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EUROQUEST V RECAP
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As part of the EQ organizing committee, I was real pleased with the fact that we had a significant increase in attendance (from around 210 to over 240) for the third year in a row. The Con has grown from about 150 or so the first couple years, so continued future increases will probably mean consideration of a larger facility at some point. This Geek list will feature the games I played, but first I want to acknowledge the winners. HLS Top Individual Performance -- Rob Kircher with 25 HLS Points, but just one behind at 24 were Alex Bove and Mike Kaltman, two gamers from the Philly area who roomed together at the Con. It's by far the closest finish ever, and I had the pleasure of playing Rob in the Imperial final (more on that below). Alex had a four-point lead going into the last round of finals, but then Rob (who was second in the Settlers final on a tiebreak) gained five points while Mike (as previously reported here on BGG) got second in St Petersburg to wind up tied with Alex, third on the tiebreak which was most games won. Wild Card -- Eric Freeman (also from Philly area) repeated his 2005 Wild Card triumph by winning again this year with a record 331 points, and he had such a huge lead by the last day that he took time off to play in and reach a main event final (Settlers) something that has been unheard of for our past Wild Card winners. But, like the HLS final, second place went right down to the wire and Raphael Lehrer needed a win in his last game (Vegas Showdown) to claim second place with 269 points to 248 for third place Tom Browne. Fourth place was Perriane Lurie, over 100 points behind Tom with a paltry score of 147, but Perrianne set a Wild Card record that may never be broken: She played in all 15 Wild Card games -- each game exactly once. So congrats to her for a unique feat and also to Eric for winning the Wild Card for a second time after missing the event last year. Individual Game Main Event winners: Caylus -- Peter Putnam (repeat winner from 2006) Goa -- Alex Bove (repeat winner from 2006) Power Grid -- Joe Jaskiewicz ("JJ") Princes of Florence -- Lyman Moquin Puerto Rico -- Sam Atabaki Ra -- Tom Dunning (repeat winner from 2003) St Petersburg -- Tom Browne Settlers -- Brian Reynolds (repeat winner from 2003) Thurn and Taxis -- Rob Kircher Ticket to Ride -- Virginia Colin (repeat winner from 2006) Hot New Game -- Imperial -- Peter Eirich We had two English edition versions of Agricola and Cuba available throughout the Con, courtesy of Tom McCorry (who brought the Cuba games back from Essen), Zev of Z-Man (who brought his prototype for the English Agricola game he has recently announced) and Dave Fair (who worked hard to get a deck with English cards and paste-ups put together). Also, thanks to Thor of GameSurplus, Dominic for Wits and Wagers, and the other vendors (Our Games Table and Sherco) who helped make this year's EQ even better than ever. My own personal headcount shows a total of 24 games (of those I can remember), 7 played in three main events, 10 in Wild Card games, the rest in open gaming. I learned three games that were new to me and was happy to teach games like Imperial, Cuba, Leonardo da Vinci, Kingsburg, and 1960 to others. The fun part of the convention for me was not just the games, but seeing gaming friends from different parts of the country and also making new gaming friends. It was also real good to so many EQ first-timers in attendance, people like Malinda and her dad Barry, Mike K, Sam, Jason C, to name a few, hope to see y'all back next year.
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 11:30:26
Edited On: 2007-11-17 11:39:44
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2 plays (both in Wild Card event)
I arrived later than usual this year (after finishing up the final of a series of tennis lessons in Laurel), got checked in, helped set stuff up for the scoreboard and was itching to get a Wild Card game in before my scheduled 3:30 demo of Leonardo da Vinci. I hooked up with Dave Denton from NY, a real Can't Stop fan, and we played a quick two-player that went down to the wire with Dave winning, 3-2. We turned in the scoresheet right away and the 7 points for winning the game put Dave in with a short-lived early lead in the Wild Card event. (Dave went on to become one of three people to "max out" their Wild Card points from Can't Stop.)
Played once more during the Con, can't remember the details, except this time it was a four-player which meant I got like 4 Wild Card points for second. The fun part of the game for me is the opportunity to make chicken-like sounds when people decide to stop, also reminding them that name of the game is CAN'T STOP. Of course, when they hit their numbers and go to the top of the chart, then everyone gets real quiet ... |
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2 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 08:52:17
Edited on: 2007-11-14 11:20:05
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1 play (Wild Card event)
We had seven new additions to the Wild Card event, each one requiring a scheduled demo to teach new players (although informally anyone could learn a new game at any time). I gathered three newbies and one experienced player (Sara Hagen) and we decided to continue and play out a 5-player game. The end result was that I won and Sara was second, but frankly I was more worried about Sandy Scanlon, who wound up third, given she had four different invention types for 13 points at the end of the game.
