Lion in Winter

Below is a summary of the 2018 Tournament, and below that is the tournament report from the 2018 Champion Rob Murray. 

2018 Tournament Summary:

There are so many things to say about the 2018 Lion in Winter Tournament. I think I’ll try to go round by round with a breakdown and then summarize at the end with some of the storylines I liked best.

Round 1 bids were entered late at night Thursday before the tournament into the sorting program and a couple of things intrigued me initially. It was excited to see Agricola would be a very tough table. The Table would consist of LIW defending champion Randy Buehler, WBC Argicola final table players Keith Dent and Steve Lewinter, and a brave young lad named Michael Mecham. When the tables were announced there was a small chant started for Michael, as there was a respect for going hard at a game he knew was likely to be full of sharks. Steve ended up pulling out the vicory with 47 points and Randy came in second with 43. Keith finished a rare 3rd place and even had to play pretty defensively for that. Mike knew going in he was an underdog, but even finishing last he gained some respect from the other players, and some knowledge to work on his game. Just like last year Randy would start the tournament with a 2nd place finish.

Another of the carry over games from round 6 got picked round 1, and this time it was Amun Re. Adam Blum finished 3rd overall last year but he didn’t play Amun Re. This year Adam would prove his gaming range was even wider by pulling out the victory here. Chris McCurry was 2nd, flowed by Heather and Neil the Grey.

Austin Rathbone has long been a very solid 7 Wonders player. In a game with such high variance the best player may not always win. It’s why 7 Wonders has been played 9 times in LIW history and we have never had a repeat champion. Until Now. Austin Rathbone won 7 Wonders and became the first ever double winner in this game. Sayer Kobersmith playing as the youngest player ever in the tournament made his mark early snagging a 2nd place in 7 Wonders. Eduardo was third and Jason was 4th.

Josh Corbalis finished up the 2017 tournament with a win and started off the 2018 tournament the same way. He won a very competitive patchwork round taking only 1 loss in the round robin format losing only by 1 point. Jeff Turner finished 2nd and his Ohio State Buddy Nick Vicious was 3rd. Tobiah finished 4th in the game he was most looking forward to, as he realized too late that these fellas were born to quilt.

Brooke took first place in the classic Settlers of Catan battle. Nate Landry was 2nd and Joseph Mecham followed in 3rd while Patrick took 4th.

In the old Stefan Feld classic Notre Dame Angela McGavisk came out swinging just like in the 2017 tournament, and brought home the victory with 70 points. Ben Ibershoff took 2nd and Greg Smith was 3rd. Dan Adams dropped a 39 point 4th place and looked to be in a bad spot out of the gate.

Stone Age kept up it’s LIW streak of being played in both the first two rounds. Rookie Rob Griffiths captured the victory in round 1, besting another rookie Susan Waterbury from Lexington. Leah Adams took 3rd and a third rookie Joseph Carrick took 4th.

The last two games of round 1 were my favorite. In Terra Mystica we had a showdown between two of the top Greensboro players Sceadeau and Cary, but the other two players at the table were no slouches etiher. Chad Walker is a former Lion in Winter Terra Mystica Champion, and WBC semi finalist, and Adam Swejk is another Ohio player with lots of Terra Mysitca experience. By the way the player that knocked Chad out at the WBC semi final?....Sceadeau. This may have been the closest Terra Mystica gave I have seen. The final scores came in 159, 151, 149, 147. Sceadeau would prevail on top with the Cultist. Chad took second in the first of his many battles with Sceadeau in the tournament. Cary was 3rd and Adam 4th. All 4 players said it was an amazing game and I wish I could have watched more of it.

Round 1 ended with the old classic euro game of Caylus. I want to just stop for a second and say that Caylus is a great game. It has long been in the tournament field but never until now has it been played. It’s never made the cut with the votes but it was the last game voted in this year and I was happy to see it set up. The players were Rob Murray from New Jersey, Matt Musgrave from New York, Neil Mecham from Ohio, and Eric Wrobel from Maryland. These were 4 solid players, and this was a solid game. Every time I walked by that table I noticed that this happen somehow captured everything I love about gaming. Towards the end Rob pulled away from the field and took the victory with 97. Neil was 1 point ahead of Eric and Matt was a bit further back with 65.

Round 2 began with Jeff Turner taking down the victory in the 2nd 7 Wonders match making a statement that this year he was a real threat. Nate Landry took another 2nd place and Nick Vicious once again fell at the hand of his Ohio brethren. Rookie Joseph Carrick would again finish 4th as he was adjusting to the big league play of LIW.

Eric Wrobel would bounce back from his 1st round third by taking down Egizia in round 2. Heather Dent finished  2nd and Brooke and Susan were behind in that order.

Matt Musgrave learned Ra on the fly and took home the victory in round 2, which helped offset his first round 4th. Leah was in 2nd and Jason Lambert was 3rd followed by Rob Grifitths. Rob was 4th even though he did a great job teaching the game to the other players.

