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

Day of Improbable Victory!

I have a ton to report on today. I played five games yesterday, and they were all interesting and tense. I kicked it off with a 9 am heat of Brass, and ended up at the same table as the GM Ed, Elaine (who I had played Through the Ages with earlier in the week and was new to Brass), and at the last minute Eugene, who I had played some game with my first year at WBC but haven't seen him often here since. My impression of him in the past was that he was a bit mercurial, but he was in a good mood and our game was polite and good-spirited.

Eugene played really well: he developed cotton mills away for 18 on the second turn and never looked back from a pure cotton rush strategy. He got all of his level 3 mills out and one level 4 during the canal era, which is pretty much game ending. I tried to counter with a coal-iron strategy but I got beat to my first two iron locations! I did manage to get the level 4 out eventually, and use the income along with well timed loans to end up placing all of my rails on the board. Eugene took it down with a score in the 180s, while Ed and I were a few points apart in the 150s. Unfortunately noone else really fought Eugene for the mill spots, so I ended up with a second.

Power Grid heat 2 was up next, and the board was Central Europe. Last year I won my first game on this map in the semifinals, so I was curious to see how it felt this time. I don't remember a lot about last year's game, but I remember playing really well. One of the players from that game was once again at my table, a really nice player named Jen. This game was really interesting. I put my house out first after getting the 4 plant in what I thought was a pretty safe location, putting a few cheap cities in a pocket behind me. Surprisingly, one of the other players put two houses down behind me, which barricaded himself in... Jen put her red houses down a little bit south of ours, and on turn 2 I put down 2 more houses, and then Jen moved north and blockaded us completely. I figured I was going to be totally hosed by having only 3 cities entirely surrounded, but ended up bidding up the 22 plant a tiny bit, figuring that I would have to save as much money as I could to explode with houses once someone bust into step 2. Once I was freed, my strategy worked perfectly and I won another game of WBC Power Grid. I don't feel like I'm that great at the game and find all kinds of mistakes in my play, yet I am consistently winning or coming in second.

I always have an irrational fear that this year is going to be the year that I don't win a single tournament game, so it felt great to get a very tricky, well-played win in. Our friend Shane, who has just moved to Baltimore, made his first trip to the WBC and played two heats of Dominant Species and won one - he's going to come back on Saturday for that semifinal game. I had a nice, relaxing lunch with him, which was great.

I was really looking forward to Agricola, so I gladly set up a copy of my game. The GM forgot his deck of cards to randomize the seats, so he decided to say "just sit wherever you want". I know the WBC isn't that serious, but... really? So of course there aren't enough players, no one sits at my table, and I look over to see the last seat at another table has a former Agricola champion, Cary. Well, if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, right? I managed to do just that, winning a really close game 46-44-42-25 or so. Kerrin from Australia who I had already played Le Havre with was the 42!

The start of the game was interesting. In the draft I took Hut Builder first, then got Charcoal Burner and Wooden Hut Builder. After the other player on my right played an Occupation, I took Reed-Stone-Food, Kerrin took 2 clay, which was surprising, and Cary played Berry Picker (1 food when you take a wood). Because Kerrin had the clay, I took start player so I could drop Charcoal Burner in case she was thinking about taking the first Fireplace. It turns out she had some bread baking cards that she wanted to play. Since we were all playing cards, the resource piles got surprisingly big.

Somehow, I just couldn't get the timing down to build my house, as I was busy getting the Basketmaker's Workshop going and making sure my Hut Builder got played in Stage I. Cary used the Axe to build out to four, the guy on my right built a third room, and Kerrin got her third before me as well. So I just bided my time and saved up wood, then built two rooms at once. I was able to grow my family in rounds 9 and 10 with that, and then 11 with the Hut Builder. So even though I was the last to grow, I ended up as the second with four people after Cary and the first with 5. The Wooden Hut Builder meant I didn't need to waste actions getting clay or stone to renovate, so I was able to spend the rest of the game collecting animals and wood to finally make a big fence move. I also used Fruit Tree and Pottery to get the food I would need to feed everyone.

I should also mention that after the game Kerrin said I should be especially proud of my win, not just because I grew my family last, but because her and Cary took Start Player a lot of the game, so I was going third or fourth all the time.
 

