"Dave Blizzard" wrote in message news:<5FCK8.85785$Ka.6549975@news2.calgary.shaw.ca>... Sorry for the delay in getting this year's report out, I'm just getting to some gaming stuff after being out of town most of the time since the tournament. 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. Thanks. Dave. 2002 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. And I'm pleased to say that competitive board wargaming is alive and well in Calgary. After last year's low turnout (there were 5 players last year) it was a question. But with 11 players this year including two newcomers, it is obvious that last year was just a anomaly. Welcome to the two newcomers, Rick Carter and Rob Doupe. This year we were back to our usual format, a 5 round swiss-chess format. Players selected their favourite game each round from Axis & Allies 2 player variant (played 2 times), EastFront (played 2 times), Fortress America (played 6 times), Hannibal (played 9 times) and Rommel in the Desert (played 5 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. This year we continued with our open bidding and it seemed to work fine. This tournament does feature the use of chess clocks to keep the games moving at a reasonable pace and ensuring that rounds end on time. Although the use of chess clocks is new for some of the players, they seem to catch on quickly and it isn't usually an issue. Those of you running similar two player wargame tournaments may want to consider the use of chess clocks to avoid the problems of slow players that cause adjudications and delays in starting future rounds. This year we tried stopping both clocks when players were shuffling cards or counting provinces, etc. This was to avoid the problem of frantic card shuffling if a player ran short on time. While this solved that problem, it did extend some games too long (especially Hannibal). Next year we are going to go back to having the clocks going at all times. We will only stop the clocks for card shuffling when one player has less than 5 minutes left on his time. This should solve the frantic card shuffling problem but only add a little bit of time to the games. This year's tournament was pretty strong, consisting of 4 previous tournament winners and a host of other experienced players. We have seeding so that new players don't have to play seasoned players on the first round. We also encourage newcomers by allowing a player to say that they don't know that game and they get to learn the game from the other player (of course the person knowing the game gets the win for scoring purposes). This is a great way to learn a new game. The first 3 rounds were played on Sat. In round 1, Ken Hole, Bob Albrecht and Jim Kinnear all got off to fast starts scoring 6-0 wins. In round 2, Jim took over the lead with another 6-0 win, while Ken and Bob played each other to a 3-3 draw in EastFront. In round 3, Jim played Jeff Kelley in Hannibal and Jeff won 6-0. So the standings after day 1 were Jeff (16 pts), Ken (14 pts), Jim (12 pts), Jonas Marshall & Bob & Neil Goud (all 10 pts), Dave Blizzard & Rob Doupe (all 9 pts) with Brent Lloyd, Doug MacIver and Rick Carter following up. On Sunday we played the last two rounds. Jeff and Ken were paired in Fortress America and Ken managed a marginal 4-2 win. Jonas and Bob won their games 6-0 so after four rounds we had the leaders with the following scores. Ken and Jeff (18 pts) and Jonas and Bob (16 pts). So going into the last round, four players had an opportunity to win the tournament. Round 5 saw Ken paired with Jim in EastFront while Jeff was paired with Jonas in Hannibal. Ken could only manage a 3-3 draw in his game so he had 21 pts and had to wait to see what would happen in Jeff and Jonas' game of Hannibal. Jeff had played Hannibal against Jonas before and Jonas had won decisively by a successful siege of Carthage. Jeff was determined to play the Romans this time and bid 5 to play the Romans. This worked out well for him with his Romans scoring a 6-0 win. So Jeff won this tournament for the fourth time, this time after a four year lapse. Congrats to Jeff. Jeff be forewarned that we'll be gunning for you next year. The final standings were Jeff (24 pts), Ken (21 pts), Rob & Dave (18 pts), Jonas & Bob (16 pts), Jim (15 pts), Neil (10 pts) and Brent & Doug & Rick (8 pts). 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 receives "The Misfortune" award. Besides the award and a prize, the winner gets to brag that he didn't fare too well because of his "bad" dice. This year's winner was Neil Goud. In two of his games, his opponent said that Neil's luck was terrible. He didn't fair much better in two of his other games getting below average dice. Only in his game with Dave did he manage to get above average dice. After round 5 many of us headed over to the adjacent pub for a few cool ones and postgame chat. A few interesting situations from some of the games: - In RitD, the British challenged for the initiative in two different months (using valuable supply cards). This was needed to plug holes in the front!!! - In one game of RitD, the German only ended up with two initial supply cards, needless to say, he didn't go far! - In one game of RitD, the British broke out of Bengahsi twice to break the German supply line! - In one Hannibal game, Hannibal's original elephants entered Italy in the north, after several battles, they sailed away with Hannibal to Spain only to return across the Alps again. How often are you going to see that! - In one Hannibal game, the game ended with 2 siege points on Rome and 3 siege points on Carthage, talk about a nail biter. - In one Hannibal game, one battle had a 17 to 5 card spread. The player with the 5 cards (3 probes and 2 Des) won the battle. I would like to thank Columbia Games (www.columbiagames.com), The Sentry Box (www.sentrybox.com), Canadian Wargamers Group (www.agt.net/public/cwgroup/cwghome.html) and Jeff Kelley for their generous support of this year's tournament. It is through support by such companies and individuals that we are able to expand the wargaming hobby. For information on next year's edition contact Dave Blizzard at (403) 239-1756 or e-mail at davebliz@shaw.ca For those of you interested, here's a list of the high finishers over the years. 2002 (11 players) 1st Jeff Kelley 24 points 2nd Ken Hole 21 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Dave Blizzard 18 points Neil Goud 3rd Rob Doupe 18 points 2001 (5 players) 1st Dave Blizzardl 22 points 2nd Gary Chappell 17 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Jeff Kelley 17 points Brent Lloyd 2000 (14 players) 1st Jonas Marshall 25 points 2nd Bob Albrecht 22 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Jeff Kelley 19 points Neil Goud 1st B Norm Zinkhan 17 points 1999 (14 players) 1st Norm Zinkhan 24 points 2nd Jonas Marshall 23 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Jeff Kelley 19 points Phil Christiansen 1st B Ken Hole 18 points 1998 (16 players) 1st Jonas Marshall 23 points 2nd Dave Blizzard 22 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Bob Albrecht 21 points Bruce McFarlane 1st B Jim Kinnear 17 points 1997 (11 players) 1st Jeff Kelley 24 points 2nd Keith Martens 22 points Bad Dice Award 3rd Doug MacIver 17 points Bruce McFarlane 1st B Bob Albrecht 16 points 1996 (14 players) 1st Jeff Kelley 22 points 2nd Ken Hole 21 points 3rd Dave Blizzard 21 points 1st B Bob Albrecht 15 points 1995 (12 players) 1st Jeff Kelley 23 points 2nd Keith Martens 20 points 3rd Rick Rosichuk 19 points 1994 (4 players) 1st Keith Martens 11 points 2nd DJ McNeill 9 points 3rd Dave Blizzard 7 points 1993 (10 players) 1st Bob Albrecht 27 points 2nd Ken Hole 21 points 3rd Rick Walker 18 points