WBC Conclusion

I'm back home in Boston and finally have the energy to wrap up this series of posts. The end of the WBC was both rewarding and exciting!

On Friday I woke up and headed straight to the Le Havre finals. Of course this was going to be tough, with the GM Ken, Nick, another finalist from last year, and a Nick I don't think I'd met before. Since there were three plaques, I was hoping to get somewhere in the top 3. Unfortunately that was not to be and I took fourth.  I thought I was doing ok in the game so I was a little surprised that I wasn't above the other Nick - he hadn't built much over the game, but I think he never took a loan. He built a bunch of expensive buildings at the end for points, including the Church (26 points). I had the Marketplace early, and accumulated a bunch of the symbols that make it more powerful. I was very excited when I used it and saw the Town Square come up - that one lets you take one improved good per that market symbol you have, except for steel. So I was able to go there multiple times and get charcoal, coke, smoked fish, bread, meat, hide, and brick. I shipped a bunch of hides and cokes twice too, but it wasn't enough. Fun game though!

Luckily that game ended in its time frame so I could play the third heat of Agricola for fun with the K deck. Since I was already a double-winner, I was looking for cool interesting things I might try out, and I was in luck! I ended up staying on two people the whole game, and using the Storehouse Clerk to accumulate a lot of goods. I had a super nice house and lots of bonus points, and was actually able to avoid coming in 4th!

I was very excited to get to the Agricola semis, and that was next. After making the Le Havre finals by being the best second-place in the semis, I was hoping to get an outright win. I drafted the combo of Perpetual Student-Writing Desk, and had six of my Occupations out by the third round. It seemed liked I was going to cruise to a victory when Patrick (who definitely knows the game well) dropped a Braggart on me. I managed to win a very close game by one point!

The finals took place right after that, and I was very lucky that Stephanie and Patrick stopped by and offered to get me some barbeque from upstairs. Sometimes at WBC I forget to eat regularly, so this was a super helpful reminded. That pulled pork is really, really good!

The finals were definitely interesting but also frustrating. I started in the fourth position, and didn't feel like I saw all that many good cards in the draft. Through most of the game I felt like I was behind the eight ball, trying to work my way out of a tight corner. I ended up in fourth once again, but at least Agricola gives a 4th place plaque!

I'll keep the rest of the convention short: I played the Power Grid - First Sparks tournament the next day, and won my first two games of it ever to make the finals, where I came in 4th out of 5 after making a silly mistake on turn 1. The 5th place player made an even sillier mistake that put him into a locked situation, where he was creating 4 food units and eating 4 food units, and would never be able to bid for technology or expand his family. Having that be a possibility is enough for me to not like the game.

Saturday night I played Mage Knight with Jesse and Bronwen and had a great time, and picked up a few pointers on how to play efficiently by watching Jesse play and having him give some advice here and there. Needless to say Jesse demolished us, and we ended early. I finally gave in and played Slapshot, Lancaster Milk Stout in hand. I had a great time with Shane, Daniel, Rob, Marissa, and Nick from SNEW! Somehow I won our game and of course immediately dropped out of the tournament. Does anyone actually play round 2?

Once again I had a great time at the WBC, and met the goal I had set before WBC 2011: either win one tournament or make the finals in two. I ended up making three finals, but I'm not sure if Power Grid First Sparks counts the same. I definitely had less of a chance in these two finals (Agricola, Le Havre) than I did in the ones I've made in the past (Princes of Florence, Princes of Florence, Power Grid). The players in these knew these games inside and out, so to ever have a chance of winning one of them I would need to really play those games a ton over the next year. Since Bronwen loves them, that doesn't seem too far fetched!

Thanks to everyone I gamed with and hung out with over a great WBC 2012!

Chris

Another monster day in at the WBC yesterday, and once again I am awake way too early for no reason! Apparently I've been an Uwe Rosenberg super-fan lately, as it seems like most of what I play at WBC is Agricola and Le Havre.