Leonardo was a close runner-up for Hot New Essen game at last year's EQ, and we put it in this year mainly because it was the most requested addition at last year's Con. I still enjoy the game although it can get real tense heading into the last few turns, wondering if you have the necessary cards to get the last invention(s) done. In this game, everything worked well and I got two inventions in the later turns to wind up with a score like 57 pts, which I think is pretty good for a 5-player Leo, which can be a rough game. |
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 08:57:02
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3 plays, all in Main event tournament
This was one of two main event tourneys I had circled on the schedule (the other being Puerto Rico, where I am the GM), and I must admit using some "pull" with the scheduler to minimize conflicts with PR. However, in hindsight it may have hurt the Imperial attendance, because there were mucho conflicts with other games. At least, Dave B (the GM) and Beth (his assistant) had a relatively easy time of doing the pairings as there were just two games in heats 1 and 2, one game in heat 3, 12 players overall which means, at next year's EQ, Imperial will likely be dropped down to Wild Card status.
I managed to win both my games in the first two heats to advance to the final. In the second heat, there were three of us (Beth, Dave D and myself) and one new player (Pete Eirich) who we patiently taught the game as he had missed out on the earlier demo. I won that game and I think Pete edged Beth for second -- then Pete won in the last heat to join me and the other winners (Bill Duke and Rob Kircher) in the final. I was a bit nervous going in as this was my first EQ final table in a long time (I made the Princes final back at EQ I) and I thought I had a good chance to win based on my record in 25-30 pickup games plus a win at WBC (where I couldn't continue due to schedule conflicts) earlier this year. We played in a quiet side room (called the Harbor Room) that was reserved for all final tables, a new innovation given the death of the Breakout Normandy mini-Con from previous years.
As the game developed, I thought Rob (who eventually would win the HLS top prize after reaching three more final tables at EQ) was going to be my toughest competition, as he took over Italy from me and wound up in control of UK and France as well. Pete (who had really taken to the game like a fish out of water) took control of Russia and AH while I had Germany. Bill decided not to try to control a country to get those extra bond buys after Rob took UK from him. I was feeling pretty good when Italy and Germany started moving up the chart. But then England and Russia blew the Germany navy away, leaving me with just four factories and one tax chip. Then Pete made the key move of the game, just when I was about to invest even more in Italy to take it back from Rob. He got all six A-H boats on the board, used five of them to convoy armies in the Adriatic, and wound up shutting down three Italian factories after eliminating the protective units. Pete's move literally blew me away to the point when I had over 25 mil to buy an 8 bond I bought the wrong one -- Russia (which only made it to 4) instead of France (which made it to 5). When we totaled the final scores, I was 8 -- the difference between the two -- behind the winner, Pete. But the game was so close that being 8 back put me in last. Pete won by 153 to 152 over Bill with Rob a few more points behind in third. Since Rob was stuck with the investor card at the end, he chastised me for not moving Russia there after my "analysis paralysis" said it would help Pete more than me. However, Rob cheered up a bit later in the day when he won Thurn and Taxis and particularly after he got the news about the HLS results.
I was disappointed not to do better but even more disappointed with the low turnout as Imperial is, in my view, the best game from last year's Essen and probably the best game to come out since PR in 2002 -- which I know is saying alot. I was pleased to see Pete (who is a member of our local GCOM gaming group in the Laurel/Elkridge area) win the top prize, and happy to say "I taught him everything I knew" except for that brilliant move to shut down the Italian factories which, of course, brought down Rob and me (the big Italy investors) on the scoreboard. |
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4 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 09:17:14
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3 plays, all in Main Event tournament
After two years with an experimental format, PR this year used the three heats, best two finishes, two wins to guarantee advancement format -- same as all the other main events. Also, I decided to give my long-time assistant GM, Barb Flaxington, a rest so there would be a better chance we might play each other. I got my wish in the first heat as the random draw put me with Barb and Kevin Walsh, another strong PR player who was runner-up at PrezCon this year after trouncing me in the semis. Since I got back at Kevin with a win in the quarters at WBC, this was kind of a "rubber match" for the two of us. Fourth player was Virginia Colin, the TTR champion who was branching out to try PR. Random draw for seat had Kevin in #1 corn, me in #2 corn, Barb and Virginia with indigo. This game was alot like that QF game at WBC where everything went right for me, I got the early factory, Guild Hall, a second large, and closed the game out before the shippers got going, scoring 50 to 41 for Kevin in second -- Virginia even nosed out Barb for third.