I decided to play Stone Age and intentionally relax and have a nice milk stout beer. I had a fun game starving again, but the end result was pretty different because I was in the 4th seat instead of the 3rd, a lot of 6s came up on the "magic dice", and two of the other players knew how to react to my starvation. I ended up in fourth place with 99 points.

By that time, I was sobered up a bit, and ready for a late night Princes of Florence. It's one of my favorite WBC games (especially since I've made the finals twice), but it seems to slowly be slipping in popularity, so who knows how long it will last. Somehow, I ended up winning with 54 points by grabbing a Prestige Card at the second to last turn for 4 points (Most Landscapes) and bidding up John W., the old Puerto Rico GM on Forests, when it turned out he had the Most Forests Prestige Card! The guy on my right, who played a great game, had three failed Prestige Cards!

I will add more about other fun things about yesterday later, but for now I need to go play in Le Havre heat 2!

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

Day Two of Pre-Con Action!

Day two kicked off with the final heat of Through the Ages. Amazingly enough, I got paired with two of last year's finalists - Randy and Andrew who I had played Eclipse with the other day! Since it was almost certain that I couldn't qualify for the semifinals, this was the best thing that could have happened. I get a chance to play a game that feels just like being in the finals instead and hopefully play well while getting a feel for how the best players play this game.

I picked up Julius Caesar and St. Peter's Basilica in Age A. Julius didn't do much except get me to cycle through some military cards. I had what I thought was a pretty good Age I. I got Alchemy, Iron, and Irrigation, but missed out on Knights. Randy built a whole Legion while Andrew built some Knights, so I had to build a Legion as well to keep up in military. After that, I had a hard time keeping up in military. I was able to get Swordsmen to upgrade my Legion but never saw any tactics cards past that to switch to. Late in Age I, still with Caesar, I picked up Michaelangelo to go with St. Peter's. I believe he really isn't that good coming up late in the Age, but I don't think there was much else worth doing, so it was better than not doing it.

During Age II, I built up my infrastructure the best I could and felt like I was in good shape. I picked up the Eiffel Tower to give myself some culture points once Michaelangelo would die. Maybe it would have been better to save those rocks to build something like Multimedias or Movies?

In Age III, of course I got picked on. However, I did pick up Gandhi early which kept me a bit safe - however it also kept me from getting a leader that could generate a lot more points. Randy destroyed my two Alchemy, which I don't think actually hurt me that much - there wasn't much tech I needed to play but didn't. I was able to defend a 7 point steal aggression from Andrew on the second to last round. Amazingly, my lack of military didn't totally hose me. The Impact cards, however, gave Randy a convincing win, and Andrew a solid second over me. However, my score wasn't totally blown away relative to what I've seen happen to people at times.

My big takeaway seems to be that I really need to study the Impact cards. You need to really know them, and be aware of how many your opponents have put into the deck and what they might reasonably have put there. Randy was able to put my one seed as Impact of Agriculture, which got him something like 6 points extra by upgrading to Mechanized Agriculture on the last turn.

My two main possible errors: 1) not taking Warfare early. Randy said he thought it was the best Age I tech, but I'm not exactly sure why other than it giving you more military cards. The 1 strength pip rarely seems to matter. 2) Taking Eiffel Tower instead of waiting to build more infrastructure.

My main question: if you have a reasonable lead going into Age III and the lead in point generation (via Eiffel Tower in this case), do you take Gandhi? I had something like 8 military while the others had in the 30s.

A really fun game, and a good learning experience.

After that, I played a heat of Amun-Re, where I was faced off with Randy again! I don't really know Amun-Re and haven't thought too much about how to win it. My impression leaving it was that getting the most pyramids in a province is a huge deal. Obviously you also need to know how to value the provinces in the first place, which I am not 100% down with yet. My teammate Jeff, who I hadn't met yet (Eric added me to his team at the last minute) crushed the table pretty thoroughly.

I played a tight, fun game of Thurn & Taxis, but of course I went card dead at the end. Three turns of wiping the board to look for one of two or three cards each time and I couldn't find any of them so I missed out of getting the 7 carriage at the end. The score was something like 17-15-13-10, with me on a 13 that could easily have been a 17.

Believe it or not, I played two more games AFTER that.

Stone Age finally broke me into the win column. I had a great game against three super nice opponents. I was able to expand my family the first three turns and go for a pure starvation strategy. I rolled fairly well during the game as well, and on the last turn picked up the 3 x hut card. It turns out I didn't need it, and would have won anyway, but it would have been a lot closer. The end score was something like 204-175-160-111. Looking at the schedule, I might switch the second heat of Brass into the second heat of Stone Age and the first heat of Princes of Florence.