Thursday launched with the third and final heat of Power Grid, and to quote Randy, I was "playing the schedule game." Since I already have won a heat and came in second in another, I showed up early to play a fast-paced game. That would let me squeeze in a game of Stone Age if we could finish within two hours. I ended up with Jason (from Through the Ages heat 1) at my table and we were playing the USA map with the alternative power plant deck. I decided to play this map instead of the Japan map to get some experience with the new deck, which I haven't really played all that many times. We chose to not play with New England, and had a fascinating game where the player on the West Coast decided to let the game stall at 6 cities. After a few turns of saving up money, Jason bust out and built all the remaining open spaces in one turn. Unfortunately for him, Eric on my right as well as myself were able to get a plant to get more capacity, so I managed another 2nd place in a Power Grid game.

I ran over to Stone Age, where Steph and Patrick were ready to play a second heat. I didn't get to write about their arrival the day before, but Steph is a veteran WBCer like us (6 years running now!) and was able to bring her man with her this year. He's learning games the hard way by jumping into the deep end at WBC! They ended up playing a heat of Puerto Rico later in the day as well, so I'm glad he learned that excellent game as well. They are planning to play Steph's favorite event of the WBC tomorrow: Circus Maximus. I got paired against a very nice player named Cindy and two teenage boys who all played very well. Once again the starvation strategy paid off well for me, and I won with a reasonably large lead.

The second and final heat of Le Havre was next. I'm at the point now that I can play a good overall game, but I still keep seeing new combinations and lines of play just from the variance and seeing good players play the game. One of the players at my game was obviously an experienced Le Havre player, Rob, and I got to see him play the ship-a-ton-of-steel strategy perfectly. On the last turn of the game, I stupidly forgot that I was going to have to pay 2 food entry for the Shipping Line, so I sent some bread off the Bridge Over the Seine that I could have ended up shipping. Since those bread got me 2 points on the bridge, and I was able to ship one less good and one iron instead of a bread, I shipped for 3 less points. So I lost a point over that deal, and I realized it as soon as I had to pay the entry fee. Amazingly, the game ended in a 191-191 tie with me and Rob, and I was kicking myself! The tiebreaker is franc value of remaining goods, and we both had 1 franc worth of goods!! The second tiebreaker was reverse turn order, so Rob took it down. Ouch.

The good news was that often at WBC, in small tournaments you can get in with a second place finish. This turned out to be the case for Le Havre, so I was in the semis, as was Bronwen, who had somehow convinced the GM to let her table play their game on her iPad. The semis was going to be tough since I had two finalists from last year at my table, Daniel and Nick, and a hilarious 4th player who I hadn't met before named Rodney. Almost any sentence you uttered could send Rodney into a humming or singing interlude. I had a strong start with lots of good resource grabs early, then building the Joinery, selling a wood for 5, and buying the 6-cost Building Firm. I was able to build the Hardware Store and buy the Clay Mound, which gave me 3 hammer symbols, making the Clay Mound worth 5 clay for me. From there, I was able to build the Colliery and some other building, and start taking Coal over and over. I had a bit more food trouble compared to Daniel and Nick, because they both bought ships with money. In the end, I came in second to Nick by only two points, with Daniel 8 points behind me. I had accomplished my goal of playing well against the better players. It turns out they did three tables of 4 players, and the finals would be the three winners, and the best second placer: which should turn out to be me!

The bad news is that the Le Havre final is at the same time as the Power Grid semifinal, and Power Grid is my team game. I hope my teammates understand how badly I want to have a chance to win a tournament at the WBC, because I think I have to play Le Havre. I emailed one of my teammates, Eric, to see what he thinks, and hopefully he finds me before 9 am today.

The end of the night was Agricola's second heat, which was going to be interesting since I know the I deck a LOT less than I know the E deck. I drew Derek and two players I played with online only LAST WEEK, Merissa and John. I went for a pretty clay heavy strategy. I played the Clay Digger who adds the 1-accumulation clay space to the game with 3 clay on it to start, and if any other player wants to use it, they pay you 3 Food, which noone did over the course of the game. I took RSF again at some point and played Pottery in round 3. I also got the Church Warden for 4 food, the Juggler, who lets you double Traveling Players, where I got 6 food from twice, and the guy who makes clay stuff cost 1 less, and clay rooms 2 less. Even though I was the third person to add a room and a baby, I used the Improvement that comes with the baby to play the second Fireplace, and I made 4 stables along with my room. I got the Goose Pond out mid-game to enhance my food as well, a minor that gets me 2 wood when I take wood, and a minor that lets me get a breeding pair of sheep when I fenced in 4 or more spaces. So the mid-late game was saving up a huge amount of wood, taking 2 boar into the stables, saving up to do a huge fencing, and getting the 2 free sheep. I won comfortably with 49 points, with Derek on 42.

