Bpamail Mailing List: BPA April Newsletter

[Don Greenwood (doncon99]

CRENSHAW WINS ENLIGHTENMENT VIII: Bill Crenshaw, the designer of the new 
Manifest Destiny game, regained the laurels lead for Age of Renaissance 
with his third title for the weekend mini-con by defeating a field of 25 
over four rounds with two firsts and a pair of close seconds for a total 
of 316 points. A three-way tie for second at 312 needed tie-breakers to 
determine the next three places. Wood and laurels went to Carl Damcke, 
Chris Byrd, Tom Browne, Jeff Mullet and John Coussis in that order. For 
more details see http://www.boardgamers.org/specific/aor05.htm

BLOCK PARTY II: Next up on the schedule is our Columbus site for the 
block game genre on May 13th - 15th at the Radisson Hotel in Worthington, 
OH. Room rates are a mere $70 per day. For the best competition in Europe 
Engulfed, Hammer of the scots, Liberty and War of 1812 see 
http://www.boardgamers.org/specific/bkp05ann.htm. Pre-register before May 
6th to save.

EURO QUEST III: The Boardgame Players Association and Games Club of 
Maryland proudly present Euro Quest III, a European-Style Gaming 
Conference to be held November, 17th-20th, 2005 at Days Hotel in 
Timonium, MD. See the details at 
http://www.boardgamers.org/specific/euroq3.htm and while you're there 
check out the newly announced schedule for the remainder of the coming 
year's BPA mini-cons: D-Day VIII, Enlightenment IX, and WAM III.  

ELECTION '05: This year's election of three members to serve a three-year 
term on the Board of Directors is officially open. Let the campaigning 
begin! The official postal ballot is printed on page 93 of the 2005 
Program which will be mailed in June. Those wishing to vote by email may 
do so now by consulting the e-ballot at 
http://www.boardgamers.org/election.htm and e-mailing your votes to 
doncon99 [at] toad.net prior to July 15th, 2005. 

STAND & BE COUNTED!: Have you been to all 14 previous AvalonCon/WBC 
summer conventions? If so, Ken Whitesell wants to hear from you! We are 
forming an association to recognize those who have remained steadfastly 
faithful to attending this, the greatest gaming event of the year. Anyone 
who has legitimately attended all prior AvalonCon/WBCs is eligible. Those 
who qualify are encouraged to send Ken an email at KWhitesell [at] monlife.com 
with their name and the names of anyone else they believe qualifies. Or 
attend our first meeting Tuesday at 5 PM in the Hopewell room at this 
year's WBC. Yes, we are on the schedule! The first item on the agenda is 
to come up with a name. Feel free to send your suggestions. The primary 
objective is to acknowledge those who have been sufficiently dedicated 
and lucky enough to have been able to make it every year, through two 
organizations and three locations (so far). I hope to accomplish this 
through stories and pictures on the web site, and mention in the annual 
yearbook. Another issue to consider is whether or not we want to fund 
something as a group. A couple ideas mentioned were to have t-shirts, or 
a luncheon. This would involve collecting dues from the Tontine's 
membership, so keep that in mind as you're coming up with ideas.
======================

BPA PBeM NEWS

PANZERBLITZ: Eduardo de Nucci of Argentina defeated Peter Bertram of 
Georgia in the fourth and final round of the First BPA PBeM tournament to 
claim the championship of the Single Elimination event over 18 other 
entrants. Both players bid for sides using S-4b:  Panzer Attack 
(http://www.panzerblitz.org/?form=situation_1&situation=pbSits/PB%20S-4b.si
t). Peter bid 7 turns to cross the board with 25 units for the Germans. 
Other laurelists were Joe Avinger (GA), Randy McInnis (NJ), Fred Schwarz 
(MI) and John Sharp (FL) who claimed 3rd through sixth respectively. 

