I just returned from WBC, and I wanted to share my experiences with those of you thinking of going.

Disclaimer: The following tale is based upon my own percpetion of the events. They may not reflect the perception of others and may also not reflect the reality of the situation.

In general, I play games to relax and have fun. My work life (in academia) is very competitive, so I turn to games as a way to just play.

When I enter a game in a tournament format, however, I really get involved and it becomes work (and much less fun). I observed that at WBC; most of my open boardgaming experiences were much more pleasurable to me than my tournament experiences. So, I won't go again.

That's a personal reason, but the reason I wanted to make this post was to provide advice for those of who haven't been about what you might face in the tournaments.

I played in preliminary heats of a number of games, and my primary goal was to finish "not last". I usually succeeded. Sometimes, I took 2nd, but most of the time, it was 3rd or 4th.

My mediocre performances put me on the alternate list for the semifinals for Taj Mahal (4th alternate), Ra (10th alternate-tied), and Princes of Florence (5th alternate).

First piece of advice:Show up if you are an alternate.
I made it into the semifinal rounds in all three cases.

I finished in not-last in Taj Mahal, but finished 2nd in Ra. This put me somewhere in the 6th-10th placing out of 75ish folks, so that was nice.

Then, through a strict builder strategy and lucky draws, I won my semifinal of Princes of Florence! I couldn't believe it; the one tournament game I took 1st in was a semifinal round which qualified me for the final.

My goal in the finals was to take not-last. The first four places won awards, and all I needed was a not-last finish to win something. I decided ahead of time to stick with the builder strategy; I knew it wasn't dependable enough to take first, but it was strong enough to put you in the middle of the pack.

Second piece of advice: Write down the names of your competition if you win a semi-final round, and then find out if any of them are known for being vindictive.

When I came to the table for the round, I noted that the 2nd place player that I beat was talking to another player about my strategy and how to beat it. He continued to do so even as we started the round, shouting more and more pieces of advice.

This player then came after me with a vengeance. As with many Eurogames, if one player wants another player to lose (even if it costs them), they can do it. This is what happened to me. Every time I tried to win something, he was there pushing me to astronomical limits. It seemed as though his goal was to ruin me.

He had killed my chances of doing well about halfway through the game, but didn't stop. He just kept after me. It was a horrible experience.

I later learned that networks of friends and teams enter the tournaments together. They split up team members into different rounds for the prelims and the semis. In the finals, however, team members can make it together and one team member will "block" other players to let the other team member win.

Third piece of advice:Be aware of who is on what team at a table, and prepare accordingly for unsportsmanlike play.

This also happens with unofficial teams, where someone will get friends to play along simply to help them move ahead in the rounds. I learned all of this later from talking with people; the final rounds of games can be very nasty when this happens.

Now, I should qualify this by saying that not all final rounds end up this way, but the possibility is there and is significant. I was naive about this. I never expected that I was entering this type of unsportsmanlike arena.

So, while I did end up 5th out of 80ish people, it was devastating.


Crushed, I went out to play a fun mindless game in open gaming. I wandered up to a table where they were setting up a Ticket to Ride game, and there were 4 people. I sat down and asked if I could join them, and one of them looked at me and said "No.".

That's not the friendly open-gaming atmosphere I was seeking, and was the final straw that flipped me over to decided I wouldn't return. I crossed off the rest of my tournament schedule, returned to my room, and worked on some scholarly writing for my "real life" competition of getting tenure.

Now, I have to say that I met some really wonderful people. Jay Tummelson from Rio Grande had a fantastic open gaming setup where he would teach new games. I had fun with a number of really enjoyable people. Alan Ernstein and the folks from Hangman Games were wonderful with their setup in open gaming; I enjoyed meeting them and playing their entire line. For me, the fun is in the "play"; games are toys and we can play with our toys.

Most of my tournament rounds didn't have the level of nasty play described above, but many of them did have someone getting really upset at someone else over a play. There were many uncomfortable moments as people got upset, throwing cards and yelling at others for "stupid moves that gave someone else the game".

So, as the cliche goes, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If this is what it takes to be competitive at this level of play, then it's not worth my money and my time just to end up in that type of truly unpleasant situation. Thanks to Jay, Alan, and the others that did their best to keep the "fun" in "fun and games".

(by the way.. I was "the guy in the green kilt")

An interesting and informative report. Doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

I would like to hear from one of those "networked" competitors on their approach, ethics, etcetera just to get another angle on the competitive gaming arena.