Angela won again in round 2 taking down 5 tribes in it’s tournament debut. This would leave her at the top of the standings. On the way to her win she took down WBC 5 Tribes world Champion Cary Morris who would finish 2nd. Patrick was 3rd and Sayer 4th.

Stone Age was on the table again in round 2, and this time two of Berea’s top Stone Age players battled it out. Dan Adams snuck in for the victory at the end beating Austin Rathbone out. This helped Dan recover from the 1st round 4th place while Austin would end the night with a 1st and 2nd. The Ohio players trailed in this one as Adam S would be in third and Chad was 4th. The range of scores for this game were 92, 95, 107, 113 in a pretty close battle of cavemen.

Patchwork turned out to be a popular new game to the field and it made the table again in round 2. Eduardo would win 3 straight games to curise to the victory. Greg Smith was 2nd , Adam Blum would take 3rd and Chris McCurry was 4th.

The classic Bidding game and one of my favorites Goa was played in round 2. Sceadeau and Keith would clash for the first time in Lion in Winter. Keith is a very solid Goa player, and I didn’t know how good Sceadeau was, but he was Sceadeau so I figured it would be a close battle. Ben and Tobiah were at the table too, but it became clear early on that they were much less experienced than Keith and Sceadeau. It appears Keith had the game in hand but Sceadeau pulled a move right at the end that gave him an outside slim chance of catching Keith if he drew just the right combination of cards. I think it was a 4 point move and he pulled it off for the victory by 3. 50, 47, 34, 32. Keith was 2nd and Ben and Tobiah followed in that order. Sceadeau even admitted afterward that he got a bit lucky, but it all counts, and he would take his 2nd close victory in as many games.

In Thurn and Taxis both champions from the 2017 tournament would face each other. Rob Murray and Randy Buehler are also both world former world champions in this game. This turned out to be a game of positions as Rob was able to take seat 3 to the right of Randy and use that position to block Randy just enough to squeak out the victory. Rob finished with 23, Randy 22, Neil the Grey 19.5, and Joseph 16. This was Rob’s 2nd win of the tournament leaving him at the top of the standings. Defending LIW champ Randy took another 2nd place finish, which would mean at best he couldn’t repeat his point performance from last year, but 2nd seconds still meant he was lurking near the top of the standings.

The other game in round 2 was Concordia making it two back to back years where it was played twice. In 2017 every time Neil Mecham played a WBC veteran and shield winner he was defeated. This year he was already proving his game was improved. He bested Eric Wrobel in round 1, and in round 2 he took down Steve Lewinter. Neil finished with 107 points claiming the outright victory, but the other 3 players were locked up in a 3-way tie. Steve, Josh, and Michael all had 92. The players checked the math 3 times and confirmed. This would mean the finish was Josh, Mike, Steve, but later the players realized that the 7 point card for ending the game was not scored. This put Steve in 2nd with 99, and pushed the others back.

The first night of the tournament ended With Angela, Rob and Sceadeau all double winners. Just behind them was Austin, Neil, Steve, and Jeff Turner with a win and a 2nd.

Terraforming Mars has been hyped ever since the 2017 tournament, and it kicked off Day 2 of the tournament. It has become extremely popular with many players in the field. The Berea crew has 40 or so games in the books, the Ohio players have logged over 100 and it was familiar to Greensboro and other WBC players. After all it was the 2017 Lion in Winter Champion Randy Buehler that decided to add it to the tournament field for 2018. Not only that but also this year the player who I consider to be the best Terraforming Mars player in the world was in attendance in this years LIW tournament. Eric Wrobel is savage at this game. I was interested in how all the great TFM players in the field would stack up. The game lived up to the hype and bids game in huge for this game in round 3. Eric or Randy didn’t bid enough to get in the initial game so it was Dan Adams from Berea, a couple solid Ohio players, and Matt Musgrave playing for the first time. In the end it was Dan Adams finishing on top with 66 points in a 9 round game. Nate Landry, Nick Vilagi, and Matt Musgrave (in his first game of TFM) were all locked up at 61. Nate had the money advantage and Nick and Matt were behind in that order. This was another of the really close games in the 2018 tournament.

Speaking to close games, Caverna was also on the table. In 2017 Sceadeau cruised to a 20+ point victory in Caverna leaving former LIW Caverna champ Chad Walker licking his wounds in 2nd. I sort of figured Chad would try and duck the game this year knowing he had no chance. I was wrong. Chad came back for another round in 2018. Joining him and Sceadeau at the table was Eric Wrobel a solid WBC player and Josh Corballis from Louisville. Sceadeau pulled out the victory again but this time it was much closer. 101/100/97/74. Chad would finish just 1 point behind Sceadeau which would mark the second time in this tournament he would finish a close 2nd to Sceadeau. Eric would take his 2nd 3rd of the tournament, and Josh would be 4th.

