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Author Topic: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo  (Read 62966 times)

Offline quevy

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #75 on: May 31, 2015, 11:29:26 PM »
Congratulations Dan, for the good final position,
I'm very envious and happy that you have spent a beautiful day together. I hope that one day perhaps we can organize a great meeting.

The mini expansion gift looks great :)
A knight is sworn to valour.
His heart knows only virtue.
His blade defends the helpless.
His might upholds the weak.
His word speaks only truth.
His wrath undoes the wicked.

 :white-meeple: My works.

Offline kettlefish

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #76 on: May 31, 2015, 11:38:31 PM »
Does no one of you make a photo from Udo?

Offline danisthirty

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #77 on: June 01, 2015, 12:05:20 AM »
Congratulations Dan, for the good final position,
I'm very envious and happy that you have spent a beautiful day together. I hope that one day perhaps we can organize a great meeting.

The mini expansion gift looks great :)

Thanks quevy. Maybe next year in Essen we will be able to get together for the special 15-year fan meeting?

The mini expansion looks very good indeed. I can't wait to play it! Well done Decar!  :) :(y)

Does no one of you make a photo from Udo?

No. I had hoped to get one of us all together either after his seminar or after the tournament but he had to leave both earlier than expected so we missed out on the opportunity...  :(

Offline Decar

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #78 on: June 01, 2015, 03:45:02 AM »
Well done to Dan for summarizing the day's events so coherently after getting home (merit to you).  That was well beyond me!

I totally agree the Carcassonne Central Crew Camaraderie (CCCC) made a huge difference to the day; and it was great having people to discuss the games with - It was very strange; and yet so natural: recognizing Dan, Ross and Geoff even though we'd never met in person (or even seen a photo) before.  As Dan said, we felt like we'd been friends for years.

There was one little event that you may have missed Dan:  You decided to interlope a stall full of MeepleSource Meeple (Board Game Bits I believe) with a single lone Dan-Meeple.  Rosco and I visited later in the day and it was gone!  It must have found a new home: much to the confusion of the staff - so either someone nicked it or they made a profit from it ;)

I can now say I've entered:  My First Carcassonne Tournament  :D

Offline danisthirty

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #79 on: June 01, 2015, 05:15:56 AM »
There was one little event that you may have missed Dan:  You decided to interlope a stall full of MeepleSource Meeple (Board Game Bits I believe) with a single lone Dan-Meeple.  Rosco and I visited later in the day and it was gone!  It must have found a new home: much to the confusion of the staff - so either someone nicked it or they made a profit from it ;)

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that! It was kind of like shoplifting in reverse; wait for the guys behind the stall to turn their backs and then subtly sneak an extra meeple onto their table!  ;)

Offline MrNumbers

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #80 on: June 01, 2015, 05:41:52 AM »
Thank you, Dan, Rosco and Decar, for detailed event report! It looks like you had a very good time together! :(y)

Good job, Dan, reaching top-4 of national championship! It is great result anyway! :D
Are your plans to visit Essen this year still alive?
"I never lose. Either I win or I learn." (Nelson Mandela)

Offline jazbang

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #81 on: June 01, 2015, 05:47:28 AM »
Hello.

My name's James, incredibly I won the tournament at UKGamesExpo.  Thanks to Dan for giving me the heads up about this forum.

I only started playing Carcassonne two years ago - in fact it was at Expo in 2013 (my first) that one of the PlayTest guys - Dave - suggested it'd be something I'd like. I bought a copy of the base game almost immediately (because I trust Dave) and, what do you know, he was right.

I enjoyed playing the game over the following 12 months with my wife (who usually beats me) (at Carcassonne) and my Dad (who doesn't), and I introduced it to some non-gaming friends, who all seemed to like it. I also wasted hours and hours playing on the iPhone app - and then at last year's Expo I entered the tournament expecting to come last, but having a lovely day - and in the interest of full disclosure, to try and get a story out of it for a show I was writing about board games that I eventually took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, also the Leicester Comedy Festival earlier this year http://www.chortle.co.uk/review/2015/02/15/21851/james_cook:_always_be_rolling and then finally, at UK Games Expo this weekend just gone.