I was pretty exhausted but wound up after that, so hopefully my tiredness won't keep me from being able to focus today.

Coming up today:
   9 am Le Havre Final
  12 pm Agricola Heat 3: K deck
   3 pm Puerto Rico
   5 pm Agricola Semifinal
   8 pm Princes of Florence Semifinal

The sad news is that I'm going to miss the last heat of Brass, so I only got one game of that in. I guess you can't play everything!

Chris

More WBC 2012

Tuesday is always an interesting day at WBC because the pre-con tournaments are wrapping up and the auction is the main event. I always avoid the auction because I know it might get me into financial troubles!

After hitting Target for some supplies (cherries, bananas, turkey slices, and some socks), Bronwen and I hit the open gaming room. Pretty quickly we found Alex, an amazing game player who has won tons of tournaments, including winning Ra three times, which impresses the hell out of me. The thing I like about Alex in this context is that he loves to analyze games and talk about what each player might have done differently, so I always learn a great deal by playing with him.

Bronwen of course suggested Agricola (it's her favorite game by a lot) and we found Peter, a nice guy from the UK who was looking for a game. I asked if we could do an E draft to prepare for the first round of the tournament, and all were agreeable. My first pick was Charcoal Burner, who I'm a big fan of. I got Reed Collector second, who is a very solid pick. I believe I had a meaningless third pick, but then a fourth pick Hut Builder, who I'm pretty sure I've never had before! In my original pack, Wooden Hut Builder came back to me, so I thought it would be good to just use him and Hut Builder and not bother upgrading my house at all in the game. It means you don't have to spend two renovation actions or any resources, and only miss out on 4-5 points instead of 8-10 for not having a nice house, but that would mean that I could focus on making sure my board was covered with fencing and fields. It worked out well because I was able to grab Axe in the Minor Improvement draft, and a Reed Pond to go with my good occupations (it requires 3 of them to be in play).

My game played out perfectly as I was able to drop Charcoal Burner and Reed Collector early, take Reed-Stone-Food a few times, and build the Basketmaker's Workshop. On turn 4, I barely remembered that Hut Builder needed to be played in Stage I! Alex had built a room and Head of the Family, and on turn 6 Family Growth still hadn't appeared, so I took Start Player with my first action, and built two rooms with the Axe with my second action so as to be able to take Family Growth right away before Alex could, although with Head of the Family, he could grow as well. I was able to grow to 4 the very next turn, and I was pretty much set up so I focused on collecting wood for one big fences drop. Then it was just a matter of collecting points the rest of the way. I had 53 points, Alex had 49, Bronwen was in the high 30s, and Peter had around 16.

While we were playing, Derek whom I had played in Through the Ages came and watched the end of our game. Afterwards, he wanted in on a game, and Alex suggested Princes of Florence since we had five if Peter still wanted in.

It was a tight, low-scoring game. I don't remember the last time I've seen someone win with 54 points, but Alex did it. I was in second with 50, Bronwen had 48, and Derek and Peter were right behind that. I was in seat two, but our friend Shane was arriving, so I was looking out for him entering the room and totally spaced on taking the extra Profession in turn 2. That's something that I would never do in a tournament! I ended up playing a mixed strategy of getting things opportunistically, so I ended up with 1 Jester, 1 Builder, and 2 Recruiting cards. I was able to build all six of my works but it wasn't easy!

Shane showed up and Bronwen and I went with him to possibly my favorite sit-down restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. I pretty much order the same thing every time: Texas Filet with broccoli (no butter!) and a house salad (no cheese!). We saw Randy and Andrew there, along with Zvi (who I haven't seen in a decade or so, a long-time Magic pro). I asked them what happened in the Through the Ages final. Randy took it down again, Zvi was second, Andrew third, and Sceadeau fourth. Sceadeau and I have been talking a lot of gaming online lately, and we had played two games of Agricola online last week. Apparently Through the Ages is a much more skill-based game than I would have expected.

