Power Grid WBC 2004 Tournament Write Up

Power Grid had great start with forty eight players showing up to play in the first heat on Thursday evening, conflicting with Puerto Rico and Tikal. The schedule and round time had been pre-selected due to the last minute entry into the WBC trial events. We had to change the time allotted to rounds to three hours. The Polo room got very crowded with five players at all eight tables. We had to set up two separate four player games in the Club room down the hall. Unfortunately we had a mishap when one player was not able to participate in the tournament, due to being accidentally hit on the head with a chair, while someone was trying to carry it out of the room to make more space. One of the first heat games was completed in seventy five minutes, which is the fastest I have even seen a game of Power Grid last.With fewer conflicts, more players showed up to play in the second heat on Saturday. Fifty one players were in the second heat making up four games of four players and seven games of five players. Two players that were able to pull off two wins from the two preliminary heats were Frank Hastings and Rich Meyer.

The nineteen individual winners were qualified to advance to the semi final.We instructed second place finishers to show up as alternates, considering the semi final was scheduled at 11PM. Seventeen out the nineteen first place winners along with four alternates show up to play in the semi final. The semi final consisted of four, four player games and one five player game. The five advancing to the Final game were: Rich Meyer and Frank Hastings, now with three wins each, Eric Brosius, Evan Tannheimer, and Tim Swartz.


Round 1
Tim started off the final game by purchasing the number five power plant for $5. The number four plant was desired by more players and went to Richard for $9. Eric decided to put the number 3 plant up for action and got it for $3. Some insights from Eric on this decision follow. [One critical moment in the final came in the initial auctions. I had to decide whether to put the #03 oil plant up for auction or the #07 coal plant or #08 oil plant (the #06 trash plant is a much weaker first plant.) I was afraid the #08 might put me into a coal battle, and I was afraid the #07 could be costly if someone after me took the #03. I
chose the #03 as the safer choice, given that I didn't know two of the players. It was cheap, and because it put me last in the auction order for Round 2, it gave me the opportunity to buy the #33 windmill at list price, saving me a great deal of money over the course of the game.] The number nine power plant went to Evan for $9 and the number ten went to Frank for $10. The northeastern part of the US was the portion of the map left out of the final game. Eric started off the building phase with building the first city in Atlanta. Richard built in Kansas City, Tim in Memphis, Evan in Savannah, and Frank building one city in Denver and one in Cheyenne starting the blocking of the West coast to other players.

All players power up the cities they have built giving them $22 each, except for Frank with two cities, who receives $33.

Round 2
Frank starts off round two by buying power plant number thirteen for $15. Evan follows up with purchasing number eight for $8. Power plant number seven goes to Tim for $7 and Richard gets number sixteen for $16. A high number power plant shows up to replace the number sixteen plant and power plant number thirty three, a wind powered plant that requires no resources, shows up on the auction block. Of course, Eric takes advantage of this rare opportunity of such a high numbered plant showing up so early in the game and purchases it for the face value of $33. Eric goes first on buying resources and building cities. Eric builds his second city in Birmingham, Richard builds in St. Louis and Tim in New Orleans. Evan builds in Raleigh and Jacksonville, giving.