Torrance Fisting - February 1998 Report
by Stefan Vincent
March 1, 1998
Eight players showed up on a busy Saturday (simultaneous Warhammer and
Highlander tournaments also going on) - several regulars out of town on
business (ya'll missed a good game!) or choosing to play Highlander instead.
Dragons and Architects present in large numbers, as has been usual lately.
Also, we experimented this time without a third tie-breaker (no counting
up body of sites and fighting of characters) and just split the points
if folks were still tied at the second tie-breaker (total burned for victory
and seized from opponents). Ironically, we had a *lot* of ties this time...
Ray - Architects/Dragons
Matt - Dragons "Smak Bak Yak Attak"
Stefan - Ascended "I'm Huge" (to make up for the lack of Ascended we've had lately :)
Mike N. - Architects/Monarchs "Blightman's Jewelry"
Tim M. - Hand/Lotus/Monarchs "Closet Queens and <?> Things"
Garrett - Dragons "*New* Roll Over And Die"
Brandon - Dragons/Architects
Randy - Ascended/Architects
Round 1
We delayed the start until about 1:30 waiting for Brandon and Randy
but (as we found out later) they were stuck in traffic. They finally made
it at 2 pm so they jumped into the second round. At the end of the first
round, Tim took a fast win on table 1 and I grabbed the win (literally
- gotta love Shadowy Mentor) on table 2 after a bad start. We scored for
3-player games in this round.
Tim (1) - 8 Stefan (1) - 8 Brandon - 0
Garrett - 4 Matt - 5 Randy - 0
Mike - 3 Ray - 3
Round 2
Game number two timed out at the big boys' table, but Mike got a fast
win at table 2 with Randy as whupping boy. Brandon and Ray both had one
site burned, so without the third tie-breaker in effect, they split the
points for second and third. Same thing at table 1 - Matt and Garrett each
had four sites with two burned, so they split for first and second, and
Tim edged me out for third since he had 2 burned vs. my 1.
Matt (0.5) - 11.5 Mike (1) - 12
Garrett (0.5) - 10.5 Ray - 8.5
Tim (1) - 12 Brandon - 5.5
Stefan (1) - 11 Randy - 1
Round 3
So Garrett swaps places with Mike, and it's still anybody's game, with
everyone having a shot to move up unless Randy wins at table 2. And so,
you can guess that Randy did indeed win :) Table 1 timed out again, leaving
Matt and Tim each with 4 sites (3 burned) and me 1 site ahead of Mike.
Tim (1.5) - 18.5 Randy (1) - 10
Matt (1) - 18 Brandon - 12.5
Stefan (1) - 15 Garrett (0.5) - 14.5
Mike (1) - 14 Ray - 11.5
Final
And we see the effect of traffic on the game - if Randy or Brandon
had gotten just a couple of points in the first round, we would have needed
a semi-final (or they would have edged Garrett or me out of the final).
So the top four scorers went on to a final, leaving Mike out by a mere
0.5 points...
Final started slowly for everyone, but I managed to get going faster
and built to a winning position relatively early. Unfortunately, that of
course made me the whupping boy and everyone else built up at my expense.
With three of my sites suddenly in other folks' burned for victory piles,
I didn't look so bad any more, and we slowly built up again until we were
all one site away from victory. That lasted for about 3 turns with everyone
trying to get the edge but not being able to get past the remaining characters
on the table (with no Architects in the final, the only way to get rid
of characters was to slug it out - except of course for Tim Larcenous Misting
my Mights of the Elephant :). The board was finally cleared on Matt's turn,
but all I could whip out was a bunch of weenie pledgies on my turn, so
Tim's Queen had the choice of sites for the win on his turn. Whoever he
took a site from would fall to last place (since everyone was at 4 sites,
in some combination of burned and on the table) so we called it a 3-way
tie for second and divided the prize 25/10/10/10.
Congratulations to Tim!
Based on this game, we will be using this prize division from now on
- so if you make it to the final, you're guaranteed something, and everyone
has the same incentive to play to win.
Last modified: March 11, 1998.
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