Chad Weaver
United States
Denver
Pennsylvania
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I live near the location of the WBC so I decided to check it out this year. Two of my friends were there almost the whole week as well, along with a couple others for fewer days. Here's my recap:
Monday
Arrived around 10 to be there in time for the Cable Car sampler. This is a tile-laying game, building cable car tracks. The game description was simple enough and we got a game in. I wanted to try Vasco de Gama, but it was at the same time.
Did a little open gaming until the 1 PM sampler of Tobago. This wasn't too complex but was fun.
More open gaming until the San Juan tournament at 4 PM. This was played 2-player, and a player needed 3 wins in 4 games to advance to the single-elimination round. I practiced a little in advance on BSW, and read some strategy here. Unfortunately, my all purple plan wasn't enough the first game, as I lost 45-42. However, I won my next three and made the bracket of 32. I also won my first game in the bracket, but in the round of 16 I couldn't find a Prefecture or Carpenter or Library nearly early enough to compete.
I got some Tichu in before calling it a night.
Tuesday
I slept in a little and made it to the Host around noon. I wasn't impressed with anything in the auction store, and ended up spending almost all day open gaming. I hit a demo of Acquire, which I never got around to playing. Same with Le Havre. That demo drove me nuts--two GMs and both of them talking over each other. I learned Thurn and Taxis and played some more Tichu. Also played my first Small World game with the new expansion which is interesting and adds something to the game. I got owned at Ubongo Duel (I suck at these kinds of games) by my friend Dusty 5-0! We also gave Campaign Manager 2008 a try, which was fairly interesting.
Wednesday
This seems to be when things really get underway. I showed up early (before 9 AM) to give the Thurn and Taxis tournament a try. I stumbled into a win by a nice margin (29-20-x-x) which vaulted me into the semis! At 11 AM I played the Vegas Showdown tourney and got a win there as well. I beat a guy named Randy who worked at Wizards of the Coast for several years. This turned out to be my biggest win of the week but more on that later.
After that I was walking through the Queen Games/Rio Grande Games demo area and discovered that a copy of Dominion Prosperity had arrived, so I parked myself at the table for the next several hours. I'm convinced that this is easily the best self-contained set so far, even surpassing Seaside. It will be interesting to play it more with cards from other sets.
I jumped in the first heat of Agricola at 5 PM. I don't have much experience with this game yet, and it really cost me. I made a 12-point mistake in Round 13 (should've grabbed start player to ensure I could renovate in Round 14) which prevented me from converting to a 6-room stone house w/a minor that would've made the rooms worth 3 each. Fortunately I lost by 17 so I would've lost anyway!
At 8 PM I played another Thurn and Taxis game and experimented a little, losing badly. Up last for the day was the Can't Stop tournament at 11 PM. This was wild--rowdy people everywhere. A couple tables over one game drew about 40 onlookers as one guy topped 6 and 8 on one turn and kept going, pushing 7 up to within a couple from the top before crapping out! I lost and called it a night.
Thursday
Since I had already qualified for the Vegas Showdown semis, I slept in a little and arrived in time for a Ticket to Ride heat at 11. I was considering the quick-play strategy, which involves keeping two short tickets, collecting train cards, then playing 7 six-train routes to go out quickly. Score 15 for each sixer and let others get negatives for not completing routes. I did draw a 9 and a 4 so I could've gone for it, but I also had LA-NY and SF-Atl so I went for that instead. Plus we had an 11-year-old girl at our table so I decided to play nice. Sure enough she built her route from both ends and was begging to be blocked but none of us did, of course. After connecting, she slapped down a couple sixers and was out! So yeah, I lost to an 11-year-old girl. 
Played my first semi in the afternoon, Thurn and Taxis. I figured I had no shot especially when I drew last position. I didn't track the score and just played a speed game. When I went out I thought I may have won but I lost 16-14-x-x. I probably could've waited two turns, completed a three-er and used up some houses, not sure. (Also to note: my friend won a game in a preliminary round 15-15-14-14!)