As a nightcap, I got to play Ra with Daniel, a regular WBC friend and opponent. Daniel is a really great guy and hilarious to boot. I told him I was coming for his Le Havre title, but obviously we are not Ra experts, as a very very young boy crushed us all. He was probably around 10, and said only the word "pass" during the whole game. He had everything: monuments, pharaohs, and a 3 long river. I think the final score was about 55-38-33-30-25. I had a terrible game and got the 25. I thought I was over being too conservative in bidding, but somehow the timing of this game threw me off and I couldn't get rolling before the end of each epoch.

A very fun day of gaming! I just woke up and did my Core Synergistic workout from P90X, which was part of my commitment for this year's WBC. I did Yoga yesterday and Kenpo Cardio the day before. I hope that keeping my body in gear will keep my mind focused! Tomorrow is another Kenpo day, but it is also a big gaming day, so I'll fit it in if I can, but I won't stress if I can't.

The rest of today is open gaming. I hope to try to get a game of either Troyes or Dungeon Lords in. They are two games I own that I haven't played much but would love to learn more. I would also be curious to get a game of Amun-Re in. The other thing I would be interested in was playing a game of Agricola with E draft or I draft to prepare for the tournament. I would welcome a 5 player Princes of Florence for the same reason. Later, the official tournaments start up again at 6 pm. Power Grid (my team game! also note the green font in honor of FF) at 6 and Le Havre at 9, what a night!

Chris

WBC 2012 Begins!

I'm back in Lancaster for my sixth year at the World Boardgaming Championships!

We arrived Saturday at around 3 pm. I decided this year to skip the Hannibal tournament so as to not have to wake up at an ungodly hour which usually ended up with me being braindead on Sunday and Monday. Even with that, the drive was surprisingly tiring. Bronwen and I played a two player game of Through the Ages while waiting for people to show up, and then Randy and Andrew showed up around 7 and we played a four player Eclipse.

I'm not really sure why Eclipse is currently ranked at 5 on BoardGameGeek, other than it fits a niche that people have been wanting for a long time: the space civilization game that doesn't take all day and actually has a good rule set. It seems like a fine game, but very fragile: small differences can put you out of a game very early and you have to sit there for the next few hours getting punished. We played with the alien races, and it appeared to be even more the case with them. Maybe when people get better at the game it will seem less luck-driven, but the tile flips seem to be ultra important. My problem is that I am often playing games with 1 or 2 new people. Eclipse is somewhat "fun" from the theme standpoint, but I don't really love the kinds of decisions I'm making. For some reason I don't find them really interesting. Even though it's a short game for it's genre, I wish it were even shorter!

Anyway, yesterday was my first official entry into tournaments. I played two rounds of Through the Ages. In the first one, I was paired against two-time champion Jason Ley and Derek, a guy who had never played the Full Game version of the game. Jason got a ton of points with Michaelangelo, and I tried my best to pump military to take him down. Derek couldn't get his military going, so Jason entered Age III with a huge lead. I was able to get it down a bit, complete First Space Flight, and seed a few good Impact cards, and ended the game only 10 points behind Jason. As my first serious tournament game of TTA ever, I was happy with the result.

Unfortunately round 2 was much worse. I got Michaelangelo and Hanging Gardens, but I wasn't in a dedicated Michaelangelo strategy. I tried to get military set up, but my food production was a problem - I didn't really have a great chance to get a farm improvement until the end of Age II. I ended up way behind in military and got punched in the face. Repeatedly. Clearly the good players in TTA win consistently, but I haven't quite figured out how. I'm still learning my way through the variance of the card draws. I wish we could re-start the tournament and see if I've learned anything!

Today is round 3 of Through the Ages, then Amun-Re, Thurn & Taxis, Stone Age, and Ra!

Chris

WBC Wrap-Up

The end of the WBC was fun and exciting, and I was only somewhat zombie-fied. I played in the Princes of Florence semi-final and the Brass semifinal, but couldn't pull of the magic this year. Unfortunately I'm hazy on exactly what went down. I played ok but not perfect in both games. I needed to play a game purely for enjoyment with no stakes, so I jumped into the third round of Washington's War just to get a game of it in.

