2009 Congress of Gamers Recap
John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Once again, had a great time at one of the great deals in gaming conventions anywhere these days, the still dirt cheap ($5/day) Congress of Gamers, back for the second year in a row this past weekend at Rockville, MD. I was back to run the EuroCaucus event with the help of a strong cadre of volunteer GM assistants. I was also pleased to participate in one of my all-time favorite games in the newly-created "America First" and Racing Games series.
The basic concept of the Euro tournament is to pair together some of the most popular Euros (top 50 on BGG rankings is the general criteria) in a two-day event with individual players collecting points based on order of finish in each game. The points are then aggregated to determine the winner, with no single game counting more than once, meaning you must be reasonably proficient at a variety of Euro games to contend for the top prize. The winners' prize is donated each year by the Games Club of Maryland ("GCOM"), one of the sponsors of the event along with the DC and Arlington, VA Gamers groups.
For details, see:
http://www.congressofgamers.org/eurocaucus.asp
We were guaranteed a new Champ this year as the two-time previous winner, Raphael Lehrer, had moved out of the area and was unable to participate. We tinkered with the format and schedule again this year to have two games per time slot, fewer time slots, longer times for game demos, and a bit more time for breaks between games although the scheduled seemed fairly tight at times.
As in the past, a key aspect was to see how well the games did in competition with each other. The most popular draws were the "hot new game," Dominion (played by 25 people) and Ticket to Ride (played by 21 people). No big surprise there as these games each drew over 200 people at this year's WBC. One big surprise was a strong showing by Age of Empires III in the late Saturday time slot, drawing 16 people, one more than the two top-rated games on BGG (Agricola and Puerto Rico).
Here's a quick statistical summary for the EuroCaucus event:
Total Participants: 74
Played in All 8 Rounds: 8
Played in 5 or More Rounds: 5
Final Standings
1. Peter Eirich 65
2. Mike Brazinski 41
3. Greg Shirah 39
4. Perrianne Lurie 38 (see note 1)
5. Eugene Yee 38
6. John Weber 36 (see note 2)
7. Shiv Chopra 36
8. Larry Loiacono 32
9. Rodney Bacigalupo 30
10. Jim Neuschwander 26
note 1: Perrianne was adjudged to finish ahead of Eugene because she scored more points in games versus the tournament winner, Pete. (Going to this second-level tiebreak was necessary because Perrianne and Eugene did not play each other in any head-to-head matchups during the tournament.)
note 2: John was adjudged to finish ahead of Shiv because of a better result in their one head-to-head matchup (Puerto Rico).
Other tournament series winners during the Congress of Gamers weekend were: Scott Brattlie, who won the racing games series in a very close finish over Jeff Kahan, and the newly-created "America First" series, which was won by Joshua Garton, son of the co-designer of the very popular Stock Car Championship Racing Card Game. Stepping out to play in that game was one of the high points of the weekend for me (see entry #7 below).
Many thanks to Convention Director Kaarin Engelmann and many others who helped put on such a fine event, including Rick Bynaker and Mark Guttag who helped with the "Bring and Buy"; Mark Mitchell, who ran the Racing Games Series; and Mark Love, who implemented his own unique concept of "America First" featuring games by American game designers published in the U. S.
Personally, it was great fun for me although a bit hectic at times. As always, I want to thank everyone who helped out with the EuroCaucus event, including Bob Aarhus, Rodney Bacigalupo, Mike Brazinski, Dan Broh-Kahn, Laura Brown, Rick Bynaker, Eric Engelmann, Dave Fair, Lee Mewshaw, Marcy Morelli, Greg Shirah, Eric Sokolowsky, and especially Craig Trader who stepped up to help the GM with the pairings. Special kudos to Rick Bynaker for doing some computer data entry that helped me catch a couple of scoring errors. Perseverance award this year would have to go to Eric Engelmann, who played in all eight rounds despite not having many points to show for it in the end.