Second heat I was paired with Sam Atabaki, who had come all the way from California for EQ, and Lyman Moquin, a former EQ Champion. I had not played Sam before but knew him from this year's WBC where, like me, he had finished second in a semifinal game. I drew the worst seat -- 2nd indigo -- whereas Sam, seated to my left, had the best seat, first corn. Sam won the race to 10 and got the Guild Hall while I tried to balance shipping and building. In the end, I only lost to Sam by four-- 43 to 39 -- which was OK considering. The second win put Sam directly into the final. Looking around at the other results, I was pleased to see Barb win (beating Kevin in a rematch) along with two strong MD gamers, Andy Gerb (2006 EQ runner-up) and Raphael Lehrer (2007 WBC Champ) whom I had brought in to sub for Barb as assistant GM for this event.
For the third heat, I decided to pair the one-game winners at three tables to determine Sam's opponents for the final -- that way no one could say they sneaked in via a lucky draw. So, for me, the third heat became the equivalent of a semifinal -- and I drew at least two tough opponents, John Kerr, a former EQ and PrezCon PR champ and Chris Moffa (Barb's husband) who won WBC in 2006. I offered everyone the option of bidding but the consensus at all three tables was (to my surprise) to go with the random draw -- perhaps because everyone wanted to move things along. It turned out I got the favored corn seat while John K got the second one, with Chris stuck in first indigo -- same two seats John K and I had when I lost to him in the 2005 EQ semi. The game didn't go quite as well for me, particularly since Craig (the player to my right) was a bit of an unknown quantity and his moves were less predictable. John K got the early Factory, I remember having a couple of gut-wrenching decisions -- one, on a role selection where I wound up taking Prospector because everything else seemed to help John -- and then a big building buy when I got the Guild Hall instead of the Harbor, mainly to keep John from the Factory-GHall combination. Of course, he snapped up the Harbor and it became a big shipping game. He then got the Customs House for 7 VP bonus and while I managed to get a second large, it wasn't even close -- 60 for John to 50 for me, 41 for Chris who also seemed out of synch the whole game.
The win put John at the final table at PR at EQ for the third year in a row, and Barb (a former WBC champ) also made her third PR final at EQ having been runner-up twice before. Joining these two and Sam was Alex Bove, who was known more for his Goa results in recent tournaments. So it was two Philly area gamers (Alex and Barb) against John (from VA) and Sam (all the way from CA). I started the final with the mandatory bid for seat position. Same as last year, John bid 1 1/2 for the favored the #1 corn seat. Sam got #2 corn for 1/2; Alex paid 1/2 VP not to be second indigo and Barb (who doesn't believe in all these stats on seat position collected from 100s of PR tournament games) was happy to get the worst seat for free. I didn't stay to watch the game, but when I peeked in later it looked like Sam (who complained of a headache before the game started) was on a roll -- he had the Factory and the Guild Hall, and the big shippers (who turned out to be Barb and John) just couldn't get it going. So, after taking into account the bids, it was Sam by a whopping 10 points, 45.5 to 35.5 for Alex in second, the second largest winning margin (John won by a whopping 14 with first corn in 2005, which was the final straw that caused me to institute the mandatory bidding system starting at WBC in 2006).
Overall, very pleased with a bump up in attendance to 44, still far below the high-water mark of over 50 in the first EQ when the game was still new and everyone wanted to try it. Also, one win and two seconds for me was not back -- particularly considering I finished ahead of two former WBC Champs (Barb and Chris) and an EQ winner (Lyman) in those games. I was pleased to present Sam with the winner's plaque, a well-deserved reward. Hope he was feeling alot better as he made the plane trip back to California! |
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2 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 09:50:17
Edited on: 2007-11-15 00:25:35
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5.
Cuba [Average Rating:7.45 Overall Rank:111]
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Posted On: 2007-11-14 11:59:34
(With or without the investor card) 
It was an interesting game... I'm normally pretty dismissive of the construction hut, but Sam made good use of it that game!
That felt pretty good.