I played an awesome guy also named Chris who was from England, and we ended up choosing the opposite nationalities for the game! My experience with the British paid off as I was able to easily push him out of the New England region and not let him back in. I was able to create a southern diversion with Cornwallis coming into Virginia, which was enough to keep him busy before the Wars End card made the game end early. I'm starting to appreciate Washington's War more, although I still wish there were more interesting event cards. I still feel like too much of the game is spent arbitrarily moving PCs around, and not enough thinking as if you were Washington or Howe. So I have to think of it more like a light strategy game, and less like a typical wargame... and accept it for what it is.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and doing a little open gaming. I ended up playing a three player game of Glen More with my friends Stephanie and Richard. It was a cute little game with a decent number of decisions... kind of like Carcassone/Alhambra but with the river mechanic from Egizia in terms of how you acquire your tiles. And with a resource collection/management aspect because when you add a tile to your board, you activate nearby tiles, which might generate resources or convert resources (like corn into whiskey). I didn't feel compelled to run out and buy it, but it's worth a few more plays.

I also played a few games of Dominion at some point with a nice woman and her 11 year old son. He had just learned the game and had figured out some pretty sophisticated stuff about it pretty quickly. I was impressed!

 

I was hoping to get someone to play a wargame with me, and amazingly at midnight Andy Latto walks by, and I say "Labyrinth?" and he sits right down faster than I've ever seen anyone agree to a game. We had an epic back and forth game where it came down to the very last few card plays, but my jihadists were able to win a victory check at the end of one deck.

To recap, here are the tournament games I played. (S) means semifinal, (F) means final.

   Hannibal 3-2
   Wilderness War 0-2
   Saratoga 0-1
   Washington's War 1-0
   San Juan 3-1

   Power Grid 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 1st (S), 5th (F)
   Le Havre 1st, 1st, 2nd (S)
   Brass 2nd, 3rd, 3rd (S)
   Princes of Florence 1st, 2nd, 3rd (S)
   Agricola 1st, 3rd (S)
   Caylus 1st (skipped semis)
   El Grande 5th

On Sunday, we had a nice lunch out at Red Lobster with one of our WBC friends Laura and a bunch of people she knows, then had a nice drive back with Stephanie in the car with us. Another great year of gaming down... and a second plaque, for my fifth place finish in Power Grid.

This WBC showed me that I have a second game I'm good at, Power Grid, in addition to Princes of Florence. My results in Power Grid have been pretty consistent, with lots of 1st and 2nd places in games. I reached the semis last year and got 2nd there, and the finals this year. I discovered a new found love for Agricola, and am looking to play it more; and I don't like El Grande as much as I once did. In wargaming, I had enjoyable games of Saratoga and Washington's War, came very close to getting a plaque in Hannibal, and learned I have a lot to learn about Wilderness War, if I make that commitment. Unfortunately I once again had to miss the Twilight Struggle tournament for the Power Grid semis, but this year it worked out better!

Chris

WBC Day Seven

I'm writing this after getting back to Boston - I didn't have the time/energy to keep up the daily blogging!

The Power Grid semis were a great game played with great opponents, including Meghan who I had played earlier in heat 1. We played on the Korea map and I won! This game me my first final table of Power Grid and a guaranteed plaque since the top 6 get them.

We went straight to the final after a short break. The Japan map we played on was extremely tough and brain burning. You can start in only 6 specific cities on the map, and you are allowed to start two different networks, even later in the game if you only started with 1 start city and never entered a second.

That made me miss heat 3 of the Agricola tournament, but it didn't matter since my 1 win was enough to make it to the semis. I definitely felt outclassed in that game, but had a lot of fun watching the Occupations fly. There are a number of players who know every card by heart and can play nearly instantaneously. I was at least competitive, tying for last with a score that was something like 41-37-32-32. I did enjoy getting the guy who gives you an extra clay when you get wood or clay, then putting out the guy who lets you get food for clay. This game definitely made me appreciate Agricola more and sparked me to want to play it more regularly and learn it more deeply.

The final game of the night was the second heat of Princes of Florence. I got to play with a guy I knew from way back in the Magic days, Ed Fear, and a few other nice folk. I won this one, with Ed coming in second. Somehow I either win or come in second in most games I play in heats of Princes of Florence and Power Grid, so clearly they are my best games. I need to step it up in other games!