EDIT: For those interested, here are the links to the Geek Lists summarizing the prior two years of this event:
Last year (2008):
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/35059
For 2007:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/24541
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1.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.60 Overall Rank:48]
John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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First time slot pitted Ra versus Stone Age, and I was listed as the GM for Ra, and I had a couple of takers for the game demo which helped boost the overall numbers to 15 players for 3 5-player games, winning a very competitive time slot versus Stone Age. Things did not go well for me in my game, and I finished dead last. Winner was Norman Rule (a GCOM host in Columbia, MD) with Mike Brazinski in second.
I think Ra is a solid game but just never seem to do well in competitive or even pick-up games. I prefer another Knizia auction game, Traumfabrik/Hollywood Blockbuster, which features some similar mechanics but a much stronger theme. However, because Ra has the higher BGG ranking, it is in the EuroCaucus while Traum is not because I have tried not to bias the selection criteria based on personal favorites. The other Ra games were won by Shiv Chopra and Josh Garton, who moved to the top of the standings with 10 points apiece.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Stone Age, which was one of two new games added to the event this year, also did well, under the tutelage of Rodney Bacigalupo who served as the GM. Three full tables for a total of 12 participants represented a good outing for an early Saturday (11 AM) time slot. The games were won by Rodney, Marcy Morelli and Alex Pang.
I enjoy the game and would have been happy to play it as well as Ra, perhaps with a better result as I could not have done worse at Ra. I heard a couple of people comment about what a tough choice it was between these two games, so maybe an adjustment for next year is in order.
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3.
Board Game: Dominion
[Average Rating:7.96 Overall Rank:10]
John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Next time slot pitted Dominion versus Ingenious in the "shorter" one-hour time slot. Dominion, which was the other new game, did very well, with a total of seven plays by 25 different players. We had two games with the new Intrigue edition and five games with the original. No repeat winners from the group of seven winners, but a second place performance by Shiv Chopra put him at 15 points to take the early lead.
No doubt Dominion is an innovative design, but for me it's probably settling into a niche as a quick-playing filler. It will be interesting too see how many expansions can be issued before the game reaches its saturation point.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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I opted to play Ingenious over Dominion, boosting the total to 10 players which meant three games. I was matched in a three-player with Norman (who had beat me the first game) and Pete Eirich, who had only come in third in his Stone Age game. I kind of focused on Norman more than Pete, and it was a very close game with Pete coming out on top, 10 to 9 for me and 8 for Norman. Little did I realize it at the time, but this win was the start of a huge winning streak that would propel Pete to the overall championship! Alan Aspinwall and Greg Shirah won the other two games. This meant Greg also had a win and a second, tying him with Shiv for the early lead.
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5.
Board Game: Agricola
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Next round featured two of the longer games, Agricola and Imperial. Agricola won the time slot, but with slightly less attendance than at the same time slot last year now that some of the "newness" has worn off. There were four games played by 15 people; Rodney Bacigalupo and Alan Aspinwall racked up their second wins in two of the games.
As I have mentioned previously, I have never been a huge Agricola fan, partly because of the rather steep learning curve when you consider the mammoth number of cards that come with the game. In retrospect, had I learned it with the "Family Game" first, the game might have made a better initial impression.
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6.
Board Game: Imperial
[Average Rating:7.72 Overall Rank:43]
John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Instead, I chose to play Imperial (I was the GM and "demo monkey" as well), and some new players from the demo brought us to a total of two games, nine players total. I had brought my massive blow-up of the Asia map posted on BGG by Greg Berry, but unfortunately with new players, everyone wanted to stick with the standard rules with the Europe map. I was in the five-player game with a group of mostly new players. There was alot of "group think" in this game, and once Austria took the lead, all the Austria bonds got bought and it kind of became a self-fulfilling prophecy that Austria would become the "5" country. Since I had only the fourth highest total in Austria, things didn't look good for me, but in the end the game was surprisingly close, with Eric Sokolowsky winning with 86 points to 83 for me and Greg Shirah, with Chris Neilson, one of the new players, just one more point back with 82. Of course, since Greg had more invested in Austria, he got second place on the tiebreak, enough to bump his overall points total to 20. This was a good example of how a one or two point swing in a close game could dramatically impact the overall standings. The other Imperial game, which had to be called on time, was won by Pete, no surprise there since he won the Imperial tournament at EuroQuest in 2007. (And I like to take credit since I taught him the game!)