Concordia had enough votes to carry over form round 2, and then got enough votes in round 3 to hit the table again. Heather Dent would be the champion, besting her dad on the way. Neil the Grey was 2nd and Brooke and Jason would finish behind that.

Lost cities was changed from the 2017 format due to time constraints, and now all players played a two game match against each other. Neil and Susan finished in a dead tie after a couple games but Neil would win his other matches in the round to be the Lost Cites champion and dethrone Greg Smith the 2 time defending champion along the way. Greg would claim 2nd, Susan 3rd and Tobiah 4th.

Adam Blum won the Village game in round 3 to leave him with 2 wins and a 3rd. Ben was 2nd with 46, and Chris and Michael were behind that with 37 and 36.

In St. Petersburg Rob Murray used his 2nd round Mistress to pull out the victory. Three Greensboro players finished behind him. Rob had 92, while Cary, Rob G, and Patrick had 82/82/70.

Keith Dent took down a couple Ohio players in Race for the Galaxy although Jeff Turner did beat him by a point in one of the games. Jeff ended 2nd overall, which left him near the top of the standings with a win and two 2nds. Adam S, and Sayer followed.

Leah took down two former Lion in Winter champions in Dominion in round 3. Eduardo and Joseph had both proven to be solid Dominion players but game 1 ended slightly too early for Joe, and despite finishing 1st in the 1st game Leah’s second place margin was much closer than Eduardo was to her win in game two. This gave the ladies yet another win, and moving Leah to the middle of the pack in the standings.

At the halfway point in the tournament Sceadeau and Rob Murray remained undefeated while Neil Mecham was right behind them with 2 wins and a second.

Terraforming Mars was plenty popular enough to carry over and be played again in round 4. This time it was top Mars player Eric Wrobel, a couple more solid Ohio players Neil and Adam S, and Patrick who also knew the game well from Greensboro. This one turned out to be extremely close just like in round 3. Eric did finish on top and the scores were 84, 79, 77, and 75 with Adam, and Neil and Patrick finishing in that order.

The perennial super popular Castles of Burgundy hit the table in round 4. It turns out all the Game night Castles practice paid off as Neil the Grey brought home the victory. His long time Castles of Burgundy rival Austin Rathbone was also in the game but he finished 3rd. Tobiah bested him for 2nd place honors by 3 points. Angela took a 2nd straight 4th which combined with her two wins pushed her into the middle of the pack. 

Dan Adams dealt Keith Dent his 2nd lifetime live game loss in Trajan in round 4. Keith was 2nd, Adam 3rd and Heather 4th. There are 4 solid Trajan players but Dan’s practice in the past year paid off and he cruised to a wide margin victory due to his amazing start, which he bid 6.5 points to take.

Sceadeau continued to prove his wide range of game talent as he won yet another different game in the Lion in Winter field. This time it was Orleans. Brooke, Greg, and Matt were behind him in that order.

The most surprising result in the tournament came in round 4 when Susan and Leah finished 1st and 2nd in Vegas Showdown while Steve and Randy were 3rd and 4th. This was not surprising because Leah or Suasan aren’t solid Vegas players, but Randy and Steve are both WBC final table Vegas players. I came over and watched this one pretty close early in the round and walked away thinking Randy would win in a landslide. He had his casino full, the path across connected, and was only one building from completing the Hotel side. Also there were only 2 tiles left in the large building pile. The game turned out to go as long as it possibly could burning though all of the cards in the deck. The other players caught up to Randy and then Steve made a self admitted greedy play late that cost him 17 points (due to the event Slot Tournament), and when the dust settled Susan has won her first Lion in Winter game, with Leah just 5 points back in 2nd.

Rob Murray did not miss out on Carcassonne this year and he would show why he wanted to play it so much. He won all three matches (although closer than he may have expected). Chris was 2-1 taking 2nd overall while the 2017 Carcassonne champion Josh was 3rd. Eduardo was 4th.

Cary Morris and Jeff Turner had a battle right to the end in Year of the Dragon as both of them were far out in front of the other players. Cary won in 2017, and this year he was going for a back to back. Jeff was only 3 points away from him but Cary couldn’t be denied. Ben and Joseph C were behind in that order.

Nick Vilagi won in Bruges and Michael Mecham was 2nd. Joe Mecham and Rob G were in 3rd and 4th.

Chad Walker won in Hansa Teutonica (a game that always makes me happy when I see it on the table). Sayer, Nate, and Jason were behind in that order.

Going into round 5 it was still Rob Murray and Sceadeau leading the pack undefeated.

In round 5 Dan Adams won his 4th straight round. This time it was Kingsburg which makes back-to-back LIW Kingsburg titles for Dan. Rob G, Neil the Grey, and Tobiah were behind in that order.