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 Five

Another exhiliarating and exhausting day at WBC! I'll write more later but here's the wrapup:

I came in 2nd in the closest game of Brass ever: 141-141-140-115, losing by 1 on the income track.

I came in 2nd in Power Grid on the Central Europe map, losing to the GM and two-time winner, Jim Castonguay... I'll accept that loss!

I reluctantly played Agricola, because I found out it was 5 player games, and somehow I pulled it out, mostly through mastery of animals. I'm not great at Agricola, but I have my moments where it all clicks.

I played a snoozer of an El Grande game and got destroyed. I don't understand how to play well, and don't really enjoy the game all that much, I've decided.

That was followed up by a fun game of Princes of Florence with two strong players, David Platnick and Greg Thatcher. David crushed us with 7 works from the two seat, and I came in second, beating Greg on tiebreak money.

The end of the night was a late start Brass at 9 pm, that ended at 12:30. I got to play with Bruce again, which was great. He crushed us this time with a score like 160-120-111-105.

Awesome times, and I'm glad to be in three semis: Power Grid, Agricola, Le Havre.

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

WBC Day Three

This will be a bit of a shorter update, but I wanted to blog every day of WBC, so here it is!

I wanted to sleep in today a little, but woke up early for no good reason other than overall excitement for the WBC. I did a little work on one of my new projects, which is to try to get good at some of the CDGs by reading some ACTS logs and following the plays on VASSAL. For those of you who don't know them, ACTS is a website that manages cards and dice to enable competitive play of a number of games. The earlier mentioned Twilight Struggle ladder uses ACTS. VASSAL is a program that does the boards, pieces, etc. for tons and tons of games. It has the ability to play live, or you can have it log what you do and then send the logs via email to each other, but it doesn't enforce the rules and if you aren't playing live, you could re-do a log if you didn't like the dice rolls you got. So it's great for fun games where nothing is at stake, and also good for soloing games.

Anyway, I decided to play the San Juan tournament in the morning. I liked the fact that it was 4 rounds of 2-player games, and the GM, Bruce Reiff, is the GM for a bunch of tournaments and knows how to get them going fast and efficiently. Also, he has the perfect voice and presence for a GM. San Juan is a game I like, but don't love, but it was the only thing going at that hour. I hadn't ever played it before at the WBC, but apparently I'm not terrible at it, since I ended up going 3-1. I would have to say that was a pretty satisfying experience since it took about 2.5 hours. That actually qualified me for the playoffs, but I figured the chance to get laurels was still pretty low since the competition would start to be better... and it conflicted with Wilderness War.

Last year I took a break from wargames at WBC and skipped Wilderness War and Washington's War in favor of Euros. I still played Hannibal and Paths of Glory, and was going to play Twilight Struggle but it conflicted with the Power Grid semifinals. I decided to take the 1 in 5 chance of getting a plaque in Power Grid, but ended up taking second in my semifinal.

Wilderness War, for some reason, is still hard for me to wrap my mind around, especially when I'm playing the British side. I haven't played it face to face often enough to have a good feel for the tone of the game, since which cards come up when really affect how you should approach it. I faced a really great opponent in the first round this time, who was willing to talk through some implications of rules I had forgotten about since I've only played it maybe twice in the last two years. Sadly at this hour I am blanking on his name, but he said it was his favorite game and he certainly knew it well and played it well. I was the French and he was able to build a huge stack with Wolfe and come straight up the gut, using Johnson as a distraction in the Mohawk Valley.

In round 2 I played Bill Peeck, who I had played in Twilight Struggle three years ago and he took me out as the USSR. My Americans watched from the ground as the Soviets were colonizing Mars or something... The GM of this tournament is trying something very cool - making players switch sides every round as much as he can make it happen. So I got to play the British this time... and try some of what I had seen in round 1. However, I only got one reinforcement in the first two turns, and only one in the next two turns (out of the six turns in the game!) and Wolfe didn't show up. I don't know how to win at WW in the situations that are tougher for each side, although I'm sure it's possible by adjusting ones approach. Otherwise there is no way the top players could win as consistently as they seem to. Maybe I'll decide to really learn this game over the next year... I like the theme, the art, and enjoy playing it. The subtle tricks you seem to know to win still elude me, and I've even won a few games at the WBC in the past.

