by Nanook » 08 Jun 2018, 09:08
Alrighty, time to finish my writeup!
Sunday: Nevermind, this game sucks again.
Woke up sunday, ate a quick breakfast, came to the venue. Was pretty tired, but I usually play better a wee bit tired so I wasn't too concerned. Board is called, and I'm Russia--OK, that's not awesome, but it's not too bad. And Buffalo is in Turkey. Awesome, I like Buffalo. A new player, Harrison, was in Austria, Tim Richardson was in Italy, Edwin Turnage in England, Chris Barfield in France, and a player whose name I can't recall in Germany.
Game started pretty promisingly--Buffalo pulled me outside first, said "Do you want to roll this board?" I said hell yeah, and off we went. First year went too well--I opened to Gal and made it in, moved Sev to Rum, then in the Fall took Vie with Gal and Germany let me into Sweden, which I was not expecting. Now I had 7 centers and 3 builds. Not the position I wanted to be in, as I had fully expected to be bounced out of Sweden, and I didn't really want to have that amount of attention on me with Buff next door. Things progressed disjointedly from there, with a lot of different people taking turns dotting me and refusing my plans while also complaining that I was working with Buffalo. I probably would've kept working with Buffalo even if given the chance not to, but it was a bit annoying anyways.
Then came the pivotal moment of the game--I arranged with Buffalo to piff my southern fleet, so I could rebuild it in the North to fight England (I had two fleets up there that were doing an OK job playing patty-cake, but a fleet NC was essential at that point). It had been sitting in Rum--at first, we set up for me to move it to Bul, then be piffed in the Fall. Then we changed it to be piffed in the Spring instead, in Rum, so we could get Buffalo's armies swinging West quicker. When the plan was to have it piffed in Bul, I was planning to move Mos to War, War to Sil (Germany was falling very quickly, and I wanted leverage there). When we changed the piff plan to do it in Rum instead, I knew I had to hold Mos, or Buff could walk into Sev. When I wrote my orders, I forgot. I moved Mos to War and War to Sil. I didn't realize I'd written it until the Fall had started, after I had piffed the Rum fleet, and was writing my pieces down. I realized I was screwed, as Buff could walk into a second center in Sev, and possibly a third one (it would've been 50/50 if I had bothered covering). The game ended up winding down to a three way draw with Turkey/England/France. Very frustrating result for me, since I knew the order change needed, and just forgot to write it. Bit of a frustrating game in general, as nobody seemed willing to give me any space, including Germany when he was being eaten by France and England, then I screwed up the orders I knew I needed to write.
Then I hung out with Dave Miller for awhile, went to dinner with a group of about 20, came back and played Strato until midnight, and that was that.
I wasn't in the game, but I talked about it a lot with Dave afterwards and I checked in a couple times on the end of it. He was playing Germany, and Tom Kobrin, the other member of the two way draw, was in Turkey. Basically, Dave agreed to help Kobrin win Best Turkey if Kobrin went for the two way with him. The third biggest player on the board was Todd Craig (i think his last name is Craig at least), was a 9 center Italy. He came to play the Sunday round as a favor to the GM, and had told Dave from the start of the game that he'd accept a draw without him in it, he was just there to have some fun and do a favor. England had been besieged all game, and agreed to take the draw if he got a fourth center and could build, so Dave walked out of a center to let him. So, that's how a game ended in a two way with a 10 center Germany and an 11 center Turkey, and Dave ended up winning the tournament instead of Buffalo.
Platinum Classicist
(h/t lordelindel)
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