2000 World Boardgaming Championships

War at Sea Tournament

1999 WBC Tournament Newsletters

Tournament Seedings (as of October 5, 1999)

Past Tournament Top Finishers | Rules Clarifications (as of July 1, 1999)

Vince Meconi is the Gamemaster for the WBC War at Sea Tournament.

Links to BPA, BPA WaS PBeM Tournament, WaS AREA PBeM Ladder, Current Round 12

World Boardgaming Championships 2000

War at Sea WBC Tournament

Preliminary Seedings For 2000 World Boardgaming Championships (as of October 5, 1999)

Rank	Name	AREA Rating
1	Ray Freeman	1910 (Defending Champion)
2	Mike Kaye	1915
3	Phil Rennert	1815
4	Steve Packwood	1722
5	Tom Scarborough	1708
6	Bruce Monnin	1704
7	Andy Maly	1687
8	Vince Meconi	1682
9	Ron Artigues	1680
10	Rob Mull	1676
11	Bryan Eshleman	1663
12	Pat Richardson	1659
13	Andy Gardner	1649
14	Tim Hitchings	1644
15	John Pack	1626
16	Bruce Reiff	1625
17	Johnny Carpenter	1623
18	Wes Letzin	1618-i
19	Bob Hamel	1614
20 tie	Glenn Petroski	1612
20 tie	Matt Romaniecki	1612
22	Greg Berry	1611
23	Sharee Pack	1608
24 tie	Jonathan Lockwood	1605
24 tie	Alan Applebaum	1605
26	Johnny Hasay	1604
27 tie	Hank Burkhalter	1601
27 tie	Scott Sirianna	1601-i
29	Jim Cavallari	1596
30	Joe Beard	1588-i
31	Frank Cunliffe	1584-i
32	Mark Smith	1564
33	Jim Eliason	1562-i
34	Phil Van Wiltenburg	1560
35	Thomas Walsh	1557
36	Nick Markevich	1552
37	Paul Bolduc	1548
38	Michael Peck	1548-i
39	Tony Guido I	1546
40	Sean McKenzie	1543
		i = Inactive AREA status.

Italicized players have not previously entered an Avaloncon/WBC War At Sea event.

The post-convention wrap-up has customarily included AREA ratings which establish the seedings for next year's tournament. In previous years, it was likely that those rankings wouldn't vary greatly in the 11-month interval until the next convention. However, that was before the days of year-round PBEM competition. Defending champ Ray Freeman will automatically be next year's #1 seed, but other rankings are likely to change several times. In the meantime, you can look up War At Sea AREA ratings at <www.uwm.edu/people/bruno/AREA>.

The 1999 WBC final game-by-game results can be found at <htttp://www.jps.net/nmrkvch/was/games99.html>.

Guide to War At Sea Available

The indefatigable Bruce Monnin has just published the The Boardgamer's Unofficial Guide to War At Sea. A wealth of information, available from Bruce for $7 at (e-mail) monninb@bright.net or (postal) 177 South Lincoln Street, Minster, OH 45865-1240.

Strategy Cheat Sheet

John Pack prepared a single sheet summary of the WAS rules and hints on strategy and tactics. It is reproduced at WaS Strategy Tips for your enjoyment.

2000 Tournament Format

Rules. Second Edition rules will be used, supplemented by the attached clarifications.

Requirements. Please bring your own copy of the game. If there are not enough copies of the game available, those bringing their own copy will have priority. Badges will be checked.

Schedule. The first round will commence promptly after the GM's instructions, which will begin at 9:00 AM on Thursday morning. There will be 7 rounds. The first 5 rounds will be preliminary qualifying rounds and the last 2 will be single elimination rounds matching the top 4 finishers. Subsequent preliminary rounds will begin at 11:15 AM, 1:15 PM, 3:15 PM and 5:15 PM on Thursday. Players may play any one round, any combination of rounds, or every round. They may drop out and reenter for any round, as long as they are present for the start of that round.

To keep the tournament flowing smoothly, players are asked to please notify the Gamemaster if they know they will not be playing in the next round.

The semifinal games will be held after the preliminaries on Thursday night, and the finals will be held at the convenience of the two finalists, starting no later than 8:00 PM Saturday night.

Format, Preliminary Rounds. The preliminary portion of the tournament will be conducted via the Swiss System. Pairings for each round will be determined by a seeding system. For the first round, defending champion Mike Kaye, should he enter, will automatically receive the #1 seed. All other players will be seeded by their AREA ratings, as of June __, 2000. No distinction will be made between active and inactive ratings. Any player without an AREA rating will be assigned a rating of 1500. The highest seeded player will be paired against the lowest, the second highest against the second lowest, etc.

In subsequent rounds, each player will be matched against a player with an identical or similar Victory Point (VP) score (see Scoring, below). For example, if after Round 2 there are 8 players tied with 20 VPs, these players will again be seeded using AREA ratings, and the highest seeded of these 8 players will be matched up with the lowest seeded, the 2nd highest seeded with the 2nd lowest seeded, etc. If there are only 7 players with the same VP total, then the next highest scoring player will be added to that group and the pairings will be made. Pairings then continue with the next highest scoring set of players, etc. until all players are matched. The only exception to the seedings will be that two players will never play each other twice in the 5 preliminary rounds.