In 7 Wonders Duel Chris, Nate, and Joseph C, all finished 2-1 but it was Nate finishing on top with Joe behind that. Chris was the victim of trying to go for a Science/Military game and realizing it wouldn’t happen too late to get a high percentage of winning score. Eduardo went 0-3 and finished 4th.

Mombasa finally made it to the table this year for the first time in LIW history. Keith Dent would win and Greg Smith was 2nd. Sayer finished 2nd and Jeff Turner took the first dent in his tournament run finishing 4th.

Adam Blum was very close to taking down Rob Murray in 2017 in Power Grid, but in 2018 he would pull it off. Rob was 2nd which was his first non-win, while Leah and Adam S were in 3rd/4th.

Neil Mecham won in Castles of Mad King, with Mike finishing 2nd and the 2017 champion Randy in 3rd. Susan finished 4th.

A big thank you to Steve LeWinter who taught Scythe in round 5. I was worried it would go super long with the learning, but it turns out Steve is a great teacher, and the game finished relatively quickly. Matt Musgrave would finish on top with Steve just behind and Josh and Brooke behind that. I didn’t realize until after the tournament that Steve is actually the reigning world champion of this game.

In Great Western Trail Eric Wrobel used the building strategy to perfection as he routed the rest of the table. Angela, Ben and Jason were behind in that order.

Heather Dent would reclaim her Castles of Burgundy title this year. She finished on top in a tough field. Chad and Nick were behind her and Joe Mecham (a 2016 champion of this game) was in 4th.

Sceadeau won Vegas Showdown for the 2nd straight year, with Patrick, Cary, and Austin finishing behind in that order.

Randy got back to his winning ways in round 5 taking down Egizia. Steve barely edged Austin for 2nd and Angela was 4th.

Going into the last round Sceadeau was undefeated, and Rob Murray was only 2 points back. It wasn’t enough to hope Sceadeau lost, because he had the higher percentage of win score (unless Sceadeau lost round 6 by a lot). Rob had to find him and beat him. Rob sucsesfully got into LeHarve with Sceadeau and the stage was set. His tournament report breaks it down in more detail but when it was all done Rob had pulled it off. They finished with the same tournament point total (34) but the first tie breaker was head to head matchup and Rob had that. Brooke and Chad were in 3rd and 4th.

Nate Landry won Terra Mystica for the 2nd straight year. Just like Sceadeau in round 1, Nate would win with the Cultist. Dan Adams finished 2nd which would give him enough tournament points to finish 5th overall. Matt was in 3rd and Sayer 4th.

Keyflower was played the first time this year and Eric Wrobel without much experience in the game found a way to victory. Neil Mecham was 2nd, Ben 3rd and Tobiah 4th.

After a break for a couple years Lords of Waterdeep made it back to play status in 2018. Steve LeWinter took the victory, with Joseph, Sayer, and Jason finishing behind that.

Austin Rathbone won Castles of Mad King with Nick, Heather, and Neil the Grey trailing in that order. It should be noted that this was another really close game. The gap between 4th and 1st was only 8 points total.

Adam Blum won again in round 6 adding Alhambra to the long list of LIW games he has claimed victory in. This would be enough to get Adam 4th overall which would make back to back top 5s for him. Rob G, Susan, and Leah were behind in that order. This was another really close one as The gap between 4th and 1st was only 12 points.

Agricola bids were high in round 6. Chris McCurry pulled off a masterful Educator game to add a 3rd Lion in Winter Agricola title to his resume. Patrick claimed 2nd and Greg and Eduardo were 3rd and 4th.

Round 6 would also see a rematch of Keith and Cary in Amun Re. Both of these players are WBC final table Amun Re players. In 2017 LIW play Cary cruised to a large victory over Keith who was 2nd. Then the two faced again at the WBC semi final table in 2017 and that time it was Keith prevailing. The one thing in Keith’s favor was that it was late and Cary was very tired by the time it started. Keith would win by a large Margin and Jeff Truner and Mike would even best Cary to push him to 4th as being tired hindered this usually elite level player. This would leave Keith in a 5 way tie for 3rd, with 28 tournament points, but his percentage of win score would leave him 7th overall, which would mark the first time he was not in the top 5 overall.

Navagador saw Randy pull off the victory defeating Angela the 2017 LIW champion. Josh was 3rd and Joseph was 4th.

That is the round by round game-by-game breakdown. Now here are some fun quick hits story lines that I liked throughout the tournament.

The Hockey Player and the Frisbee Player:

Neil Mecham and Eric Wrobel faced each other 3 times in the 2018 tournament. These are both solid gamers, and I liked seeing them clash. Eric got the best of Neil 2 times but in Caylus Neil defeated him. The battle between these two in Terraforming Mars we pretty epic, but the game went on long enough for Eric to prevail.

The Great Ones:

Can I just say again that Caylus is a great game. It made me happy to see it get played for the first time in LIW history. Not only that but 4 solid players from different parts of the country (New Jersey, New york, Ohio, and Maryland) all played this great game with stakes on the line in Berea Kentucky. It’s moments like this that make me want to keep doing Lion in Winter.