I continue to insist that Imperial is one of the best games of all time, it has some really unique and innovative mechanisms. On BGG, I rate only three games above it (my only three "10"s), so in my book Imperial is the best of all the nines.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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This is one of my three 10s, and therefore I took a break from the Euro event after checking with the racing games coordinator, Mark Mitchell, to kind of synchronize our schedules. As it turns out, Mark got called away for a few hours on some family emergency, but fortunately for the rest of us the game designer's son, Josh Garton, was on hand to teach the game as well as run the race in Mark's absence. As last year, we ran it on a large table near the registration desk so Kaarin Engelmann, the convention director, could participate. Perhaps because Josh knew the game so well, people always seemed to save their blocks and challenges for him. There were also a number of those "bad luck" cards and midway through the race, I got stuck with one (Brake Trouble, which was interpreted as -1 to hand size, the kindler, gentler "out of race" result). This kept me in the race but kind of limited my options, particularly since I had seen two of the three Trinity cards go into the discard pile on random card flips. Fortunately, I got the third one (add one to draw) which let me get away with playing more cards. With few yellow flags, many drivers were very low on cards near the end of the race. This helped me, as well as the way the initiative numbers worked out, so I got to the lead on the final turn and managed to hold on for the win. My first win of the entire weekend. Yahoo!
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Meanwhile, there was much action going on the EuroCaucus room. Dan Broh-Kahn had graciously agreed to step in to run the Settlers event just a week or so after the original GM was unable to make it. We had three full tables of four games, which unfortunately meant Dan was unable to play. Pete Eirich won again, and Mike Brazinski and Eugene Yee -- two regulars from my local games club in Laurel -- won the other two games.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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But, once again 12 players in three games was not enough for Settlers to win its time slot. Race for the Galaxy was the winner, with a total of five games and 17 players. No details available from the scoresheets on whether or not the games were all basic, or anyone played with any of the expansions. Race is a game I played quite a bit for about three or four months after it first came out, but it rarely hits the table these days. Certainly knowing the cards and the odds of drawing particular card combinations, is key.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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The final time slot on Saturday evening had a surprising number of participants, particularly for Age of Empires III. For this event, I had tapped a couple of first time GMs, Laura Brown and Eric Engelmann, both of whom I had played the game with at last year's Congress of Gamers. The turnout of 16 (four four-player games) was very impressive. This game also counted in the "America First" series. Only problem was, as it was a bit longer than its counterpart game, it kept me there close to midnight to make sure the results were tabulated.
Pete Eirich kept his winning streak going by winning his game, and so (with his worst result in the first five rounds being dropped), his fourth win in a row meant he had a perfect score of 40 points to top the leaderboard going into the second day of the competition.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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After a brief moment to bask in the glory of my Stock Car win, it was back to Euro gaming and -- while I was willing to play either game -- when I heard Princes was short one player -- I jumped in to make a total of eight for two four-player games. The "boost" I got from the Stock Car win must have carried over to my Princes game, as everything went right for me (two early Jesters, all three Freedoms, a couple of Recruiters to bring me up to 7 works total) -- well, almost everything. After I had all three Freedoms I twice went for Prestige cards, being outbid once for a third one. Turns out the third draw -- the one I lost the bid on -- contained the card I wanted (8 points for all 3 freedoms), and the second Prestige card draw -- very late in the game -- yielded five cards which gave me nothing, nada, no points. Nevertheless, I got down the most works (and more points on my second Prestige card) when another player got stuck with two unplayable works and won with 71 points, a pretty good score for a 4-player game. The other Princes game went to Greg Shirah, which moved him to second place overall, 10 points behind Pete, with three rounds left on Sunday. I had managed 19 points in four games, not too bad but pretty far down the leaderboard in something like 9th or 10th place.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Since my Princes game was the first to finish, and there was still plenty of the time before the final Age of Empires game would be completed, I had the chance to play with my gaming buddies Nick and Ben, who opted for opening gaming as opposed to scheduled events this year. Ben had just picked up a copy of Space Dealer in either a trade or a silent auction and was eager to give it a try. I hadn't played the game for probably at least two years, so it was a bit of a challenge to remember all the rules. One thing I do remember -- it's a game that probably takes more time to set up than it does to play! Anwyay, going against these two younger guys in a timed game was asking for trouble -- we kept knocking over each others' timers and kept complaining about having the only "slow" timer for much of the game -- of course I came in last. I still think Ben, who won, probably cheated or at least bent (misinterpreted) a few rules. But it was good fun nevertheless.
