From: Dave Blizzard Subject: SpringCon 1999 report This report is being sent to my SpringCon distribution list, rec.games.board newsgroup and the Consim listserv. If you know of someone else that may be interested in seeing this or attending a future edition, please forward. If you would like to be added to my distribution list for ongoing information about next year's edition, just e-mail me. Thanks. Dave. 1999 Calgary SpringCon Boardgame Championship Report Once again, on the first weekend in May, the annual Boardgame Championship was held at The Sentry Box in Calgary. The tournament was renamed this year to SpringCon from Western Canadian Boardgame Championship. This tournament, although not attracting a large number of players, does have a solid base of players. This year we had 14 players, 11 of them returning from previous years and 3 first time players! We had players from all over Alberta (Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer), Saskatewan (Prince Albert) and Washington (Seattle). The tournament consisted of five rounds of play with players selecting their favourite game each round from Dixie - Bull Run (played 4 times), EastFront (played 5 times), Fortress America (played 6 times), Hannibal (played 9 times) and Siege of HongKong (played 7 times). In addition Columbia's card game Eagles was played 3 times. Players received from 0 to 6 points each round depending on their margin of victory in the game. Players bid for the side they want to ensure a balanced game. In Fortress America after 6 games the total scores were 28-8 for the Americans. In Hannibal, the Romans had a decided edge with a total victory margin of 34-20 over the 9 games. In EastFront, the Russians had an edge of 22-8 over the 5 games played. In Siege of HongKong the Allies held off the Japanese by a total of 30-12 in the 7 games. One key objective of this tournament is to introduce new and inexperienced players to the fun and excitement of competitive gaming. This was accomplished in the tournament by having inexperienced players play other inexperienced players in the first round and then after the first day of play, having only the lower half of the players competing for the "B" side championship. The first 3 rounds were played on Sat. Gary Chappell started off fast and had 15 points at the end of the day. Norm Zinkhan and Jeff Kelley had 13 points. The 4th round was played on Sun. morning, Gary was paired with Norm in Hannibal while Jeff was paired with last year's champion, Jonas Marshall, also in Hannibal. Norm's Romans scored a decisive 6-0 victory over Gary while Jonas, also playing the Romans used a desperation siege on Carthage to also score a 6-0. At the end of round 4, five players still had a chance to win the tournament. The scores were Norm 19 pts, Jonas 17 pts, Bob Albrecht 17 pts, Ken Hole 15 pts and Gary 15 pts. The 5th and final round was played on Sun. afternoon. Norm and Bob were paired in Fortress America, Jonas and Gary were paired in Dixie and Ken was paired with Brian Redgwell in EastFront. Norm, as the Americans won a 5-1 substantive victory over Bob, Jonas won both games of Dixie decisively over Gary while Ken and Brian fought to a 3-3 draw in EastFront. Norm Zinkhan, after playing in this tournament for several years, won for the first time with 24 points. Last year's champ, Jonas Marshall was 2nd, only a point behind. Three time champ, Jeff Kelley was 3rd with 19 pts. Bob Albrecht was 4th with 18 pts. Ken Hole was the "B" side winner with 18 pts while Brian Redgwell was 2nd "B" with 17 pts. Gary Chappell, Dave Blizzard and newcomer Neil Goud all tied for 7th place with 15 pts. Doug MacIver, Jim Kinnear, Kevin Worth, Bruce McFarlane and Phil Christiansen rounded out the field. We continued the luck rating in the tournament again this year. Each player rated their luck, and their opponent's luck in each game with ratings anywhere from terrible, below average, average, above average to great. The player with the overall worst luck in the tournament received "The Misfortune" award. Besides the award and a gift certificate, the winner gets to brag that he didn't fare to well because of his "bad" dice. This year's winner was newcomer Phil Christiansen. Phil's luck was terrible or below average in most of his games, ask his opponents!! For example in Siege of HongKong, his artillery only hit once in 26 attempts (hits on a "6"). I would like to thank Columbia Games (www.columbiagames.com), The Sentry Box (www.sentrybox.com), MicroGame Co-op (http://members.home.net/co-op/) Canadian Wargamers Group (http://www.agt.net/public/cwgroup/cwghome.html) for their generous support of this year's tournament. It is through support by such companies that we are able to expand the wargaming hobby. Also special thanks to Gary Chappell, Ken Hole and Jeff Kelley for their help in organizing and supporting the tournament. For information on next year's edition contact Dave Blizzard at (403) 239-1756 or e-mail at blizzard@athabascau.ca