March Madness:

The tournament did take place on the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and this tournament wasn’t without its madness either. Susan Waterbury defeating two WBC finalist in Vegas Showdown was one example. There were a couple other close calls with Chad Walker almost taking Sceadeau down in Terra Mystica and Caverna.

All Hail Caesar:

Dan taking down Keith in Trajan was no small feat. Dan is now and until he goes down the Caesar of Rome, and Champion of Trajan.

Columbus is Back:

After a bit of down year in 2017 Columbus came back with vengeance in 2018. Led by Adam Blum for the second year in a row, 3 Columbus players finished in the top 10. Neil Mecham and Nate Landry joined him there, while Jeff Turner was just outside finishing 11th overall. Nick Vilagi and Chad were 15th and 17th respectively. Adam Swejk struggled from some rough matchups along the way and was the lone Columbus player not in the top half of the standings. Jeff Turner (Turner the Burner) and Nate Landry were the surprise players of the team this year as Neil, Chad, and Adam have been bringing heat for a few years now. Nate won Terra Mystica for the second straight year, and picked up another win and 3 seconds along the way to crack the top 10. Jeff Turner struggled a bit as a rookie to the Columbus team in 2017, but in his second year he showed up in a big way. Jeff won in 7 Wonders, and picked up 4 seconds along the way. He took some LIW previous champions of a game to the limit along the way too. Year of the Dragon came down to the wire between Jeff and the 2017 Champion Cary before Cary barely squeaked it out. Then in Race for the Galaxy He gave Keith a good battle too. Chad Walker despite too many close seconds to finish high in the standings also showed some solid game skill because all of those close seconds were to Sceadeau along the way.

The Wild Ole Tournament:

Once again the tournament was long, and wild and awesome. Thanks to all the players who came and competed. Over the years players have given suggestions of how to improve it and once again I have some ideas I’m working on for next year. I liked how doing the games randomly shook things up a bit this year and challenged players to plan out how they would attack the field. Many players searched to find a round where they could spend less points in order to save points to get into a game in a later round they knew they could compete in. This strategy to the overall tournament is why I like this format. It’s a little wild, a little chaotic, a little long, and not perfect, but I’m glad everyone continues to look forward to this event.

Tournament Report from the 2018 Champion Rob Murray

2018 was my second LIW tournament, after joining as part of the “WBC Rookie Class” in 2017.  While I did well in 2017 for the first 2/3 of the tournament, I fell victim to being locked out of my games of choice in Rounds 5 and 6.  A huge bid on Carcassonne by Josh Corbalis, in addition to other people throwing a lot of points at it, was enough to shove me into a game of Lost Cities, which effectively killed my tournament.  I was determined to find a way to prevent that from happening this year.

My goal was to find a round where I could bid a low amount of points and sneak into a game that I knew well.  From the looks of it, Round 1 was my best chance at this.  I was at least familiar with most of the games here, but if I am playing this thing strategically, and considering my skill level compared to how well others may know these games, I assessed my best chances at a win to be Caylus, Medici, Stone Age and Seven Wonders (believe it or not) and in that order.  While Agricola is one of my strongest games, the pool was packed with sharks: Randy, Sceadeau, Steve, Eric, Cary, Keith… even Chris is pretty strong.  In particular, I have a pretty poor tournament record against Eric, so I was trying to duck him in Round 1 and assumed he would bid big points on Agricola in the first round of his first LIW tournament.  While I did throw a ten-point bid on Agricola, I scattered smaller bids on a lot of other games.  The reason for this was because I wanted to make sure I avoided Agricola AC since Brooke Hullings is like the Angel of Death at that game.  The master plan worked out rather well, as Matt Musgrave made a huge 25-point bid on Caylus, pulling it into the tournament for the first time and getting me in with a measly 4-point bid.  After three people needed to roll for an open Caylus seat and two open Amun Re seats, we drew Eric Wrobel!  Former LIW champ Neil Mecham rounded out our table.

While I consider myself a pretty good Caylus player, this was probably my first play in 4-5 years.  I assessed Matt to be my threat early on since he bid so heavy on it, Eric was playing it for the second time ever, and Neil seemed to be burning a lot of brain cycles on his options in turns 1 and 2.  The first two turns involved heavy manipulation of the provost, which was fun and I think gave Matt a very slight edge.  However, Matt appeared to be intent on building in the castle a lot and neglected building any wood or stone buildings.  Eric quickly realized that building an early Mason would lead to a lot of points, and he had position on me for that.  I shifted focus to building two of the stone production buildings and added the double stone wooden building, as well as the Lawyer.  Provided the game lasted long enough, I liked my chances here.  Matt built the 25-point cathedral, but he didn’t time the game well and he plateaued too early to be a serious threat for the win.  Eric had the opportunity to seize the provost while the bailiff was two positions away from ending the game, but didn’t realize he needed to do so to prevent me from scoring a massive amount of points should the game extend one more round.  Once I grabbed the provost the win was sealed, as I was able to build the 14-point monument that provides a royal favor (which I used to buy more points) and I even built a section of the castle walls.  I believe the final scores were roughly 97-81-80-70 or something like that… Neil edged Eric out for second by one point.