After the game, I checked with Rick Bynaker to get a computer tally of the results containing all the first day's games which I took home to check, staying up until after 2 AM to make sure we had the correct standings heading into the second day of the event, when the rules required that those players with similar scores would be paired with each other to make the games a bit more competitive. Was pleased to see that, with three rounds to go, we already had equaled last year's attendance of 60 for the entire EuroCaucus event.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Ticket to Ride, despite the early Sunday time slot, was still a big draw with some takers for the demo even though the games has been out for five years. There was an added bit of excitement in the air given the recent announcement that Days of Wonder (the publisher) was sponsoring a series of tournaments leading up to a 2010 Ticket to Ride World Championships. The very first regional qualifier in the United States for these championships will be held at EuroQuest in Timonium, MD in November. Details on the tournament, and a schedule of events (which will be updated in the next month) can be found here:
http://euroquest.gamesclubofmd.org/EQ_T10.aspx
Anyway, at the EuroCaucus this year, we had five games, 21 players, all games using the U. S. map, two games using the 1910 version. I was in a four-player 1910 game with two Harrisburg area players (Perrianne Lurie and Larry Loiacono) along with Pete's wife, Leigh. I made a crazy decision right at the outset -- I kept all five starting tickets. This got me in trouble later on, as I actually forgot about one of them, as it was hiding from me in my hand of train cards. I still managed to find a way to complete it, but the game was winding down, so I drew more tickets. Then I kept the wrong one, not realizing that the link needed to complete was a non-neutal color. Then Perrianne ended the game. I came in third, just ahead of Leigh. The two Harrisburg players stomped us (the Marylanders), Larry winning with something like 10 completed tickets. This moved him up to a top five position on the leaderboard, with 29 points.
But the key action -- in the one that paired the four points leaders -- was going on at the other table. Pete, the overall leader, kept his winning streak going, winning by 40 points over Greg, who came in second place. This kept both of them in the top two spots, but Pete widened his lead substantially, as he now had 50 points to 35 for Greg. With just two events left, it would take a super-performance by Greg and a severe meltdown by Pete to reverse the trend. Looking back at it, this huge win by Pete going head-to-head against three of his pursuers in Ticket to Ride was the key to his triumph in this year's EuroCaucus event.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Despite its high BGG ratings, this game has not been one of the attendance leaders at many tournaments where it is up against other leading Euros. This year's Congress of Gamers was no exception, as T&E was played once, by a total of four players. (We had a potential fifth player, but given the game only plays up to four), this player agreed to switch to Ticket to Ride (and he won that game). David Hilburg, who did not play in any of the Saturday games, won the one game.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Penultimate time slot, Puerto Rico versus Carcassone, won by Puerto Rico, with 15 players, four games (no 5-player PR games at this event). With Pete playing Carcassone, a game none of his chief pursuers were comfortable with, that meant the second through fifth place players (Greg Shirah, Mike Brazinski, Eugene Yee and Larry who won the Ticket to Ride game) would be playing Puerto Rico instead. This game was won by Eugene, who (with his second straight win) was zooming up the leaderboard. It was a well-deserved victory by a narrow margin, just one point over Mike, who won the Puerto Rico tournament at last year's EuroQuest. Greg, who had been second overall, could only finish third, which meant no one could catch Pete in the overall standings now.