After all of that, I decided I didn't want to play another round of Wilderness War so I jumped into the first heat of Saint Petersburg! Here's another game where luck seems to be huge, but gamers I respect like Randy Buehler insist theres skill. I ended up at a table with a friend of mine, Richard Shay, and guess what - the guy on my right dropped a turn 1 Mistress and a turn 2 Observatory, the guy on his right got turn 2 Observatory. I got something slightly better than average, and Richard never saw a good card early. Guess what the score was at the end? Yep - Mistress/Observatory on my right was first, Observatory was second, and I was third. I find games where I can predict the exact score order at the end of the first 3/4ths of the first turn accurately regularly often to be somewhat suspect... but I am now accepting Saint Petersburg for what it is, and I enjoyed playing it despite knowing I had no chance.

I ended the night deciding to bail on playing in the Amun-Re tournament. I don't know the game well enough and just wanted to relax, so Richard and I found another friend Joel and we went to the open gaming room and borrowed the new Airlines Europe from the library. The WBC library is an amazing thing! This game was a cool, light, interesting game. Very easy to learn but seemed to have some good skill involved. I think I like almost any game involving stock certificates... I want to play the game it's a re-theme of, Union Pacific, at some point. I won the game with something like 81-68-63.

I guess I had more energy for blogging left than I thought! Tomorrow there is the auction, which I might visit but don't usually pay a lot of attention to. I'll try to hit the supermarket or Walmart for some supplies for the mini-fridge in our room. I think I just decided to not play the Labyrinth tournament because I don't know the Jihadist side well enough, and instead to play Le Havre. So tomorrow will be open gaming, then the official WBC starts with 6 pm Power Grid, 9 pm Le Havre!

Chris

WBC Day Two

I woke up bright and early for more Hannibal, with only the slightest grogginess after the previous day's marathon of 3 am wakeup, 6 hours driving, and 6 hours of Hannibal. After I post this entry, I'm going straight to bed and luckily nothing is happening for me in the 9 am hour tomorrow, so I can catch up a little bit on sleep.

Round 3: Tim Miller
For the 5th time in a row at WBC, I was Carthage - Tim bid 1 to be Rome, so I was happy to take Carthage once again. The details of this game are a little blurry right now, but once again Hannibal got stuck in northern Italy, eventually killed, but Mago was again able to conquer Corsica and hold onto it. Yet another 9-9 tie for the Carthage madmen...

Round 4: Michael Sosa
I knew I had met Michael before, but neither of us could remember exactly what we had played together a few years ago. He accepted my starting bid of 1 for Carthage, so the streak grew to 6. This time, Hannibal was finally able to make a lot of progress, smashing Romans and taking Samnium. On turn 3, I had a tough call to make. I had the Carthage reinforcement card that gave 2 troops if you were in Lucania, so I decided to make a break for it after using Diplomacy to flip one of the other spaces there to have a retreat path if I lost a combat. Hannibal was able to hold on to Lucania and Apulia until at least turn 7 or so, holding off Scipio Africanus in a number of combats on turn 6. I got to play an event I had never played before - the Adriatic Pirates! They got Mago with 3 extra troops to help Hannibal hold on longer, but eventually I had to sail the big guy back to Spain. Overall it bought me enough time to once again control Corsica and win a 9-9 tie.

Round 5: Henry Rice
Henry won the bidding roll and bid 0 for Carthage, I bid 1, and he took them for 2 - the streak was over! However, after playing four rounds of Carthage in a row, I was worried about being out of sync with the Roman side of things. I held Hannibal to the first two spots in Samnium, but I decided to use Major Campaigns on two different turns to try to attrition Hannibal away, figuring I was going to have a better chance to make battles last longer if I was attacking rather than defending. I'm still not sure if this is worth it, or a good way to lose a lot of troops, since I had Hannibal well controlled. Eventually I did back him up back in Gallia Cisalpina, and then he fled just as Scipio got on the scene. Henry did something pretty interesting during all of this. During one of his Campaign card moves, he moved H. Gisgo into the right most space in Liguria - basically meaning I would have to find some time to deal with him or he might come out at the end of the game to flip some PCs in Italy. In turn 8, Henry moved Hasdrubal back into northern Italy to keep me tied up, even though I was winning with Marcellus in Corsica and P. Scipio in Sicily. Near the end of the turn he dropped Truce to make me not able to deal with Hasdrubal or flip a PC that P. Scipio was sitting on in Sicily (with another next to him). I had Celtiberia Revolts and decided to not use it as the event and make him lose one more PC during the Political Phase, thus keeping the Truce around.