With 96 points left to bid over 5 rounds, I bid real points on Thurn & Taxis in Round 2.  It’s a game I’ve won twice at WBC and once at EuroQuest, with the recent November EQ win coming against some of the world’s top players in Kyle Smith, Alex Bove and Randy Buehler.  My draw for Thurn & Taxis was Joe Mecham, Neil the Grey and Randy.  In a game where we bid for seating, Neil first bid 0.5 points to sit in seat 1.  Randy was next to bid and had one goal in mind; do not be seated to my left after bidding was over.  Without a clear strategy to achieve this end, he entered a null bid for seat 4.  I immediately bid 0 for seat 3 and Joe took seat 2.  I know Randy is a top Thurn player and Neil has won the event at LIW in the past.  I didn’t know Joe too well, so if I could have picked a perfect seating arrangement, this would have been it.  My first turn was troublesome for me, as there was a Lodz available and a bunch of other cards that weren’t too great.  I took the Lodz and then drafted Kempten as my second card since Zurich was also available and I didn’t want to leave Randy with Kempten/Zurich to start his first route.  Randy was forced into an efficient route where he dropped two post offices after closing it (Freiburg and Stuttgart).  I crashed my first route, as a flush and blind draw on my second turn didn’t leave me with a connection to Kempten.  My first route would eventually be the unimpressive Nürnburg-Ingolstadt-Augsburg.  Neil also crashed his first route after starting in Lodz without having a Pilsen in his hand.  My second route got me into Lodz-Pilsen-Regensburg and my third route was a strong eight-city southern route that earned me the first World Traveler Bonus.  A key decision in this portion of the game was to draft the last Lodz from Randy, as he was currently in Pilsen-Budweis-Linz.  Frankly I was surprised that he didn’t blind-draft the third Lodz earlier and that it was still around late in the draw.  This slowed him down considerably, although on a subsequent turn just after the reshuffle he was able to flush and flip the only Lodz in the deck to complete his route.  Fortunately for me, finding Lodz cost him some precious tempo and he no longer held “the Hammer” as seat 4 usually aims for; Neil reclaimed it.  After finishing my 5-carriage and claiming the World Traveler Bonus, I had a good amount of post offices on the board, but I didn’t have any convenient possibilities to hit multiple chits on remaining routes if I continued pursuing bigger carriages.  It felt right to try to pump out three 3-city routes and try to end the game by exhausting my supply of post offices.  In my perfect scenario, that would result in obtaining the grey chit, the red/orange chit, and the green chit.  The real key was just finding a copy of Linz for the final route (I already had a Budweis).  Joe was flushing a lot to find the cards for his current routes and ended up flushing one of those Linz cards, but I was able to pick another one up somewhere along the way.  Randy and Joe had already placed a post office there, so the competition for the card was low.  Likewise, I was pretty sure I could get the Wurzburg I needed since Joe (to my right) already completed the greys and Randy and Neil were both not threatening it.  The plan worked out and I ended the game on my 5-carriage with no remaining post offices.  I considered extending the game one turn and trying to cartwright to the 6-carriage because I wasn’t 100% sure I could beat Randy if he was holding a blind copy of Carlsruhe.  But extending the game would only increase his chances of getting what he needed, and it would also allow Joe another turn (he left his route open at the end of his last turn).  Randy had one card down and had picked up a Mannheim earlier.  On his final turn, he blind drew the card he needed (Carlsruhe) and dropped two cards to close out the purple area!  Fortunately, when the dust settled I was ahead 23-22.  Neil finished with 19.5 and Joe at 16.  It is noteworthy that Randy was the only player that did not crash a route in this game.

After Day 1, there were three double winners:  myself, Sceadeau D’Tela and Angela McGavisk.  I didn’t consider myself a serious threat to win the tournament because I didn’t feel that the overall layout of Day 2 was favorable for me.  Every round only had about one game that I felt was a “top game” for me, so my chances of getting all of them seemed slim.  I was prepared to bid heavy to get into Carcassonne, as two-player Carcassonne is my strongest game and I was locked out of it last year.  My personal goal entering the tournament was simply to get into Carcassonne and win that event.  Everything else was really icing on the cake. 

The day started with an awesome breakfast layout!  Derek really goes all out to make sure everyone is happy and well fed.  His hosting game is world class, and he has made LIW the weekend I now look forward to the most throughout the entire year.  After I was happily fed, I sat at the piano for a bit to relax for a bit before a long day of gaming.  It’s a form of meditation for me, and fortunately the room appeared to have a lot of patience to let me do my thing.