Sorry to hear that some of the open gaming wasn't so open, but it seems that the whole competitive environment doesn't lend itself to open tables as well as a dedicated gathering would.

I'm definitely looking forward to BGG.con!

Greg

Thanks for the writeup, I found it pretty interesting and perhaps a good clue why BGG.con won't be hosting any tournements. Thanks for taking the time to write about it and sorry your experience wasn't the best.

For me personally, tournament play is the worst thing to happen to gaming conventions. It tends to encourage the wrong kind of people to get involved and tends to bring out the worst behavior in everyone participating. With this in mind, I very highly doubt that I will ever attend WBC...

Sorry to hear some of your experiences at the WBC were so unpleasant, Scott. I've heard similar stories from others and have even heard some of those team people discussing strategy.

I know people who love the tournaments and others who purposely don't attend because it's so heavy on the competition. Sad to hear that there are people who need to be a jerk about losing too. Who wants to hang out with folks who freak out when someone makes a mistake (if they even did) at a board game of all things? There's no money involved or a real world title (is there?).

I'm more of an open gaming person myself. Tournaments do seem to bring out the worst in people. I used to play the B5 CCG. The tournaments required that you give away the "secret" of your deck to the next table if you advanced. I thought that was the stupidest rule I'd ever heard of. So did everyone else playing, but the organizers insisted we abide by it.

We were discussing this topic in the #bgg IRC channel the other day. Most games out there do not work well in a tournament setting for the reasons you describe. When someone can be expected to play really badly, or even voluntarly throw a game to some other player, it really doesn't make any sense to host something like a Puerto Rico or Medina tournament.

Just be glad that you don't have to play with those kinds of players in a regular basis.

Oh man, if someone had said "No" to me asking to play TtR, I would certainly responded with something along the lines of, "Oh, I didn't realize this game was reserved for assholes..."

And that "team play" stuff is bush league.

One thing that I would not have put up with in a tournament setting: a non-player giving advice to players. Now, whether he should have clued your opponent in (earlier obviously) is one thing, but doing it at the table should have brought a chorus of boos from the other players as well. That's just bad form imho, especially when there is a tournament on the line.

Not letting you join TTR was unfortunate. I did that at a con once several years ago, because I really just wanted to play with my buddies, but felt bad about ever after and would not exclude somebody again.

Just my .02

I'm sorry to hear of your bad experience in the PoF finals. With many multi-player games group dynamics come in to play. Point out to the other two players how player "A" going after you will give the game to player "B". I doubt all four were against you. I've only played Princes a few times so the specifics may be a little different in this game (I don't know)

As for not getting into one pickup game of TtR; did they already have a fifth player? Did they prefer four player game? (I certainly prefer four player over five). Did you try setting up your own game to get a couple of players to play? It sounds like you were pissed (and probably with good reason) after your PoF experience.

I was also at WBC and had a wonderful time last week. I played in the War at Sea, We the People, Liberty, Hammer of the Scots and Union Pacific tournaments. I also got in a round of Acquire, Medici, BattleLine and St. Petersburg. I found the tournaments to be filled with good natured good sports. The We the People and War at Sea tournaments were especially filled with a great group of guys who were friendly and ethical. Of course, these are two player games so no collusion possible.

If I could only attend one con a year, then WBC would be it. There is no other convention in the world that has 50+ people to play War at Sea, 40+ for We the People, 30+ for Liberty and Hammer of the Scots, ...

That's why good tournaments will ban all table talk -- to stop this type of metagaming. Where was the referee during all this?

WBC and its issues aside I want to chime in and defend an aspect of tournament play. Most games are broken when played loose and sloppy. Strict playing without loose enforcement of some standards is how most games play best. What you have here is a tournament played with the looseness of friendly gaming (table talk) but in a tournament setting. So its the worst of both worlds. The tourney environment itself is not at fault but the informal environment creeping into a tourney setting. (maybe a better way of saying this is lose and informal is the opposite of tournament -- but friendly play can be used to describe either of them)

If you don't believe me try playing a game with no table talk at all. The games are quite different when you can't say "look at so and so winning, attack them or they'll win".

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences. I didn't get to go this year, but did attend the last two, and never had the type of problems that you encountered. I have always found the people in tournaments to be friendly and sportsmanlike.

However I have found the open gaming to be a little sparse -- most activities center around the tournaments, and most people are there for them. There are few open games (although I did get an Alhambra in). So if you're not into tournaments it's not the place to be.

Did you talk to the tournament director in PoF about the behavior you were subjected to? Given that it was a final I assume he/she should have been nearby...

