During the 2022 Voyages of Marco Polo PBEM tournament, 29 participants played a total of 49 games over three rounds. In each round, players completed four simultaneous games and were ranked according to the cumulative results using a 1000-100-10-1 scoring system.
In the first round, perennial finalists Michael Swinson and Dominic Blais each earned three wins to top the standings. Another seven players won two games: Connie Vogelmann, Dan Sirbu, Peter Ran, Chris Wildes, Jeff Wu, AJ Jiang, and Rob Flowers. Thirteen players advanced to the semifinal with a score of 1111 required.
2022 WBC champion Dominic once again won three of four games in the semifinal round. However he was edged out for the top of the leaderboard by two-time PBEM finalist Peter Ran. Michael and Connie each won two games and they were joined in the final round by Chris Wildes, DJ Borton, and Scott Burns. Only those seven players won games during the semifinal, with 2022 PBEM champion AJ Jiang missing out with four second-place finishes.
Only four players won games during the seven-game final round. DJ and Connie each won once to finish 3rd and 4th respectively. Peter won twice to earn 2nd place and his highest finish in a PBEM Marco Polo tournament. Michael avenged his tiebreaker loss from last year, winning three games to earn his second PBEM Marco Polo championship, having previously won in 2020.
The top 6 finishers were:
- Michael Swinson
- Peter Ran
- DJ Borton
- Connie Vogelmann
- Dominic Blais
- Scott Burns
Michael won 8 of his 12 games and never finished lower than 2nd. Unlike in 2020 when he used one character in all of his wins (Wilhelm von Rubruk), he won with five different characters this year. This included two wins each with Rashid ad-Din Sinan and Johannes Carpini, historically two of the worst performing characters.
Mercator ex Tabriz had the most wins of any character (19), the highest win rate (52.78%), and the best average finish (1.78). This was followed by Berke Khan (9 wins) and Niccolo & Marco Polo (8 wins), with no other character earning more than 4 wins. On the other end, Matteo Polo, Kublai Khan, and Johannes Carpini each earned two victories, with Matteo having the worst win rate (8%) and Carpini posting the worst average finish (3.08).
Comparing this year’s tournament with data from 2021, Mercator ex Tabriz and Berke Khan had improved win rates of 18.30% and 16.22% respectively. Wilhelm von Rubruk and Kublai Khan saw their win rates decrease by 23.92% and 20.71%. After not winning a single game in 2021, Rashid ad-Din Sinan earned three wins this year.
Compiling the numbers from all three PBEM tournaments, Mercator ex Tabriz and Wilhelm von Rubruk post the highest historical win rates at 40.57% and 35.82%. Matteo Polo and Rashid ad-Din Sinan remain the lowest with 11.43% and 6.06%.
Once again congratulations to Michael Swinson and to all of the laurelists, and thank you to everyone who participated in the event.
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