On turn 9, I discovered yet another example of the dislike part of my feelings about Hannibal. I've been playing Hannibal for 3-4 years now and have probably played 50 times. You would think I would know all of the rules, but nope! Apparently Truce causes Naval Combat to not occur, so Henry was able to sail Hannibal with 10 troops on turn 9 with no risk.

Anyway, it was all for naught because during turn 9, Henry used a Major Campaign to move Hannibal to Sicily, but that wasn't it. He hit me with Philip of Macedon's alliance next, and picked out my only 3-card, a Major Campaign. I finished off Hasdrubal, and raced Scipio A. south as quickly as I could... only to be hit by Messenger Intercepted! Unbelievably, Henry didn't even need to use Hannibal to take over Sicily. With him remaining cards after I had played my last one, he was able to move H. Gisgo from New Carthage all the way by land to Gallia Cisalpina and take that province back.

A fun, interesting day, but unfortunately it ended with disappointment. Winning that last round would have meant probably being in top 6 and getting a plaque... and I came so close! Granted, this was the best I've done in a CDG.

All three of my opponents were great - polite, not too fast or slow in their play, gracious in victory or defeat, and generally fun to play against. The people at the WBC are a big factor as to why it's so fun!

Chris

WBC Day One

A great start to this year's World Boardgaming Championships!

Bronwen and I woke up at 3 am to begin the trek to Lancaster PA, and got out the door around 4:30. We made quick progress as Bronwen caught up on sleep and I listened to wargaming podcasts (Point 2 Point and The Messy Game Room... check them out!). We had a nice, quick lunch at Taco Bell and met up with some friends at the Lancaster Host.

Today's pre-convention event: Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage!

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Hannibal. It's more like a really like-sometimes dislike relationship. I'm good enough to have a chance to win against most of the players I've come across at WBC, but not good enough to necessarily win consistently. I've gone pretty much 50% wins in the few years I've been playing the event... this is my third year, and I believe I went 2-2 my first year, then 1-1 last year and dropped out to play Paths of Glory. I enjoy playing the game, but at some point around a year and a half ago, my conception of the game changed and I don't quite take it as seriously. Mostly it's the wild swings that can happen from a timely Double Envelopment or Messenger Intercepted, but also the way the game sometimes settles into a stalement, or the way Carthage can win with a lucky Syracuse draw on turn 9. All of that said, once I made that mental adjustment to the chaos of the game, I'm actually enjoying the game more. It's like I have built up a resilience to the frustrations the game can provide, and can take it for what it is, without getting annoyed when I lose.

Round 1: Bill Banks. Bill was a great opponent - he was nice, easygoing, and knew Hannibal well, so the play was smooth and the time flew by. I won the dice-off to bid 2 PCs for Carthage and he let me have it. Hannibal made it as far as Mutina, but got whittled down so had to retreat back home. Bill considered following over the Alps to go get him, but decided against it. With a timely Messenger Intercepted and Diplomacy, I was able to move Mago over to Corsica-Sardinia while Bill was out of cards, and early in the following turn sail Hasdrubal there with more troops while Hannibal held down Spain. I used a ton of 3-cards to buy more troops, which is something I have found myself doing more and more as Carthage as I gain more experience with the game. I wonder if that's the right thinking... Anyway, Bill tried a few attacks but I was able to fend them off for a 9-9 tie, which Carthage wins.

After the game, I relaxed, wandered, and finally went to the nearby Asian Bistro with a friend from home, Andy Latto. We had a great conversation about games, poker, and statistics (such as in WBC favorite Can't Stop), and the food was solid - I had a nice, simple chicken stir fry. Fueled up, I was ready for round 2!

Round 2: Andy Latto. I'm not really surprised by this kind of thing any more. If you play enough tournaments, you are bound to play people you know. I was happy to know that one of us would be 2-0 going into tomorrow. It was kind of funny to have this happen since one of the things we talked about during dinner was our bidding strategy for the start of the game. Andy won the die roll and bid 1 for Carthage, so I bumped it to 2 and was once again moving Hannibal over the Alps. This time, however, Hannibal got stopped at the gates to Italy by a Roman superstack. Hannibal's stack was too big for them to take on as well, so a stalemate developed while Andy just waited Hannibal out. I was able to once again get Mago into Corsica, and even did an end of turn Sicily Revolts and led the turn off with a 3 card to take that province (temporarily). Andy is a tough game player though, and he played very well - not rushing into anything too risky until he had Scipio Africanus. At that point Andy had 47 troops on the board due to the build-up, and my stacks all had 13-16.