Finally, the real tournament began! In Power Grid at WBC, you get to choose from one of two map options each heat. One of them always chooses the alternate plant deck, which I didn't really love, so I chose to play Korea regular rather than Germany with the alternate. Unfortunately, I drew the GM, Jim, who is a super nice guy but a really tough Power Grid player. He's one of those people that can keep track of a lot more information in his head, so he often knows to pretty good accuracy how much money you have. Last year he gave the finalists playing-card style money decks to replace the paper money in the game, so I proudly showed him that I brought my decks back to utilize this year, which I know was something he was hoping for.

We had a very tough, tight knife fight of a game. The Korea map is pretty darn brutal. People were hopping over each other left and right for board positioning. Jim had a great start with an early 25 plant, but because of that the coal markets (Korea has two markets!) dried up significantly. After getting blocked off early, I bid 21 for the 18 wind plant because I knew I would have to save money for connection costs as much as possible. I was stuck on 6 capacity for quite a while, and the plant market was awful. After the game, Jim thought I should have bought the 17 nuclear plant to replace the 11 nuclear I had just to churn through the market, even if it costs me some money. In the last turn of the game, it was up to me to end the game or not. I had been holding back a ton of money so I decided to go for it, even though it would be a 13-13-13 tie for first. I went for it and showed my 15 Electros. The opponent on my left showed 14! Then... the guy opposite us showed 17 Electros! First through third, all separated by 3 Electro. Well, at least it secured me a second place, and I can go for a win in the remaining two heats. Usually a first and a second is in...

At this point, the room we were in had multiple different tournaments at once, including a very excitable crowd of people for Elchfest, a dexterity game about moose trying to cross each other's paths. The room was getting muggy and uncomfortable, so Le Havre was going to be a challenge. Continuing with the theme of hard matchups, I drew Kerrin, a regular WBC friend of ours who comes all the way from Australia, Mike., a consistently strong gamer who beat me in the semifinals of Le Havre last year, and Rob, another strong gamer who has won many tournaments and is the GM for El Grande. Mike was able to get the Business Office going, make a lot of steel, build some steel ships and ship a bunch of things, all while not taking a loan. He had 180 while the rest of us were close. Kerrin was surprised to find herself in second with 140, Rob had 137, and I had 136. Considering the tight binds the dynamics of the game put me in, I was happy to be in that tight of a band.

After that, Shane and I met up and went to one of my favorite places in Lancaster: Waffle House! Simple, cheap food that gets the job done. I ordered 2 eggs, hash browns and toast for $4. I think in Boston that probably costs double.

Today should be a long, draining, fun day. The agenda: Brass, Power Grid, Agricola, Egizia, Stone Age, and Princes of Florence. Luckily the two most computationally heavy are the first two! I'm skipping the second heat of Brass which coincides with Stone Age and Princes of Florence. It was going to be a hard choice, but having already won the first heat of Stone Age means that Stone Age/Princes is two chances to make a semifinal, since Princes just needs a win and Stone Age typically needs two wins (due to the much bigger turnout for Stone Age); while Brass is only one chance. Maybe I'll make it a guaranteed choice by winning Brass in the first heat!

Chris

WBC Day Six

Thursday at the WBC feels like the tip of the mountain - you're right in the thick of things, but you know you are getting closer to the end of the con than the start. That said, I try to savor the experience as best I can.

The first game of the day was the final heat of Power Grid. This time it was Benelux, and I got put at a table with Bill Crenshaw, who I've played at least twice before in Power Grid and talked to about his game, Manifest Destiny. He's a tough Power Grid player, and I once again came in second, giving me two seconds and a first leading into tomorrow morning's semifinal. I'm pretty consistent at getting firsts and seconds in the heats in Power Grid - I think I had a similar record last year and got second in the semifinal to Raphael Lehrer on the Italy board. Tomorrow will be Korea, which I've never even played before...

After a snack, I entered Caylus and got assigned a table with my wife Bronwen and a guy named Jim who was a really fun opponent. He hadn't played Caylus in a few years, and I beat them pretty handily. (I hope Bronwen isn't going to ever read this... )

That was followed by two back-to-back games of Le Havre. The second heat had Grant Ladue, who I've played Wilderness War with and talked to on wargameroom.com, and two nice older guys who hadn't played very often. We ended up having to cut the game short, and since none of them cared to advance and they agreed I had a good set-up for the end game, they gave me the win. The second game was the semifinal with Mike Kaltman (who is also the GM of Caylus) and a guy who was in my Power Grid game earlier. We had a great, tight game, but Mike clearly knows the game well and got a well deserved win, mostly by building steel ships and luxury liners. I did the most shipping I've ever done in Le Havre, which was interesting, and took second. That should make me come in 5th or 6th overall...

