2015 World Cup - Group H

[danisthirty]

Another close one

Farin 155 - 151 CarcinFool

[Depressed sigh]

You may be down but you're certainly not out!

[kettlefish]

The next games have been played in the WorldCup 15 - Group H - 08 09 2015

Here comes the x-score list:

games in the last two days:
- CarcinFool (151) - farin (155)
- danisthirty (174) - monwil (154)

[jungleboy]

Anything could happen in this group from this point. I can't wait for the game in the danisthirty household!

[danisthirty]

Anything could happen in this group from this point. I can't wait for the game in the danisthirty household!

I can! But I'm going to be prepared either way; it'll either be this for me if she wins, or this if I do...

[kettlefish]

farin is online in the chatroom. He hops to play a game perhaps against danisthirty...

[danisthirty]

danisthirty  - 162 : 157 -   farin





Farin went first and took the small city for a 4-point lead, then I seemed to spend the rest of the first half of the game playing catch up! He started off by drawing some favourable tiles and completed his own 5-tile city to take the King token too. I didn't win many points at first but scrabbled around trying to trap farin's meeples, usually quite unsuccessfully.

I knew I was going to have to be daring to win back some points for myself and so chose to place the first cathedral in my own city which I then began to close thanks to some kind tiles. I couldn't quite close it though, and after several turns needing a final city cap to finish it off farin drew the other cathedral. He added this to my city which made it unlikely enough to complete that I gave up on it and lost two meeples in the process (one of which I later managed to reclaim thanks to a ccff "splitter" tiles).

As the game continued, farin built up a fairly considerable lead to the point that I was something like 40 points behind him at one point and had my mind set on damage limitation rather than actually winning the game. I let myself run low on meeples after claiming what turned out to be a 24-point farm, so I was glad when my fortunes changed and I completed an 8-tile city containing 2 of my knights against just one of farins followed by an 8-tile road (with inn!) on my next turn. This put me in front, albeit only slightly, for the first time and also gave me back 3 meeples and both the King and Robber Baron tokens.

I soon lost the Robber Baron again but was glad that farin took the opportunity to complete his road when he had it rather than risk waiting for an inn to double it's value. My farm had grown quite large by this point too, so I secured it a little by getting my large follower onto it even though farin wasn't really fighting for it and found more farmer points elsewhere (most of which I could have stolen but for the fact that all the straight roads seemed to get placed in the first half of the game).

In the final stages of the game I felt like I had quite a big lead but hadn't fully considered that farin's 3 monks would be worth the same as my big farm. So, although I did feel like I'd won more comfortably than it turned out to be, I certainly wasn't disappointed when the final scores popped up and I saw that I'd won by 5 points!

[danisthirty]

No time for a proper write-up now as I'm still dealing with the aftermath...

[danisthirty]

Although we're normally quite closely matched, Becky struggled to get used to JCloisterZone for various reasons and didn't really do herself justice in this game. I certainly never normally win by such margins up at the table anyway!

Because this was an important game for my chances of qualification I took it quite seriously as I needed the win. I trapped two of Becky's meeples in a city from quite an early stage, but only after she'd drawn two of the cfcf "split-city" tiles consecutively and didn't use either of them to escape from my pending trap. She also placed a cloister adjacent to the gap sometime later which led to a third trapped meeple, and I trapped her double-meeple outside of a city of mine that she was trying to glom into. She then dropped a cathedral on this though, ensuring that I didn't get any points for it either.

I soon realised that the farm had a lot of potential and was able to ensure I won it outright thanks to the number of trapped meeples Becky had. She did fight back though, placing the second cathedral such that it killed another of my cities. However, my chances of completing it weren't entirely zero and thanks to some favourable draws in the last 20 tiles I managed to get it to within one tile of completion. However, even though there was one city cap remaining in the last two tiles, Becky got the one I needed and my cathedral city was left incomplete for 0 points (rather than 45).

There was some confusion over the King and Robber Baron bonuses. I took the King token for completing a 4-tile city (all of our cities were very small!) but it seemed like Becky had closed the longest road (the one including the rrrr from Inns & Cathedrals) - we counted 9 tiles. I tried to beat this by building a road of my own, but because it contained an inn and because the number of tiles left to be played was getting low, I completed it when I had the chance even though it was only 9 tiles long and therefore not long enough to win the Robber Baron token. But - surprise surprise - I won the Robber Baron! When I looked at it again, it seemed obvious that the road Becky had closed was actually only 8 tiles long but we'd both counted 9 as one of the tiles was included twice! So with a decent lead, the main farm, the King and the Robber Baron and about 12 tiles to go, Becky pretty much gave up as she didn't have anything left to play with by then anyway.

So overall, not a good day for our marriage...  vs.

[kettlefish]

The next games have been played in the WorldCup 15 - Group H - 12 09 2015

Here comes the x-score list:

games in the last few days:
- danisthirty (162) - farin (157)
- danisthirty (196) - Mrs_danisthirty (86)

danisthirty has finished all his games in group H.

[CarcinFool]

Congrats on qualifying for the next round, Dan!!

[danisthirty]

Congrats on qualifying for the next round, Dan!!

Thanks Owen. This group has been a tough one!

[danisthirty]

Mrs_danisthirty  - 206 : 159 -   CarcinFool



Please excuse the screenshot being so small but it was a very tall game and Becky couldn't fit it all on screen at once without zooming out a long way.

Anyway, I was able to watch this game from the sofa and was worried that the urge to tut or shake my head might be too much for me depending on how the game went . Fortunately this wasn't a problem at all and Becky was able to play as well as she normally does up at the table this time.

I'd say CarcinFool got the rough end of the wedge with regard to the tiles he drew whereas Becky was usually able to complete a city or find some other useful purpose for the majority of her tiles. Most of the game was close though, it wasn't until Becky won the King tile and scuppered CF's attempts to win the Robber Baron away from her that things started to swing in her favour. She also managed to setup a few good blocks to keep CF off of her farm although it was a close thing towards the very end.

Sorry to see CarcinFool dropping out of the tournament as a result of this game, but I know he'll be making up for it by destroying my Elo the next time we play over iOS! Well played both!

[Hounk]

You know, that JCZ can rotate in increments of 90°, do you? Not, that the size of the screen shot matters that much, but it comes handy wile playing as well, once the board develops like that.

[danisthirty]

You know, that JCZ can rotate in increments of 90°, do you? Not, that the size of the screen shot matters that much, but it comes handy wile playing as well, once the board develops like that.

Yeah, I knew you could do that too. At one point Becky called me over as she kept having to fiddle with the zoom settings and pan around to see everything at once (the screen on her laptop isn’t very big). I suggested she could rotate it, but didn’t recommend it as it changes your perspective of the game so much that it’s easy to lose track of everything you’re working on.

It’s exactly the same as if you swap seats with the player sitting opposite you when playing up at the table; suddenly everything looks upside-down and it takes a while to familiarise yourself with the landscape again!

[jungleboy]

You know, that JCZ can rotate in increments of 90°, do you? Not, that the size of the screen shot matters that much, but it comes handy wile playing as well, once the board develops like that.

I suggested she could rotate it, but didn’t recommend it as it changes your perspective of the game so much that it’s easy to lose track of everything you’re working on.

I agree; I can't handle changing the rotation mid-game because it confuses me too much.