AGE OF RENAISSANCE (OLD): The 2003 BPA PBeM tournament has concluded as 
Jason Levine persevered over 57 entrants to capture the wood. In the 
5-player final, bidding for capitals was low with only newcomers Eric 
Hupin ($4 for Paris) and Ed Lathioor ($3 for Barcelona) making bids. The 
first 2 turns saw standard openings with only Famine and Silk being 
played. The third turn saw Jason Levine (London) start down his winning 
path by playing 3 leaders (the first of a total of 9 he would play) and 
picking up cheap advances.  Starting with Turn 4, Jason would leverage 
his leaders and large token bids to build a lead in both income and 
advances. London went last each of the last five turns. Eric Hupin 
(Paris) leveraged a double cloth payout of $160 in turn 6 to stay in 
contention in advances but in the end his Misery, 500 points behind the 
leader, would leave him 66 points short. Bill Crenshaw (Venice) used 
Spice payouts in Turns 6, 7 and 8 to stay in contention and make his 
patented late game run. This run would, however, end up just short as 
Jason managed three of four wins in Grain provinces with the final 
expansion to gain two misery boxes on Bill (100 points) with a Famine 
play on the Final Card Play. This misery proved to be the difference as 
Billl came up 21 points short. Eric Hupin 3rd (Paris), Ed Lathior 4th 
(Barcelona), and Harald Henning 5th (Genoa) and Arthur Field (6th) 
rounded out the laurelists.

AGE OF RENAISSANCE (NEW): As one event ends, another begins. The 2005 AoR 
pbem event will commence on June 1st with a new GM (John Coussis) at the 
helm. See http://www.geocities.com/aorbpa2005/2005home.htm for details. 
The 2005 AoR event will be run using the Automated Card Tracking System 
(ACTS) web site. All players must have an account on ACTS in order to 
play.  Visit acts.warhorsesim.com for details on how to obtain a free 
account. E-mailaorbpa2005 [at] yahoo.com no later than May 25th, 2005 to join. 

THE NAPOLEONIC WARS: After 34 games and 64 players, the ACTS tourney of 
3-player Nappy is now complete. In the last game the France of Steve 
Pleva continued her sweep of all the semi-final games into the finals by 
beating the Coalition (Pete Reese as Britain and Tasos Tsoufis as 
Austria/Russia. The final score after Turn 4 was: France +6 = Dublin + 
Lisbon + Naples + Salzburg + Venice + SPAIN + TURKEY - Budapest; Britain 
-2 = SWEDEN - Dublin - Lisbon - Naples; Austria/Russia 0 = +KEY + 
Budapest - Salzburg - Venice". 

MARCH MADNESS RUNS INTO APRIL: The BPA March Madness PBeM tournament is 
now down from its original 58 teams to 11 survivors. Paul Risner's 1972 
North Carolina squad is the only team to claim a spot in the Final Four 
to date, while Jim Gutt's 1989 Illinois squad is the farthest along in 
the other half of the bracket, perhaps an omen of the recently completed 
real thing? To track the tournament in progress, try these links: 
http://www.bright.net/~monninb/mms_home_page.html 
http://www.bright.net/~monninb/mm-brack-2004.htm 
And keep us in mind when next year's tournament starts in the fall. 

WE THE PEOPLE: The final standings for the 2003 We The People tournament 
are now available. The four remaining laurelists behind champion Paul 
Gaberson and runnerup James Pei were Mike Pacheco, Tom Drueding, Jim Gutt 
and Seth Fine in that order. 

GETTYSBURG: Round 1 in the inaugural BPA PBeM event is complete. Clearly, 
seedings meant nothing as eight of the ten games were won by the 
lower-seeded player. In fact, the five lowest seeded players in the 
tourney all won their 1st Round games. Bidding was equally irrelevant, 
with only two games featuring bids, neither of which figured in the 
outcome.   The Confederates had a narrow 6-4 edge in the 1st Round, and 
have already won the 
first two completed games of Round 2, both via July 1 knockouts. So far, 
it's a different result than last yea's WBC, where the Union won the 
majority of the contests.

==============================

All BPA PBeM tournaments require current BPA membership when the event 
starts. All multi-day paid attendees to WBC are current BPA members for 
the balance of that calendar year. Associate Calendar year memberships 
enabling play in all PBeM events starting in that year cost only $10 and 
earn discounts for admission to all BPA gaming conferences. You need not 
keep your membership current in order to finish a PBeM event. Players may 
join the BPA throughout the year. Members are reminded they can upgrade 
their current memberships at any time by remitting the additional funds. 
See http://www.boardgamers.org/bpaterms.htm for details.

BPA members who would like to see an email tournament for their favorite 
game are encouraged to step forward as the GM of such an event. BPA does 
not run tournaments. Rather, we are an organization of gamers lending 
support to one another so such events can happen. No one cares as much 
about your hobby as you do. Get involved. See the requirements to host a 
BPA email tournament at http://www.abovethefields.com/top_pbem/
 
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