I decided to forgo the second heat of Agricola because I didn't feel like playing a 5 player game. I went to the Lampeter room and signed up for the Saratoga tournament, which I often don't get to play because of its usual conflict with Twilight Struggle (which last year and this year conflicted with Power Grid semis, sigh.). I got paired up with Chris Byrd, who just learned the game, and we had a fun, tense game dancing around the edge of Freeman's Farm trying to flank each other. He captured the Ottawa Indians in the midgame, and Gate's wing was released as early as possible. His attack along the Hudson to try to get my baggage train ended up costing me the game as he did a step loss to a unit there. I probably should have put more thought into how to defense that region. I wish I had more WBC time to find some fun games of this series. Someone out there has got to want to play them.

Tomorrow: Power Grid semis, Agricola heat 2, Agricola semis, and Princes of Florence heat 2!!!

Chris

WBC Day Four

Despite wanting to catch up on sleep, of course I again was instantly awake at 7:30. At least this meant I could bring Andy Latto an extra copy of Innovation for his demo at the Showcase Sampler as he had requested. As his demo was starting, Eric Brosius walked by and we decided to try out his copy of A Few Acres of Snow, which I had only played about 40% of a game of the other day. Eric smoked me as the French - I tried out a specific strategy I thought of but misimplemented it. I thought it was a pretty cool game and I want to play it more... not sure if I want to buy it yet though.

I stopped by the auction store and found two good deals - Wellington and Imperial, two games I was looking for. I hope I can find people who would play Wellington at some point...

After that I ran into one of our regular friends at WBC, Laura. It was good to see her again since she missed last year's WBC, so I tracked down Andy after his demo and we grabbed another Andy, Andy Gerb, and picked out Yspahan as a game that we were all interested in playing. It was definitely a learning experience since Andy won last year's Yspahan tournament and Laura clearly knew what she was doing. Andy took it down with lots of cards and camels in the last week.

Then, one of those glorious days at WBC got even brighter. I ran into Alex Bove, who is an awesome and intense gamer - every time I talk to him I learn something knew about thinking about games. He's one of the few people I know who really likes Princes of Florence, so we got a 5 player game together. I was very happy to win after the guy in seat 2 decided to go builder heavy and let me have the extra Profession card. The scores ended up very tight: 59-58-58-57-48.

Then the official tournaments kicked off with the Power Grid at 6 pm. I had a fun table with some people I vaguely knew, Deniz and Meghan, a nice 25 year old guy named Derek, and a funny, inattentive 14 year old named Eli. We played the Germany map with the alternate power plant deck, which I owned but hadn't played with yet. In a very, very close game, I pulled it out with 15 cities powered by not building cities on the second to last turn and getting the Step 3 card to come up so I could build out first. I also waited out the auction so even though people had 16 capacity, I doubted they had the cash to build to 16. Derek had about 7 Electros while I had around 27 for the win!

Finally, I was agonizing over a "cake-or-pie" decision: Le Havre or Ra. Even though Le Havre would keep me up later than I wanted (I'm psyched for Brass 9 am tomorrow...), I knew I just like it better overall. The judge didn't randomize the tables for Le Havre, so I ended up playing with Rich Meyer, who is from western Mass but I don't think I had ever played a game with, just because he was sitting near my board. We had just had a nice dinner together with my wife Bronwen and the winner from the St. Pete game yesterday. After the game started, I knew I had made the right decision. The other players were fun, a nice younger guy and Pete Staab, who I knew from the Chicago Express tournament last year. I pulled out a tight 6 point victory with Rich in second place, mostly by building efficiently.

Winning three of my favorite games back-to-back was certainly satisfying! Tomorrow: another day full of heavy eurogames. Check out this intense line-up:

   9    Brass
   12  Power Grid
   3    Agricola
   6    El Grande
   8    Princes of Florence
   10  Brass

Chris