The amazing part of the game was that we had FOUR 10-round battles between Hannibal and Scipio on turn 6, one more on turn 7, and finally Andy went for the kill with a Campaign... the last one Scipio got Hannibal in an 8 rounder to have a significant drop in force, then came in with P. Scipio to finish off the big man. It was a hard decision the play before that as to whether to run away with Hannibal yet. He had a stack of 11 or 12 troops and I had no way of knowing Andy had a Campaign card.

The other amazing aspect to this game was that I drew Messenger Intercepted FOUR times, including turn 9 during which I plucked Philip of Macedon from his hand, allowing me to send Hasdrubal with 10 troops safely to back up Mago when Scipio A. moved there after finishing up with the tribes in the north. The ending was extremely close, but unfortunately sneaky Varro had enough Ops points left to move into Northern Spain and take four spots to win by 10-8 province count. We debated my gamble to attack Corsica with my last 3 card before waiting for Andy to be out of cards, but if I waited, he would finish off Mago and flip the PCs, making the sailing attempt significantly more risky, not to mention not having Mago's few remaining troops around. Since I rolled exactly 1 less than sinking, I would have sunk on the way and lost either way.

It's time for bed, and I think this year I'm not going to switch the Paths of Glory. I just don't know enough people who play it regularly to ever be truly competitive at the game, and it's very draining to play even a second round of it, much less three. So for tomorrow, I'll be playing round 3 of Hannibal. I'm thinking that if I win, I will keep going on the off chance I can get to 4-1, but if I lose, I might give serious consideration to playing Through the Ages. I rate TTA much lower than most of my friends, as well as the BoardGameGeek rankings, so I feel like I need to play it more and give it a more thorough chance. Two back-to-back round of WBC play would go a long way towards that!

Chris

The WBC

This post is for those of you who have not yet attended the WBC - the World Boardgaming Championships. My wife and I have been to the WBC for the past five years, and it's pretty much a non-decision if we are going to go. As a high school teacher, I schedule my summer plans around it. The WBC is a week long boardgaming extravaganza that features both over 100 tournaments and a ton of open gaming, as well as a nice vendor room open on the weekend and a game auction. It takes place in Lancaster, PA during the first week in August, and if you like boardgames at all, you need to go at least once.

The toughest decision I face at the WBC is whether to focus on eurogames or wargames. My first year at the WBC, I had no idea about wargames, but I checked out the wargame room and I was hooked. After two years of really focusing on wargames at the WBC, I went back to more euros last year. I had a tough choice last year - to play my favorite game, Twilight Struggle, or to play in the semifinals of Power Grid. I decided to play Power Grid because a good chance at a trophy seemed worth it to me, and I am not a huge fan of the single elimination format that has been used for Twilight Struggle.

The best part of the WBC, in my opinion, is the good-natured but serious sense of competition. I've very rarely run into someone I didn't enjoy playing with, especially in wargames where it is especially important since the games are longer and they are two-player. Other highlights include midday trips to Sonic and late night trips to Waffle House, and the hilarious night tournaments. The WBC runs some fun, goofy tournaments at night during: Can't Stop, Liar's Dice and Slapshot. These are experiences - even if you are not participating, it's worth seeing them in action at least once in your life!

To give you a sense of the WBC, here are official WBC tournaments I have competed in over the years:
     1830
     Agricola
     American Revolution Series
     Amun-Re
     Caylus
     Combat Commander
     Dominion
     El Grande
     Euphrat & Tigris
     Goa
     Hammer of the Scots
     Hannibal
     Paths of Glory
     Power Grid
     Princes of Florence (my best game, I got 2nd once!)
     Puerto Rico
     Ra
     Race for the Galaxy
     Twilight Struggle
     Washington's War/We the People
     Wilderness War

Other tournaments they have that I haven't played in but like and would consider playing in:
     Age of Steam
     Bitter Woods
     Empire Builder
     Empire of the Sun
     Imperial
     For the People
     Medici
     Stone Age
     Thurn & Taxis

I am also really excited about the tournaments for Brass and Automobile in the WBC 2011!

Chris