OK, I'll have to check it myself (geeze why didn't I think of that? LOL) but off the top of my head that translates to 2, maybe 2 1/4 hrs for me.
LEE REPEATS AS DIPLOMACY CHAMPION: Chris Lee successfully defended his recent PBeM Diplomacy title by besting a field of 35 in three rounds. Chris recorded two solo wins and a three-way draw in his three games to take top honors. Germany’s Martin Burgdorf took second with a solo win and a two-way draw. Arizona high school student Natalie Howard claimed third over highly ranked BPA gamer Tom Drueding, while another AZ high school student, Charlotte Anderson, bested ACV guru Kevin Youells for fifth.
One of the 15 games logged went to the end of 1913. The best country performances in order were: France, Austria, Turkey, Russia, Germany, England and Italy. New laurel totals are posted at http://www.boardgamers.org/yearbook16/dippge.htm#pbem
Dixiecon 30 is now in the bag. I hope everyone had a great time. Thanks as always to the many folk who helped with the BBQ (Todd Craig) airport runs (Greg Myers and Chris Martin) variant event (Alex Ronke) and probably lots of folk my tired brain is forgetting. And, of course, the invaluable help provided by Michael Lowrey. I'll do a full report later, but for now, the highlights:
Golden Blade, Chris Martin
Death With Dignity, Marc Hurwitz, David Norman, Don Pollock, Claude Worrell, Ike Porter, Danny Grinnell, Christian West, Colin West
I Got Hammered, Todd Craig
Players Choice, Colin West
The Brick, Brian Ecton
Best Austria Emily Pollock and Peter Yeargin, tied
Best England Emily Pollock and Randy L-H (Lawence-Hurt)
Best France Tom Kobrin
Best Germany Randy L-H
Best Italy Chris Martin
Best Russia Andrew Goff and Adam Daniel (Sigal), tied
Best Turkey Greg Myers and Chris Martin, tied
7th Andrew Goff
6th Adam Daniel (Sigal)
5th Randy L-H
4th Peter Yeargin
3rd Emily Pollock
2nd Chris Martin
1st Tom Kobrin
Geekway To The West has wrapped up. By virtue of a 10-center tied top and an 11-center top, Nick Chicoine is our first champion.
Nick would have played in the third round, but his MOM wouldn't let him. Nick, like many of our players this weekend, is from the same 7th grade class here in St. Louis (one of their teacher's is an organizer of the con). They have a weekly board game meeting and first heard about the game from a teacher at the school.
We had a mix of teens and online players and folks who hadn't played since their teens. Not much opportunity to get seven people together in the area. . . until now. I will work with their gamer teacher to get some additional games in during the school year; I gave them a copy of the most recent Diplomacy from WOTC.
Best Austria -- Gabe DeAntonio
Best England -- Frank Roberts
Best France -- Nick Chicoine
Best Germany -- Ben Webbler / Ryan McKenzie
Best Italy -- Seth Goldman
Best Russia -- Zach Stoltenberg
Best Turkey -- Nick Chicoine
Here's to our young Diplomats, celebrating with liquid refreshment in their honor after hours at the bar.
This year, the Diplomacy Tournament was the best two of three rounds with a central clock and scored using C-Diplo. This event was special for us because it's the first event sponsored by WotC and the first event ran as the Diplomacy Events Coordinator. We had ten new players compete in this years tournament -- three of them women. We kicked off Diplomacy with a Friday afternoon Demo. We gave a away a free copy of Diplomacy to our best new player, Constance Carroll. She played the entire Intro Round while babysitting her one-month old niece. The child was better behaved than most Diplomacy players I know. ;-)
The first round was dominated by Uffe Christensen of Denmark, who had not competed in a tournament since the 2002 EuroDipCon. He topped the board with a huge France. Meanwhile, the other board had a disgusting three-way tie for the top spot, thereby splitting all the bonus points. The finish also made it difficult to give away our Avalon Hill games, as we originally planned on giving each board top a game. Instead, we instead provided them with the consolation prizes intended for the first out: Codenames.
The second round on Saturday was all about Russia. Constance Carroll returned to play after her teaching round, and ran amok on the board. She teamed up with Michael Sullivan's Italy & David Sander's Turkey to knock out Austria. After Austria was eliminated, Michael and Constance went to work on Turkey and Germany together. The west stagnated early in the game and did not recover in time to stop the IR from rolling. Constance finished with an 11-center board top with Russia. On the other board, an AIR eliminated Turkey in 1904 then pushed west. Ron Fisher led the way with a 12-center Russia, followed by John Stevens' Austria and Geoff Mize's Italy with 8-centers each.
We picked up more players than we could seat in our final round, and so multiple veterans elected to sit out and coach our new players, including 2x champion David Rynkowski. Given the cost and competitive nature of tournaments at WBC, this was a generous sacrifice indeed.
John Tammes, one of our players coaching, explained his decision was to grow the game. "There are too many gray hairs playing these games. We need new blood," Tammes said. I've found this attitude common among many WBC players -- they want to keep an original title like Diplomacy alive, and so they're gracious & supportive of new players.
The third round had two 11-center England board tops by Harald Henning and Paul Konka, and a three-way board top between France, Austria, and Russia. While Paul Konka's two combined scores were great, he could not stop Uffe Christensen on the other board from earning the 2nd place bonus points as Germany. Two of the boards started with a western triple: Paul's England stabbed France AND Germany, whereas Uffe was content with a stab of Geoff Mize's France in coordination with Harald Henning's England. Uffe, who like our past champions only played two of three rounds (leaving no room for error), claimed the championships and two Best Country awards for his efforts. Congratulations Uffe!
Our tournament had 26 competitors play on 7 boards. Compared to last year's WBC, these numbers are down from 34 players and 9 boards. The decrease in attendance was across the board at WBC this year, as fewer people attended after the location switch. On the bright side, with the new location renewed for 2017, we'll focus on sending more folks from the Midwest (only one other from COGS attended this year). We added 10 players who never played in a Diplomacy tournament before, including six who learned at WBC this year. The drive is reasonable and the venue is beautiful. We'll be back next year, bigger and better.
1st -- Uffe Gram Christensen
2nd -- Paul Konka
3rd -- Ron Fisher
4th -- Constance Carroll
5th -- Harald Henning
6th -- Michael Sullivan
7th -- Geoff Mize
Best Austria -- Angela McGavisk
Best England -- Harald Henning & Paul Konka
Best France -- Uffe Christensen
Best Germany -- Uffe Christensen
Best Italy -- Michael Sullivan
Best Russia -- Ron Fisher
Best Turkey -- Geoff Mize
Best New Player -- Constance Carroll
-Tom Haver
YOUELLS WINS DIPLOMACY IN RECORD FASHION: Kevin Youells set a BPA PBeM record with 40 points in capturing his 4th Diplomacy PBeM title. Kevin topped Mikalya Tang and Ken Gutermuth in capturing the title in a field of 35 players. Kevin proved to be the best diplomat as he recorded two solo victories and a two-way victory. Mikalya Tang and Ken Gutermuth finished with 35 points with each scoring a solo victory and a pair of two-way victories with Mikalya edging out Ken for 2nd place. Completing the top six laurelists were Warren Day 4th, Chris Lee 5th, and Natalie Howard 6th. A surprise was the rare emergence of Italy as the best nation in the tournament. Further details including current laurel totals can be found at http://boardgamers.org/yearbook16/dip.html#pbem