Geoff

Wow, I'm sorry your experience sucked so bad.

I went last year and had a good time, did mostly open gaming and only a couple tourneys, but didn't experience any of that. Maybe it was because I'm a gal, or maybe because I already knew a lot of people? Dunno. But if I'd had the experience you did I would definitely not attend either.

BGG.Con shouldn't be anything like that though so I hope you'll consider attending it despite this recent crappy con experience.

Sorry to hear about your expierence. I remember seeing you in your kilt, but I didn't play any games with you.

For me, this was my second WBC and it was more enjoyable than my first. That may be because, besides Powergrid, I was mostly playing games I had very little expierence with and was really playing to learn and have 'fun'. I met some very nice people in open gaming.

A spectator yelling advice at a player is really bad form. If I was anouther player at the table I would of asked them to stop and get a GM, and trust me, it takes allot for me to do that.

Scott,

I’m sorry you had to experience something like this. I personally believe it is not rampant or particularly common, but I may just be naive.



The above is something that never occurred to me could happen, but after reading this, it seems so obvious that it would. “You take care of me in PR and I’ll take care of you in PoF.” I guess you could expand that to 4 or 5 guys working together – each being the “designated winner” for a tournament, before they even started play. They could agree in advance and then spend weeks specializing in a game and honing their skills on BSW.

What a mess – but only a problem with multi-player games, as most Euros are.



I used to be a highly-competitive ASL player – from about 1985 through about 1990 I competed in about 3 tournaments per year. In all those many tournaments and conventions nearly identical set of circumstances also happened once to me!

We were playing “never before seen” scenarios that had been prepared just for the tournament. In ASL, this is critical, because in my view, half the game is being confronted with a new situation and choosing a good defensive set-up or plan of attack.

Anyway, the guy who had lost to me in the semi’s was COACHING my final-round opponent in how to set up his defense! They had snuck around the corner with the game board and the scenario card, and I walked up on them innocently. Well, when I walked up, the both looked up at me like deer caught in the headlights.

In a rare moment of perfect moral clarity, I withdrew from the tournament. Ultimately, someone else who had seen what had happened informed the director and the other player was disqualified. The two cheaters flailed around for a while and then gave up and stomped out.

I was pretty shocked and emotionally torn up inside (although maintaining my cool on the outside)… It was all so unjust. I then sat down with a very good friend who is a great guy to play a game with, and played the same scenario “just for fun”. We had a grand old time. It hurt, but I recovered.

Multi-player Euros are much more susceptible to this sort of shenanigans than 2-player war games. Based on your cautionary tale, I will avoid tournament and stick with gaming for fun. I’ve been there, and I know how awful you must feel. Thankfully, this happened to me in the context of many years of good gaming and good sportsmanship and not in my very first convention.

All conventions always have open gaming. I’m sorry you ran into a table of bozos there too. If you reconsider and decide to try a convention again (I can recommend Euroquest and GameDays in Maryland - both run by the Games Club of Maryland ( www.gamesclubofmd.org) as great places to open-game. Not all conventions are tournament-focused.

Best wishes.

I went to my second WBC this year. I highly enjoyed all of my games, both tournament and open gaming. I think I would feel the same after your PoF experience.

I look 2nd place overall in Age of Steam and had the most fun playing it to date. The first game was 95-94-93-80. It was very close. All of the players were extremely good. The finals was three people from the same gaming group and myself. They still played very competitively.

I also played in the Air Baron and Merchants of Venus tournaments. Both of these were very fun and friendly.

I highly recommend the WBC, but fully understand why you would feel the way you do. My aunt went for the first time this year. She also encountered someone who manipulated the table in a game of Ticket to Ride. At the same time, she was taught how to play Ra by one of the nicest couple of people you could meet. So my point is that there are jerks everywhere you go in this world and cannot point a finger at the WBC for having crossed their paths.

One last thing, we shut a few people of of playing Power Grid with us. The reason was that my aunt was playing the game for the first time and we wanted to play slowly and let her learn it and then start over. My aunt is not really a game player and this game need a little more teaching in this case. I do not feel bad for the shut-out because we were actually saving these people from a frustrating experience.

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad to see that it's happened to others as well.

I should clarify that the advice and suggestions were only being given before the game actually started and yelled out as we were taking seats. The disgruntled player left as the game actually began, and didn't return until the end. I didn't feel it would be appropriate for the GM to step in, as the game hadn't technically begun. This is a case where no rules were really broken, and another player certainly does have the right to harm their position to hurt another's chances, but it certainly wasn't sportsmanlike.

