Seven games to get to the Final -- now it comes down to one winner-take-all game.  John Pack gets off to a quick-start by exhibiting on the first turn to take a two-space lead while Dan Leader provides security.  Dominic Blais picks up the D-1616 (best card in the game) while Thomas Browne finds the $24,000 check lying somewhere where no one would miss it.  The main theme of the game appears on the second turn -- lots of thieves and no one to catch them!  Dan moves forward by exhibiting but loses a card to Dominic.  Thomas spends his "findings" while thieves rip the check in two.  Then Dominic rotates into the exhibitor role while John provides security.  Meanwhile, Dan's check is five-finger discounted by Allan Jiang.  Allan patiently builds a huge set but is thwarted when his detective strategy fails to find thieves during the mid-game, such that his arrival on the final edge comes only during the final exhibit.  Dominic and John advance slowly but surely together to the mid-point; however, Dominic takes the worst from thieves.  That lets John soldier onward while Dominic pauses.  Dominic almost catches up once John reaches the final 5/3 acceleration zone in the endgame, but comes up one exhibit or one thief from other players short of a last-second comeback.  The jail ends full -- but does not parole a single bandit during the game.  That means no one ever lacked the option to steal.  And steal they do -- six items change hands on the penultimate turn and four more the turn before that.  It wasn't for trying.  John's next-to-last exhibit (two turns before the last turn) sees four detectives on patrol -- catching nary a cutpurse.  It's a matter of timing.  Like phases of the moon, when the thieves were in phase, the detectives were nowhere to be seen and vice versa.  Bandits are selected 21 times; Detectives just 14 times (only five of which catch anything). The robbers net 17 pieces of art and 5 checks.  Dan falls victim to that timing -- exhibiting in thieves-phase and trying to catch the shadows in the night during the detectives-phase.  His set is completely obliterated while he howls at the wrong moon, and he ekes out a few final spaces with a detective.  Thomas has a lot of cards but just can't steal the right ones to connect both halves.  The Auction House is not his friend either.  In the end, John pushes across just barely ahead of the surging Allan and resurgent Dominic.

The top six places and laurels go to:
John Pack
Dominic Blais
Allan Jiang
Dan Leader
Thomas Browne
Steve Cameron

* * Preliminaries * *

It took just 15 points and 3 spaces to qualify for the semi-finals this year -- but 9 players had the usual 17 and above.  Allan Jiang topped the field with 21 points.  John Pack, Dan Leader, Sean McCulloch, Steve Cameron, Doug Galullo, Derek Landel, Thomas Browne, Dominic Blais, and Oliver Searles rounded out the field.

A few highlights include Kevin Wojtaszczyk winning with 10 spaces and a set of 11 -- in a game that saw four players cross the banquet line! Thomas Browne also won with a set of 11 in a game with three players across the line -- but barely edged Tom DeMarco who also crossed to the fourth space. In those two games, Haakon Monsen, Cary Morris, and Rob Flowers didn't cross but finished on the very last space!  Rob made up for that shortfall by winning another game and reaching the very end of the table (13 spaces) as did Oliver Searles in a separate game!  Oliver also won the tie-breaker to qualify as the last semi-finalist -- beating out Sharee Pack 18 spaces to 2.  Rob Flowers was our Extremist -- winning two games and coming in last place in the other three.  Chris Trimmer was The Collector with the most cards, 47, the most cards in sets, 45 of those 47, and games with 11 and 10 twice.  Steve Cameron was the Most Bulletproof -- with all 42 of his 42 cards in his final sets.  Martin Burgdorf was the Most Broken -- with only 13 of his 26 cards connected.  Haakon Monsen was the Oldy Schmoldy player -- not bothering with any card older than 1775 in the tournament.  20 different players had the oldest (1468) or second oldest card (1616) at the end of at least one game. 

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