DixieCon 32 is underway!

[boldblade]

I don't know if you can tell from any previous interactions you've had with me on the forum or in person, but one of my absolute biggest pet peeves about no-DIAS, draw-based scoring systems is when people vote themselves out to 2way draws...so to hear that people did that in a TIMED round, to swing the entire tournament...I want to know what happened!

I share that as one of my greatest pet peeves. I am certainly curious to hear about this now.

[Nanook]

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.

[DQ]

I don't know if you can tell from any previous interactions you've had with me on the forum or in person, but one of my absolute biggest pet peeves about no-DIAS, draw-based scoring systems is when people vote themselves out to 2way draws...so to hear that people did that in a TIMED round, to swing the entire tournament...I want to know what happened!

There were more than two boards of players who had never played at DixieCon before. That always skews the results as they don't understand the stakes, while wily tournament veterans can say "Hey, you don't really care about the tournament score, right? We're just going to call this a 2wd if that's cool with you?"

Its a thing. Frustrating but part of the tournament variant.

OTOH, when I won WDC at Dixie I had a 2WD with Larry Peery - we had 24 centers between us as R/T and the other powers were like 'just let us out of this brutal game please' - which is another way it could have gone down, I haven't heard the story.

[dmiller430]

Well if you care about how I saw the game, it was like this. I started the game with an FG with a player named Tony who I had seen before at other tournaments, but never played with. On the other side of the board was Todd Craig in Italy, who has been top 3 a couples times at Dixie, although hasn't been playing hard lately, and Tom Kobrin, who has won like 4 or 5 times i think? Russia and Austria were both newer players and dissolved quite quickly. I talked to Tom and we wanted to push the board to a 2-way. I sprinted to my stalemate line with him, and stabbed france when England was on 2. England and I worked together a bit and he was at 3 with 2 armies and a fleet in english channel, i was in North sea and Norwegian Sea I believe. France, Russia, and Austria were all eliminated in a short timeframe. The lay of the land was that Tom in Turkey was on 11, with 3 builds in his pocket, he had been waiving. I was on 10 and was going to be able to build another fleet. The English player, Rob, at the time was essentially at my mercy, but he had played valiantly holding off France and was being a really good sport about the game despite having no one to work with for the first 3+ years. I asked him what would make him happy and willing to end the game, and he wanted to build so I walked out of a dot and let him convoy into it. Todd, in Italy, had no stalemate line against Turkey, and only the exact number of units to hold me off. He said he had a fun game, and rather than fight with 9 dots against the combined 25 that were arrayed against him (england and I had been in lockstep for 1.5 years), he would happily accept the 2 way draw. It was about about 12:30pm I believe, maybe closer to 1:00. The timed round ended at between 4:00 and 6:00pm. Had the game gone on, of course depending on how they wanted to defend, I would be on 13/14 in about 2 years, and Tom would be around 15, with england and italy both in poor position. Obviously its a weird result to have 2 players vote themselves out of a draw in a timed round, but I wouldn't say that it was us convincing new players to do stupid things, it was just the dynamic of this particular board.

-DM

[DQ]

Well if you care about how I saw the game, it was like this. I started the game with an FG with a player named Tony who I had seen before at other tournaments, but never played with. On the other side of the board was Todd Craig in Italy, who has been top 3 a couples times at Dixie, although hasn't been playing hard lately, and Tom Kobrin, who has won like 4 or 5 times i think? Russia and Austria were both newer players and dissolved quite quickly. I talked to Tom and we wanted to push the board to a 2-way. I sprinted to my stalemate line with him, and stabbed france when England was on 2. England and I worked together a bit and he was at 3 with 2 armies and a fleet in english channel, i was in North sea and Norwegian Sea I believe. France, Russia, and Austria were all eliminated in a short timeframe. The lay of the land was that Tom in Turkey was on 11, with 3 builds in his pocket, he had been waiving. I was on 10 and was going to be able to build another fleet. The English player, Rob, at the time was essentially at my mercy, but he had played valiantly holding off France and was being a really good sport about the game despite having no one to work with for the first 3+ years. I asked him what would make him happy and willing to end the game, and he wanted to build so I walked out of a dot and let him convoy into it. Todd, in Italy, had no stalemate line against Turkey, and only the exact number of units to hold me off. He said he had a fun game, and rather than fight with 9 dots against the combined 25 that were arrayed against him (england and I had been in lockstep for 1.5 years), he would happily accept the 2 way draw. It was about about 12:30pm I believe, maybe closer to 1:00. The timed round ended at between 4:00 and 6:00pm. Had the game gone on, of course depending on how they wanted to defend, I would be on 13/14 in about 2 years, and Tom would be around 15, with england and italy both in poor position. Obviously its a weird result to have 2 players vote themselves out of a draw in a timed round, but I wouldn't say that it was us convincing new players to do stupid things, it was just the dynamic of this particular board.

-DM

That sounds a lot like the 2WD I got with Larry back in 98. And Congratz again!