(However, the GM was also one of the players in the finals, which is a policy that bothers me. In fact, in another semifinal round for a different game, the GM came in 2nd. After it was discovered that the 1st place player, the GM put himself in the final round. I'm not sure how appropriate this is, but it would seem there were 3 other 2nd place semifinal players who might be better put in that seat.)

I'd be furious too if I'd had an experience like that. I played Legend of the Five Rings competitively for years, and I think you avoid a lot of the problems mentioned above simply by playing two player games. Once you open the field into multi-player games, there's really no way to filter out the cheats who are planning to collude. I think sticking to two player games in a tournament setting, and saving the multi-player games for open gaming might be a good solution.

This generally shouldn't happen, but sometimes it can be acceptable. If the game has crystal clear rules with no ambiguities to be ruled on, I'd be okay with it, provided the GM automatically ruled against himself in any case that wasn't obvious to all the players. This actually applies to a lot of games, and for them the only reason to have a GM is to organize things and enforce time limits.

In all other cases, the GM should never be a participant. Any tournament that allowed a GM to play in a game that he was required to judge is a tourny I'd walk away from.

Sorry to hear that you had this sort of experience. I'd be upset, too, if that happened to me. But it is rare to see the sort of networking and attacking that you describe. I have seen it on occasion (very rarely), and it can happen, but it is not the WBC norm.

However, Princes of Florence and Puerto Rico are two of the most "competitive" "Euro" games at WBC. Most of the rest are not so cut throat.

As to the people who told you you couldn't play, well that's just rude (unless there had been previous words between you and the group, which I doubt). I played in three games in "Cafe Jay" and the only time I saw someone turned down was when the table was full and the game couldn't accommodate more players.

If he wants to give advice to his friend before the game starts, thats acceptable. If he's still doing it after the game begins, ask him to kindly shut up. If he doesn't stop, call the GM and have him removed.

Also, since you knew he was getting advice on how to defeat a narrow strategy with no variation, simply don't use that strategy and go with a more general approach. All his advice becomes useless.


This is a self-defeating way to play. The only way he can screw you by overbidding is if you cooperate by accepting those bids. If he wants to bid 800 for a Park that you want, let him have it and start doing something else instead. You may not be able to finish first, but he'll definately finish last. No offense, but letting him push those bids up and still taking them means that you had more to do with losing than he did.

If he wants to wreck his chances in order to wreck yours, he probably can, but it just means you'll take 3rd or 4th and he'll take 5th, which is a completely pointless strategy unless he has a friend in the game and he's trying to kingmake. In that situation, point out what they're doing to the other players, and offer to support every move they make at your own expense as long as you all ensure the cheaters wind up in last place. It won't help you in that game, but it will feel good, and will emphasize to everyone in attendance that collusion will get you nowhere in the future.


This should not be allowed at all. If the GM's are permitting obvious collusion, then the tournament isn't worth attending. Stick to 2 player games where this isn't an issue. If enough people boycott the multiplayer events, all they'll be left with is teams and then they may as well not even bother.


Ah. This may explain one complaint. I can see why they wouldn't want to play TtR with a man in a dress.

For a WBC GM to play in their event, they have to designate two assistants to rule on any issues involving the GM. Works well in almost every case. And as far as advancement goes, the GM is supposed to supply an iron-clad method for determining advancing players. So, it is entirely possible that the GM deserved the final position that was available at the time of the finals.

Now, if the GM assigned the 5 finalists, let everyone disperse, and then one player left, it's not kosher for him to take the final seat automatically (even if he was in the semi-finals). He should first attempt to find the highest ranking runner-up from the semi-final tables (assuming it's not the GM) and track them down to fill the table. After a few minutes of such an attempt, he can declare that other qualifiers aren't available and that he, as a qualifier, advances. If he didn't play in the semis, then he just runs a short table for the final game.

There are jerks everywhere....
Anywho, tournaments are for 2 player (war)games or teams such as
historical miniatures.
Euro games make lousy tournament games because of the 'kingmaker' element.
Wow. I had suspected that, and/but wondered how can you be the best in a tournament if your 'teams' are unbalanacing the game???

I have only played in a tournament once in my life. A Games Workshop sponsored game of Talisman, as a teenager.

I won, but I had to cope with some of the behaviour you described and I found the competition brought out the worst in me. It was a hollow victory and left a nasty taste in my mouth. Never again...

I may have missed it but how did the jerk fare? Please tell me he came in 4th at least.

Thanks for that Scott. Exactly why I don't even think about playing tourneys.