I hustled over to a Race for the Galaxy heat where I got schooled. I've only played twice and I got smoked, 44-44-29-27 (I was the 27). One player slapped down the seven-point rebel world at the end, which was worth 10 or 11 to her thanks to bonuses but she lost the tiebreaker.
I went back to the Prosperity demo table for a while leading up to the opening round of the Dominion tournament. This was played as four-player in two-game rounds. I won both games in the opening round so I advanced to the quarterfinals. The big news was that a kid (maybe 12?) was caught cheating. He was palming golds and silvers when shuffling and also shuffling before necessary. I heard the story from all three of his opponents, who informed the GM and the kid was DQd.
I played the next Agricola heat and got smoked again. I was worried about the time the whole time as it started at 9 and I had the Vegas Showdown semis at 11. We got through it but I did poorly and finished last (something like 43-36-31-28).
VS was four four-player games, with each winner advancing to the final. I fell behind early with some bad event card luck, but rallied and nearly pulled it out. The Dragon Room won the revenue for me and added 6 VP, but the winner could afford one last Fancy Restaurant on his last turn, winning Population and adding 3 VP. Final was 68-64-64-51. (The 51 guy bought the Theater before getting a Fancy Lounge so of course we bought them all up before him.) I was second on the tiebreaker but I was out.
Friday
That was a late night so I didn't show until 10 on Friday. I checked out the vendor area but was unimpressed. Then I had the Dominion quarterfinals at 11. 64 people were in this, 16 four-player games with 16 advancing to the semis. I didn't have a great strategy for the first game but pulled out a 2nd-place finish, keeping me in line for advancement if I won the next game, which I did. My friend got a 1st and a 3rd so he had a chance to move on.
I spent most of Friday open gaming, blowing off the last Agricola heat and the last RftG heat, especially since I'm terrible at both. I played Code 777 and On The Underground with a couple friends. The publisher of Code 777 stopped by after we played it but before we returned it. We weren't huge fans the first time we played it. We gave it one more try and it was still odd. If after every correct guess everyone dumped their racks and started over, that would be better. An incorrect guess should be -1 and out for the round.
I played a little more Dominion Prosperity then went to the Wits and Wagers game show. That was wild. There were about 12 teams and I jumped on one. We had 2 straight questions I was very confident about (number of players in 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, and record for most text messages sent between two people in a month) which boosted us into the lead. Somebody else jumped in front of us on question 6 so we gambled big on the last question (the length in feet of the Starship Enterprise on the original Star Trek) but we were way off and wiped out.
Saturday
I only had two games left on my schedule: the Dominion semis (and finals) and Carcassonne. We had a weird setup for the first game in the semis (five attack cards) but we had Workshop and Gardens. I got out-Gardened 5-4 and finished second. So I had a must-win the second game. This was an odd one too. Village/Smithy was a standard combo, but I went Chapel along with the first game winner. He mixed in a Thief just as the other two guys were collecting Gold and combined with a Throne Room, wrecked both their decks and wounded mine. One opponent had 7 Golds thieved and had just 1 solitary Copper left in his entire deck! I limped in behind the winner again and got eliminated. Three semis (and the round of 16 in San Juan) and no finals! It especially hurt because Dominion was my team game, and my loss meant a big fat zero for us!
I played one more Dominion Prosperity game (this one with 5 Prosperity cards and 5 Seaside cards, including 4 durations) and built a ridiculous deck that had me playing 10+ action cards including an Outpost every turn!
One of my friends bought Rattus and Bisikle in the vendor area so I quit Prosperity to go play Bisikle. This is very cool. Plastic track instead of the wood in PitchCar but it works, maybe better because there is no seam problem. By the second game we started to have some control of the Z-Ball.
The last event for me was Carcassonne. I was hoping for tourney redemption, and after winning the four-player game in the mulligan round, I advanced straight to Round 2. However, my opponent edged me out when she joined a farmer on her next-to-last turn. Grr.
All in all it was a blast. The only negatives were how dumpy the Host Resort has become, and how bad the food was. On top of that, the prices were ridiculous ($1.50 for a can of soda). Fortunately there are good options nearby (like Five Guys) and I was going home every night so I could bring a sandwich for lunch.
