
 29.  Frank Sinigaglio   NJ    08      3
 30.  Rob Mull           CO    02      3
 31.  Chris Roginsky     PA    01      3
 32.  Paul Koenig        CA    00      3
 33.  Rob Beyma          MD    02      2

2011 Laurelists                                              Repeating Laurelists 

Bruno Sinigaglio, AK
2nd

Forrest Pafenberg, VA
3rd

Randy Heller, NH
4th

Johnny Hasay, PA
5th

Marty Musella, VA
6th

Past Winners

Phil Evans, fr
1999

Randy Heller, MD
2000, 2005

Rich Ogata, VA
2001

Tom Gregorio, PA
2002, 2007-09, 2011

Bob Ryan, MI
2003-04

Steve Likevich, OH
2006

Bruno Sinigaglio, AK
2010
     

Veteran tank jockeys Johnny Hasay and Paul Fletcher push armor through the Ardennes. The judge went on to finish fifth this year.

Bruno Sinigaglio, the designer of AH's second edition of Battle of the Bulge, and defending Bitter Woods champ took second this year.

Roll the Panzers ...

This year's tournament had a mix of new and familiar faces. A few, such as L2 Design Group's Lembit Tohver, took the opportunity to dive into deep water and play the seasoned opponent in hope of learning some of the finer details of play. This proved to be a special year for repeat player, Dan Dolan, who won his very first game of Bitter Woods by defeating Charles Catania's Germans in the Mulligan Round. Kevin Hacker also had the game's designer on the ropes with a 50/50 chance for a big breakthrough and resulting win, but the all-or-nothing die roll would not cooperate. Not surprisingly, a number of veteran players felt confident enough of their game skills to forego the Mulligan Round and simply appear for the first elimination round on Wednesday morning. This proved true for both Forrest Pafenberg and Tom Gregorio, who easily defeated their initial adversaries.

Randy Heller finally broke a string of losses to Bill Morse in the 6-game turn scenario. The capture of Noville and loss of 12 Yank units caused Bill to throw in the towel one turn earlier than anticipated. Johnny Hasay broke Dan Dolan's one game win streak, but later fell to the lethal artillery defense put up by Bruno Sinigaglio. It appeared as if this would finally be Forrest's year for victory, having handily defeated opponents in the early rounds, but he, too, fell prey to the crafty defense of the Alaskan grognard.

Four-time champion Gregorio humbled his opponents in succession during the closing rounds of play. Speculation is that Tom toyed with both Randy and Bruno by giving each of his opponents a key victory point location on Turn 2. In his game with Randy, Tom lost both Bastogne and Parker's Crossroads. However, by scenario end, Tom had eliminated more enemy units than he had lost, to include the capture of General Dietrich. Not only did Randy fail to gain enough kills, but he failed to avoid the loss of four or more non-infantry class units as well.

The Final between Tom and the defending champ drew a consistent crowd of onlookers. Bruno started out masterfully by blowing through Tom's defense on the first day and capturing Trois Ponts with KG Peiper prior to the "Peiper breakout game-turn." Later in the game, Bruno used artillery bombardment to capture Bastogne. However, Bruno was unable to garner the unit kills to acquire that particular victory point. The decision came down to the last turn as Bruno attempted to first finesse and then bludgeon his way into Parker's Crossroads. The attempt failed, giving back the Bitter Woods crown to Tom Gregorio for the fifth time, increasing his title total to 11, and forever engraining his confidence shattering tactic of victory point giveaways in the annals of WBC tournament play.


The 2011 PBeM Tournament:


The BPA pbem Deluxe BitterWoods Tournament featuring the "Patton's Relief of Bastogne" Scenario has ended with Bruno Sinigaglio's Americans defeating Mike Kaye's Germans in the Championship game. This is the second consecutive win for Bruno in a BPA PBeM BWD Tournament. Bruno also took first place in the WBC 2010 BWD Tournament.

The tournament used a single elimination format with no byes. Players defeated in earlier rounds were employed as Eliminators to complete rounds with an uneven number of players ­ this procedure facilitates the elimination of byes and minimizes the number of rounds required to complete the tournament. A total of 23 games were played in four rounds. Germans players won 13 games, while Allied players took ten.

A total of 23 entrants began the first round of the tournament in February 2009. The player pool was split in two by AREA rating. The 12 players with the higher AREA ratings in one pool were randomly paired versus the players with the lower AREA ratings. The winner of this tournament received a gift certificate from L2 for the purchase of an L2 game. In addition, the highest finishing player of those who began the tournament in the pool of lower AREA rated players also received a gift certificate from L2. That prize went to Lance Roberts of Fairbanks, Alaska who finished third. The top six finishers earning laurels reflected in he standings above were as follows:

1. Bruno Sinigaglio
2. Mike Kaye
3. Lance Roberts
4. Larry Meyers
5. Tom Gregorio
6. Jeff Lange

For details of the tournament go to home.comcast.net/~bitterwoodsweb//BWHome.htm.

 GM      Randy Heller  [10th Year]  113 Tolend Rd, Barrington, NH 03825
    RGHeller50@aol.com   NA

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