Author Topic: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy  (Read 6641 times)

Offline MrNumbers

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Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« on: June 23, 2014, 01:47:10 PM »
We with jungleboy have arranged our match as quickly as possible: couple hours later after Nik's e-mail.
The first game started as many others: build huge city and fight for it. My attempts to connect to it failed: jungleboy disconnected one of my followers, completing for me a city, meantime connecting third follower. I thought that now it's not worth to try to share it so I started to do everything to block it: 3 blocked followers is a good thing. By that time we started to fight for the 15-point farm. Jungleboy successfully connected two farmers to my one and completely disconnected my second. Till the end of the game there were my other two farmers waiting ready to connect, jungleboy already started to block them too, but - lucky draw - in just two straight moves I have connected both! With 5 tiles till the end my opponent wasn't able to just share the farm, and even his 22-point uncompleted city could not save this game.
Final score: 94-72.

The second game was true epic, jungleboy will write a report about it, and then I will give my comments.


Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=847.0
« Last Edit: June 23, 2014, 01:51:13 PM by MrNumbers »
"I never lose. Either I win or I learn." (Nelson Mandela)

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2014, 01:59:34 PM »
The first game felt closer than the final score. I was only one tile away from blocking MrNumbers from getting his 2nd & 3rd meeples onto the main farm. If I had managed to do that that and win the farm then I could have won the game. But it was my own fault for not trying to connect more meeples to the main farm. I was so concerned with keeping meeples in reserve that I played a bit too conservatively and should have been more aggressive in going after the farm.

Well done to MrNumbers who is a great player and I had to play a completely different game from the way I normally play to give myself a chance to win.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2014, 02:07:34 PM »
Game 2: jungleboy 125, MrNumbers 119

For the second game I decided to continue my strategy of saving as many meeples as possible, trying not to allow MrNumbers to trap any of my meeples, and trying to trap his whereever possible (though I was unsuccessful in this last part). I was prepared for another low-scoring slog, but somehow I managed to get 125 points past the league's top defence despite earning only 6 points on farms (he had not allowed more than 85 points in any game before this one).

I drew two cloisters early on and finished both of them relatively quickly for 18 points. This gave me a lead that I managed to hold on to for the entire game despite relentless pressure from the league leader :)

MrNumbers glommed on to an early city of mine and finished it for 12 points each. He also placed the first farmer in what ended up being the dominant farm.

I soon claimed another city near my cloisters and MrNumbers tried to do one of his trademark trapping manoeuvres. I already needed to pull a CFR? tile, and I knew that with one more tile he could turn this into an impossible CFRF or CFRC. So I decided to pre-empt his trap by putting a tile in the next space myself, 'trapping' myself into needing a CFRR tile to complete the city. I couldn't believe my luck a few moves later when I drew this tile, which completed my 22-point city and a 6-point road at the same time. I think this was the most important tile of the game as it gave me a 49-point lead midway through the game. [See the red circle in the screenshot for the placement of this tile.]

In the meantime a second farm had emerged and MrNumbers took control of it with two meeples, while putting a second meeple into the main farm to counter the one I had put into it. I was now faced with an important decision: to try to tie up or even win control of one or both of the farms or to just abandon them and keep trying to add to my score with roads and cities. I first chose the latter option but then (unwisely) changed my mind a bit and tried to put in two extra farmers after all. I never connected these two farmers to either of the big farms, but they both scored 3 points each, so together they actually formed the final margin of 6 points.

Towards the end MrNumbers closed a 14-point city and another 6-point city to narrow the gap, with his big farm points still to come. Having not overcommitted to the farms, I used my excess of meeples to claim two late cloisters which returned 8 points each, and a 6-point unfinished city. With a few tiles left I was confident that I had done enough to win and in the end I held on for a nail-biting 6-point victory.

Some interesting statistics out of the game were that I outscored MrNumbers 43-0 on cloisters (9-9-9-8-8), while he outscored me 42-6 on farms (with one 24-point farm and another 15-point one).
« Last Edit: June 23, 2014, 02:09:36 PM by jungleboy »

Offline kettlefish

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Re: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2014, 02:10:43 PM »
ha... jungleboy, you have beaten MrNumbers  >:D

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2014, 02:16:10 PM »
Well done both on two fantastic games!

I have another fairly interesting statistic relating to MrNumbers' incredible consistency:

MrNumbers average score (per game) over first 8 games = 106.63
MrNumbers average score (per game) for this match = 106.5

MrNumber average score (per game) over all games so far = 106.6

Great stuff!  :)

Offline MrNumbers

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Re: Round 5: MrNumbers vs. jungleboy
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2014, 02:26:13 PM »
I completely agree with jungleboy, that this 22-point city was the clue to his win and my only mistake in this game. When that city wasn't completed, it was in so weird configuration that I thought that it will be hard to complete even without my blocking. I was wrong: jungleboy was lucky enough to drew right tiles to complete it. And yes, 5 of 6 cloisters went to my opponent, including the last one, which gave him so needed 9 points (true, it also gave me 3 points for additional city). Throughout the game I was watching on the points difference and hoped that my farmers could give enough points to win by some points, meanwhile trying to gain points either way. But, what's done is done, congratulations to jungleboy on his great win!


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