For the most part, the tournaments were organized and efficiently run. The game library was solid and I got to play or examine several games I was curious about. I would've liked to have seen more manufacturers in the vendor area but the GenCon conflict probably reduced that a bit this year.
Here's the full list (I think) of every different game I played this week:
Tichu
Thurn and Taxis
San Juan
Cable Car
Tobago
Small World (w/Tales and Legends)
Traders of Carthage
Ubongo Duel
Campaign Manager 2008
Dominion Prosperity
Ivanhoe
Circus Flohcati
Can't Stop
Code 777
On The Underground
Dominion
Vegas Showdown
Ninja vs Ninja
Bisikle
Carcassonne
Race for the Galaxy
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Rob Renaud
United States
New York
New York
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I am pretty sure the Saturday game had a money lender, not a chapel. Though crippling that guys deck with the thief, and stealing so many golds was beautiful.
It was good fun playing with you at WBC.
If you are ever around NYC (especially on a Tuesday) and want to play with some solid gamers, send me a BGG message.
Hope to see you there next year.
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Chris Palermo
United States
Ronkonkoma
New York
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You shoulda gone to GenCon
Seriously - I'm glad you had a great time -- I'll be putting up my WBC recap/geeklist tonight, hopefully (taking a while longer to get everything I want onto the page...)
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Mike Banks
United States
Camp Hill
Pennsylvania
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Every year, I say I'm going to go to WBC, and every year I end up with a last minute cannot-say-no conflict.
But, I *am* going next year!
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Andy Latto
United States
Foxboro
Massachusetts
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I don't think I ended up meeting you or playing anything with you, despite the fact that we play many of the same games. Next year!
Your Thurn and Taxis final was the second closest (closest was decided on tiebreak!), so you placed sixth overall in the T&T tournament. No plaque for sixth, but you do get laurels?
Did you learn Thurn and Taxis at the demo I gave on Tuesday night (in which case I guess I did meet you), or in open gaming? I like to know about it if people who learned from my demo did well in the tourney, since it means I'm doing a good teaching job, and letting people know this encourages people to come to the demo and give the game a try.
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Chad Weaver
United States
Denver
Pennsylvania
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andylatto wrote: I don't think I ended up meeting you or playing anything with you, despite the fact that we play many of the same games. Next year!
Your Thurn and Taxis final was the second closest (closest was decided on tiebreak!), so you placed sixth overall in the T&T tournament. No plaque for sixth, but you do get laurels?
Did you learn Thurn and Taxis at the demo I gave on Tuesday night (in which case I guess I did meet you), or in open gaming? I like to know about it if people who learned from my demo did well in the tourney, since it means I'm doing a good teaching job, and letting people know this encourages people to come to the demo and give the game a try.
A friend taught it to me Monday night.
You did a nice job running T&T. Glad to hear I snuck into the laurels!
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Chad Weaver
United States
Denver
Pennsylvania
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rrenaud wrote: I am pretty sure the Saturday game had a money lender, not a chapel. Though crippling that guys deck with the thief, and stealing so many golds was beautiful.
It was good fun playing with you at WBC.
If you are ever around NYC (especially on a Tuesday) and want to play with some solid gamers, send me a BGG message.
Hope to see you there next year.
You are correct, it was a Money Lender.
Thanks for the invite. Next time I'm headed up your way I will hit you up.
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Joel Tamburo
United States
Unspecified
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I'm glad you seem to have enjoyed yourself.
My main peeve this year with the Host was that some of the play areas got a little humid. The food was okay - typical conference center fare in the downstairs area. The food upstairs by the bar was much better as was the food in the bar and the Legends Restaurant.
As to the vendor area, it all depends on your area of interest, If you are pure Euro then it's not all that. For wargamers however the story is different. In either case the vendors are a very secondary part of WBC.
I hope we see you again next year. Based on your game list here are a couple of others you may want to check out:
Galaxy
Atlantic Storm
The Kaisers Pirates
Slapshot
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Alex Bove
United States
East Lansdowne
Pennsylvania
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I heard several stories of actual or perceived cheating in Dominion this year. I don't understand why the tournament rules don't require things like mandatory opponent shuffling/cutting of one's deck, showing one's cards to the entire table before buying items, etc. Even if people aren't cheating and are just being sloppy and/or making "honest" mistakes, why even allow the perception of impropriety to take root?