I played in the second Puerto Rico game (paired together with people with scores ranging from the teens to the mid-20s), and things went very well, as I took an early lead in money, got an early Harbor, topped off by a Small Warehouse and a Customs House. I managed to win by nine points over Scott Fenn, who was one of the players who played in all eight rounds this year. Shiv, whom I thought was my main competition, got a second Large Building but didn't get it manned as Mayor was taken before Builder in the final turn. Marcy, who helped with the Ticket to Ride round after our original GM canceled, had a terrible game where nothing seemed to work -- she got blocked from the Trading House alot and always seemed to be short on money, missing out on the opportunity to build a Large Building. This second win moved me up the leader board with a very outside shot in the likely scramble for second place in the final round.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Unfortunately, not as big a turnout as in the two prior years. Only six people showed, and they were matched in two three-player games by Lee Mewshaw, who had agreed to GM the event. Pete, who in retrospect did not need an additional win, clinched the title with his sixth win in succession. A second place by Perrianne moved her up the leaderboard.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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Final time slot, it was Age of Steam versus Power Grid as the convention was winding down. Pete, who is a very strong Power Grid player, decided to try a new game, and opted for Age of Steam. There was only one game with four players, and Pete did well to finish second to Jeff Kahan, who had some experience playing the game before. Larry, who finished third, dropped to eighth place in the overall standings where as a win would have jumped him to third; the competition for all of the positions (except first) was just that close.
Thanks to Bob Aarhus for volunteering to teach the game for a second year at EuroCaucus.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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The last bit of drama for the weekend came down to the final Power Grid game, with second and third place honors on the line. With 17 players and four games, Power Grid easily won the final time slot, an impressive total given the late Sunday time slot. Four of us with a mathematical chance to finish second were paired together in one game; two of the four (Greg and Eugene) entered the game with 37 points, meaning a second place or better and a finish ahead of the other player would be sufficient to take second place overall. For the other two players (Mike and myself), the fact we entered the game six points down (with 31 points apiece) meant that we would need a win with the other player in second, with Eugene and Greg both third place or worse. Thus, as we set up the game (using the U.S. map but with the Power Plant 2 deck to speed up the game) Mike and I joked that it was kind of a team game, an "us" versus "them" mentality as Mike and I wanted both of us to finish ahead of both Eugene and Greg.
As the game developed (playing without the two Western mapboard sections), Mike and I tried to pin Greg (who started in the Southeast) and Eugene (who started in the Northeast) on the East Coast before anyone could trigger Phase 2 by building a seventh city. At one point, Mike suggested I build in New Orleans, but instead I went North, which was kind of Mike's neck of the woods. At this point, the talk of "us" versus "them" kind of went out the window as Greg surprised me by overbuilding his plant capacity by heading to New Orleans and points west which I thought would have been prohibitively expensive. I had jumped out to an early lead in plant capacity by building a couple of "4" plants, but then I seemed to stall out as the game entered Phase 2 and, after a couple of turns, Phase 3. It came down to a final round of plant buys and I knew, to have any chance, I needed to buy one of the two "7" plants at close to face value to have a chance. This also meant bidding up Mike, who was kind of in the catbird's seat (having flipped turn order), so he would not be able to build a 16th city and win the game that way.
As it turned out, it was an amazingly close finish. Everyone built and powered 15 cities on the final turn. The game thus came down to the money tiebreaker. Mike had one more Electro than I did; Greg and Eugene were not far behind. It was 9 money from top to bottom. Mike's win (coupled with the fact that I came in second) gave him second place in the overall standings. Greg finished third. Because of the closeness of the finish, I was pleased to present both of them with runner-up medals. It was a very exciting and memorable game and, even though there were a few errors, well played by all. It was fun playing a meaningful game with all three of these guys, who are regular attendees at the weekly gaming sessions in Laurel where I am the host. Kudos to Eugene for doing so well in what may have been his first competitive gaming effort.
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Lorton
Virginia
Really enjoyed myself, and I am looking forward to next year.
Hummelstown
Pennsylvania
I had a great time meeting and playing games with some new people on Saturday. And I managed to nab 10th place in the EuroCaucus. Sweet. Totally worth the two hour drive down from Hershey, PA.
Thanks to all the organizers.
Ellicott City
Maryland
I'm looking forward to next year's event.