All players will have their own cards detailing their progress in the tournament. These cards will have a magnetic backing so that they can be stuck to a sheet metal standings board. After each round, players' cards will be adjusted to reflect their current positions in the standings and to make clear who they may be paired against in the next round.

Scoring. Each game in the preliminary rounds is worth 10 Victory Points (VPs). If the game is decided by 2 or more POC, the winner gets all 10 VP and the loser gets 0 VP. If the game is won by 1 POC, the winner gets 8 VP and the loser 2 VP. Each player gets 5 VP for a draw. In every case, VPs are awarded after any POC-incentive is applied. The GM reserves the right to adjudicate any game not completed 15 minutes before the next round begins.

Byes. If there is an odd number of players available for a round, one player will receive a bye, and get credit for a win (10 VP) that round. Byes will be determined as follows. In the first round, the lowest seeded non-preregistered player will receive the bye. In subsequent rounds, the player with the lowest VP score up to that point will receive the bye. If a number of players are tied for the lowest VP total, the lowest seeded player will receive the bye. No player will receive more than one bye during the tournament. (If any of you are not competing this year, please feel free to stop by during a break in your other action to help us avoid byes.)

Sides. Players simultaneously reveal which side they wish to play, by using the Axis and Allied control flags provided in the game. If opposite sides are chosen, play proceeds. If both want the same side, the players bid for the right to play that side. Players determine who has the first option via a die roll. The player winning the roll may either accept the non-preferred side or bid a POC-incentive to play the preferred side. The bid may be any integer, including zero. If the first player bids to play the preferred side, the second player may either accept the POC-incentive to play the non-preferred side or bid a higher POC amount for the preferred side. The option passes back and forth in this fashion until one player accepts the non-preferred side and the POC-incentive. The incentive is applied to the final POC score of the game.

Qualification for Final 4. The qualifiers for the semifinals will be the players with the top four VP totals from the preliminaries. Ties will be broken based on strength of schedule (# of VPs earned by one's opponents divided by the # of games played by one's opponents); the second tiebreaker will be highest AREA rating.

Format, Semifinals and Final. The semifinals and final will be single elimination; the winners of the two semifinal games will play each other in the final for the championship. Pairings for the semifinals will be determined by performance in the preliminaries; the #1 ranked player will play the #4 player and the #2 player will play the #3 player, unless such pairings would result in a rematch.

Bidding for sides in the semifinals and the final will be handled as in the preliminaries. If any of these games end in a tie, the following tiebreakers will be used, in this order: 1) disregard any bid, 2) highest total of VPs in the preliminary rounds, and 3) highest AREA rating.

Die Rolling. It is customary (though not required) to roll all dice in a box lid; dice landing outside the box are rerolled. Other methods such as dice towers are fine as long as they are mutually agreed upon.

Spectators. Spectators are welcome to observe the matches in progress. However, spectators are not permitted to participate in any way. Spectators may not point out the legality or illegality of any move, nor be consulted on rules clarifications. Such inquiries should go to the GM or an assistant GM.

Conduct. Abusive behavior and language are not permitted. However, it wouldn't be War At Sea without a lot of whining about poor die rolls.

Results. The results of all games will be given to Glenn Petroski so they can be recorded in the AREA rating system.

Past Tournament Top Finishers

Year	Champion	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place
1991	Bruce Monnin	Chuck Stapp	Tim Hitchings	Steve Packwood
1992	Tom Scarborough	Bruce Monnin	Ken Shunk	Chuck Stapp
1993	Bruce Monnin	Tom Scarborough	Tim Hitchings	Chuck Stapp
1994	Phil Rennert	John Pack	Ray Freeman	Mike Knautz
1995	Ray Freeman	Tim Hitchings	Jonathan Lockwood	Phil Rennert
1996	Steve Packwood	Rob Mull	Phil Rennert	Gary Moody
1997	Tim Hitchings	Patrick Richardson	Bryan Eshleman	Scott Sirianna
1998	Mike Kaye	Matt Romaniecki	Rob Mull	Tom Scarborough
1999	Ray Freeman	Mike Kaye	Phil Rennert	John Pack

The Boardgamer

A byproduct of the sale of Avalon Hill to Hasbro is the demise of The General. In lieu of The General, however, you may want to try Bruce Monnin's quarterly, The Boardgamer. In its 4th year, it's a 32 (or more) page publication that focuses exclusively on boardgames, mostly Avalon Hill.

The Boardgamer represents improvement in two significant areas over what The General had become in its waning years. First, the issues come out when scheduled, and second, there are actually numerous articles on strategy for many different games, not just the most recent releases. Plus, AREA ratings and Avaloncon/WBC coverage. Available from Bruce at 177 South Lincoln Street, Minster, OH 45865-1240 for $14/year.

King George V

Other Interesting Web Sites

A site with AREA ratings for every player in every game is maintained by Bruno Wolff III at:
<www.uwm.edu/people/bruno/AREA>.

The Boardgame Players Association, which has all the latest information about the World Boardgaming Championships, is at: <http://www.boardgamers.org>.

Another good site is ConsimWorld, "the official news, information, and talk site covering the historical boardgaming industry," which includes discussions on a wide variety of gaming topics, including Avalon Hill, product releases from a number of companies, and specific games like War At Sea. The URL is: <www.consimworld.com>.

Finally, Web-Grognards advertises itself as "the site for wargames on the web." Check them out at: <www.grognard.com>.

Bismarck

The Boardgame Players Association