My only strong Round 3 game was St. Petersburg, but I am also competent in Dominion and Terraforming Mars.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted either of those back-ups in a tournament environment, but on the flip side I know that Cary Morris would likely bid on St. Pete, and he’s definitely better than I am at the game.  Last Will was also in the round, and I was fairly confident Randy would bid his points to get into that game rather than St. Pete (he’s also clearly better than me at St. Pete).  Everything went down as I assumed it would.  Randy got into Last Will and the St. Pete table was me and three Greenspielers: Cary, Patrick McGavisk and Rob Griffiths.  Cary and I were sitting caddy-corner, which was probably a good thing.  I got first chair and second noble.  The mistress flipped for me in Round 2, and I was able to immediately play it.  I also had third blue phase and flipped the Observatory.  The luck of the cards mitigated some errors I made in the game.  Somehow, I made a total blunder in the first phase and picked up a Market thinking I needed to open a hole for a noble when I didn’t.  I also passed up a Pub late game to do other things assuming that Patrick would take it, but instead it made its way to Cary.  But hey, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and although a second round Mistress and third round Observatory was nice… what was nicer was flipping a Judge with the Observatory.  Rob had a massive “Big Blue” run going and was scoring a worrisome amount of points throughout the game.  It turned out to fall just short for Rob when I found an upgrade I needed on the final turn.  The final scores were 93-82-82-70.  Cary beat Rob for second on tiebreaker.

It’s the halfway point, and anyone who surprisingly picked Rob Murray as the leader on the prop bets scored themselves 6 points.  I was not one of those people… my bets were for a Buehler repeat all the way, but it just wasn’t his year.  He drew my Thurn & Taxis table (not his top choice that round) and was put into a game with Steve LeWinter *THREE* times.  They each split 1-2 in the first two games, but then finished 3-4 in their Round 4 Vegas Showdown game.  I have no idea what Sceadeau was bidding on and playing, but he was repeatedly winning whatever he was playing.

In the back of my mind, this is when I thought I might have a shot at this thing because Round 4 was Carcassonne time and I bid big points to make sure I got it.  The Swiss format means you play three two-player games and then figure out standings based on results and margin of victory, if required.  My draw was Chris McCurry, Josh Corbalis (no surprise there) and Eduardo Ballestro.  This event turned out to provide much stronger competition than I anticipated, which I was pleasantly surprised to see.  I ended up winning all three games, but like I said, the competition was pretty tight.  Chris must be a well-known strong Carcassonne player locally, because a few people dropped by during our game to see how he was doing.  Ours was the final game and since we were both 2-0 at that point, it was the match-up to determine who the winner would be.  The tile draw probably favored me a little more than it did Chris during the game, but with that aside Chris had some very kind words about my play for those who dropped by, which was possibly the highlight of the entire weekend for me.

Alright, so now the chase was on.  Sceadeau and I are both 4-0 and I have to play it like I’m in the hunt.  The Round 5 game I needed to choose was Power Grid.  I won it last year, I won it once at WBC, and nothing else worked for me this round.  The plan only had two issues:  Steve LeWinter and Adam Blum.  Steve loves Power Grid and he’s a top competitor at any game he knows the rules to.  Adam was in last year’s game, so I knew he was pretty damn good too.  Plus, he won the coveted “3nd” mug last year – he’s no slouch.  He also had the confidence to sport a kilt on Saturday… I was wholly intimidated.  Lucky for me, Steve wanted to play Scythe more than Power Grid, so my draw was Adam, the other Adam (Swejk) and Leah Adams... I was surrounded by Adams.  Adam B. threw the game into chaos right away by choosing to use the bottom region, and Leah (choosing last) chose to create two choke points instead of an interconnected map.  We played this game without usage of the blue or green regions on the German map.  I bid on the 3 plant to be able to be last in turn order and play in the northeast brown region (maybe a mistake?), with the intention of breaking into the center of the map in phase 2.  Adam took the choked-off red region, Leah the center and Adam S. in the southern yellow area.  I was the first to obtain an endgame plant by winning the 20 cost coal plant that powers 5 cities.  My critical mistake was bidding on the 32 cost oil plant that powers 6 before phase 2 hit.  I knew it was an expensive investment at that early point in the game, but I perceived Adam B. as being my threat.  He had a strong position, but his plants were pretty bad.  I thought that if he won this plant, he would be set up well for the rest of the game.  What I didn’t consider was that by purchasing it prior to phase 2, I put myself as last to act and build when phase 2 hit.  I was forced to trigger Phase 2 myself, and Adam B. flooded power plants into the center of the board.  He was just killing us.  I bet on him to end the game on a turn when he didn’t have enough money to end it.  At that point, I was just trying to lock up second place.  Then when he didn’t end it, it gave the other two players the opportunity to buy better power plants for the last turn of the game.  Crap… Everything was going downhill fast.  However, since Adam S. and I had capacity to power 17 cities, Adam B. bought out the coal so that both of us couldn’t fire off our plants!  This led to some really weird final scores.  Adam powered his 17 and I was able to power enough for a second place finish.  Whew!