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Andy Latto
United States
Foxboro
Massachusetts
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montu wrote: I heard several stories of actual or perceived cheating in Dominion this year. I don't understand why the tournament rules don't require things like mandatory opponent shuffling/cutting of one's deck, showing one's cards to the entire table before buying items, etc. Even if people aren't cheating and are just being sloppy and/or making "honest" mistakes, why even allow the perception of impropriety to take root?
Having another player shuffle or cut would slow things down, so there's a tradeoff there. Having players shuffle their own deck but having the player on their left cut might be a reasonable compromise.
Showing one's treasures to the entire table shouldn't have to be in the tournament procedures; it's part of the rules of the game. The buy phase requires you to reveal the treasures you are using to buy something (though other treasures may be concealed). This isn't just a matter of preventing cheating or preventing mistakes. If you buy something for three, I'm entitled to know whether you spent three coppers or one gold; it makes a difference in my decision as to whether to use thief next turn. But people have some odd ideas as to what information people are entitled to in Dominion (like the idea that on some cards "reveal" means "show your opponents the card, so they know what it is", while on other cards it means "Flash the card quickly, and if the opponents can't tell what the card is from the quick flash, that's their problem", so being explicit in the tournament rules can't hurt.
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robert kircher
United States
Rhode Island
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I had to ask the players to show the treasure cards they are using. Would be in favor of mandidory shuffle or cut by the player to thier right. Had one round with 2 friends at the same table.
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John Weber
United States
Laurel
Maryland
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I did not play in the Dominion tournament this year and have no knowledge one way or the other whether or not the alleged cheating took place. I do know that when people who play Dominion pick up games (and probably also on the internet, where people are looking to cram as many games as possible into an hour or shorter time frame), everyone tries to move super fast, not even looking at their opponents' cards although, as Andy pointed out, you should do so if you are taking the game even semi-seriously. I suspect these tendencies had a strong likelihood to bleed over into tournament play, which may be part of the cause of this unfortunate controversy.
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Lynda Shea
United States
Tolland
CT
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chadw09 wrote:
Wednesday
After that I was walking through the Queen Games/Rio Grande Games demo area and discovered that a copy of Dominion Prosperity had arrived, so I parked myself at the table for the next several hours. I'm convinced that this is easily the best self-contained set so far, even surpassing Seaside. It will be interesting to play it more with cards from other sets.
Chad, I'm glad I got a chance to meet you and play you in both Cable Car and with the new Dominion: Prosperity set. You were great at both especially Dominion. I'm sorry you weren't able to get a copy of the expansion, but I'm sure it'll be available through an online retailer within the next few weeks.
Take care and hope to see you next year (if not sooner)!
Lynda 
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Chad Weaver
United States
Denver
Pennsylvania
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80sGirl wrote: chadw09 wrote:
Wednesday
After that I was walking through the Queen Games/Rio Grande Games demo area and discovered that a copy of Dominion Prosperity had arrived, so I parked myself at the table for the next several hours. I'm convinced that this is easily the best self-contained set so far, even surpassing Seaside. It will be interesting to play it more with cards from other sets.
Chad, I'm glad I got a chance to meet you and play you in both Cable Car and with the new Dominion: Prosperity set. You were great at both especially Dominion. I'm sorry you weren't able to get a copy of the expansion, but I'm sure it'll be available through an online retailer within the next few weeks. Take care and hope to see you next year (if not sooner)! Lynda
Thanks Lynda. I had my chance in the Dominion tournament! We have a great online retailer who is local, Game Surplus, and he already has my preorder!
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Lynda Shea
United States
Tolland
CT
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chadw09 wrote:
Thanks Lynda. I had my chance in the Dominion tournament! We have a great online retailer who is local, Game Surplus, and he already has my preorder!
Excellent! Thor is the best and Games Surplus is definitely my online retailer of choice. Good luck!
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Posted Mon Aug 9, 2010 9:25 pm