Sceadeau won his Round 5 Vegas Showdown game, which meant he was two points ahead of me for the tournament.  Given the weird margin of victory spread from the Power Grid game, he was sure to have the margin of victory tiebreaker on me if he should somehow finish second in his last game and I were to win mine.  My only viable chance to win the tournament was to go find Sceadeau and beat him head-to-head, which would be the tiebreaker if we were both 5-1-0-0.  His best game is clearly Agricola, but he and I both had fewer than 20 points to bid with.  I assumed Eric Wrobel would have a lot left to bid with since he bid 0 on Caylus in Round 1 and that he would bid on Agricola.  Sceadeau had two other strong games: Ora & Labora and Le Havre.  I’ve played Ora & Labora once, so I probably had a better chance of randomly waking up on Sunday morning with my head sewn to my pillow than I did at beating Sceadeau at Ora & Labora.  He’s also pretty good at Le Havre.  Fortunately, I am also pretty good at Le Havre.  I had to take my chances that we would both get put into Le Havre, and then I had to win it.  Finishing one spot ahead of him wouldn’t have been good enough.  I either needed to win or come in second to his fourth (extremely unlikely).  As the events were announced by Derek, Ora & Labora didn’t get enough votes to fire!!  Agricola was filled with a bunch of local guys that had tons of points left to bid.  The last game to be read by Derek was, “…and Le Havre with Chad, Brooke, Sceadeau and Rob,” which was met by a room full of “oooohs!”

The seats were randomly assigned as Brooke – Chad – Rob – Sceadeau.  This was already a significant edge for me since I would be upstream of Sceadeau all game long.  Brooke didn’t know the game, so we helped her along for the first few rounds.  Chad knew the game, but it turned out he knew the game at an entirely different level than what he walked into.  He was in disbelief when Sceadeau told him that you should score 200+ points.  I’m typically a very quick player at my games, but I played very slowly and methodically for two reasons.  The first reason was simply to make sure I didn’t commit any glaring errors since it had been a few years since I played against live opponents in this game and Sceadeau punishes mistakes.  The second reason was psychological – I know Sceadeau plays very fast and I was trying to prevent him from controlling the game’s pace.  I wanted to make it as uncomfortable as possible for him.  He acquired a lot of resources and was showing that he was about to build down to the Colliery, which is the most important building in the game.  I made the choice to sell two of my buildings in order to buy the Black Market and Colliery.  It slowed me down in obtaining the early boat that I was planning on, but I was able to make that happen before long.  Later in the first half, I was scheduled to be on deck for when the first iron ship hit the table, but I just couldn’t find a way to get some brick and also do all of the other things I needed to be doing.  The first special building was the Wainwright, which allows you to sell 2w for $5 for each iron you possess.  This was very key to the game and I thought the way that it was overlooked by the other players was a mistake on their part.  So, I threw away my wood on a Wainwright conversion and outright bought the iron ship for $20.  It’s only worth $6, so I technically threw away 14 points/dollars to do this, but my plan was to keep Sceadeau out of ships as long as possible and also to prevent him from converting his big stacks of goods into efficient points (he picked up 9 clay one turn!).  I got to three ships for 8 food production before long and had a solid position.  I set up an early-ish shipping run in order to get a wave of cash to buy the Ironworks and Cokery on the action before Sceadeau was about to build those as well.  The best part of the game was all of Chad’s “ah hah” moments.  He couldn’t understand why Sceadeau and I took loans, even after Sceadeau said, “the two people who both know this game well have loans.”  About five minutes later, the light bulb went off.  It also went off when he saw my conversion of 17 coal into coke.  And then again after selling a bunch of coke.  The end of the game got a little dicey because Chad was threatening to build both remaining luxury liners on me due to seating order, even though it wasn’t his best sequence of moves (he had a massive amount of unpaid loans remaining).  Luckily, Brooke used Chad’s Shipping Line on the last turn, forcing him to sell the Shipping Line to allow him to use it as well.  This allowed me to buy and use the Shipping Line and then cash in for $12 as my final action by using the Arts Center, as I had a LOT of buildings by that point.  The final scores were something like 215 (Rob) – 198 (Sceadeau) – 187 (Brooke) – 114 (Chad).

And that was it!  I probably owe Matt Musgrave a Christmas card for his first round Caylus bid because it allowed me to get into all the games I wanted (I got my first pick in Rounds 2-5).  Sometimes being lucky is better than being good.  Derek continued his dominance at the hosting game.  His generosity and hospitality is truly unmatched, and I’m already looking forward to returning to Berea in 2019.