In that tournament, I managed to win 2 out of 3 'group' games, but came 4th in the other - so I ended up on the second table, where I came second.   So I was wrong about coming last, but right about having a lovely day - and a solid five minute 'bit'.

It was great fun - so I was eager to enter again this year.

This report will smack of false modesty, so I will say this - I reckon I'm a pretty good Carcassonne player. BUT I got a stupid amount of luck in the tournament yesterday...

Game 1. I won by 3 points.
Game 2. I won by 1 point.

Game 3. I came second. A long way behind the winner, and the only reason I beat the 3rd and 4th place players was that it was advantageous for the eventual winner to share a large city with me early on - essentially relegating the other 2 players to 3rd and 4th, while giving herself a massive lead.

After that - I was ranked #1, and went into the semis, expecting to be found out.

When the player who'd won game 3 saw that I was on the top table (and she wasn't), an understandable look of confusion was on her face.

In the semi-final, it was fairly even and it all came down to whether my opponent could draw the tile which would connect 2 fields, giving him the win.  No such tile emerged in the final 3 or 4 turns - so we scored the game and it transpired that I had sneaked a victory. By 2 points.  3 wins, total net margin of victory: 6.  Including Game 3 (when I'd come second) I was going into the final with a 'negative' points difference.

The other finalist, John (who I believe is a previous winner), had won his semi-final by a considerably higher margin  - and with way more points, so SURELY, I thought, this was when I'd get found out.

THIS NEXT BIT MIGHT NOT MAKE ANY SENSE BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW THE TERMINOLOGY...

Quite early on in the game, a large city started to emerge - in which John went 2 - 1 up (in terms of meeples in the city), then I managed to pull it back to 2-2 as the city expanded.

He added a third, but I had position two more in adjacent tiles - all I needed was for the right tiles to emerge - before too long they did, and I was 4-3 up.

The city was now over 15 tiles big, and with only two incomplete parts of the wall.  Over a couple of turns, John managed to position two extra meeples around one incomplete section, and was waiting on a tile with 3 city sides and one field side - which he drew THE VERY NEXT TURN. 

He was now 5-4 up in the city, and needed only to close one wall to take 58 points!

There were around a dozen tiles left at this stage, I tried to position a meeple adjacent, but the tiles weren't coming for me - so instead I took my one remaining meeple (we were sharing a field AND a smaller incomplete city elsewhere) and tried taking as many 'bits and bobs' points as I could. 

Thanks to a couple of easy-to-complete cloisters, I'd accrued a lead of around 30 points - so the game all hinged on whether John could draw the tile he needed to complete the mega-city.  Had he done so he would have won, if not - the city would be worth only 28, and probably not enough for him to take the lead. Probably.

It came down to the final two tiles.  John had first pick, and it wasn't the one he wanted.  I took the remaining tile which would have won John the game - but also helped me complete an 8 point city - so in the end I won by 9.

But it was all on that last tile.

John was incredibly gracious in 'defeat' (although second in the tournament is till pretty good!) - as indeed was everyone else, and friendly and warm too.

So I'm off to Essen then, and I may even get another show out of it.




Offline jazbang

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #82 on: June 01, 2015, 05:55:05 AM »
Here is the final - with meeples removed (apart from John's yellow ones in the mega-city).

The tile on the far bottom left was the crucial one, which didn't get drawn until the final turn - and by me.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #83 on: June 01, 2015, 05:55:37 AM »
Welcome to the forums James, and congratulations on your impressive victory!

Thanks also for that comprehensive write-up, it's always good hearing about how other players got on...  :)

I'm sure there are plenty of players on the site who would love the chance to get some practise against a national champion and hopefully help you to prepare to do us proud at the world championships in Essen!

PS - have a browse through this thread and you may recognise yourself in some of the photos!

Offline Rosco

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #84 on: June 01, 2015, 06:29:37 AM »
Congrats  James.  It was a good day. Welcome to the forum. 
Just lay the damn tile!

Offline Hounk

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #85 on: June 01, 2015, 07:33:28 AM »
Yes, congrats, and great to have you here. Hopefully soon in some of the JCZ games organised in the forum. Also consider bringing you're wife, if she is normally even better then you. And good luck for Essen.

Offline kettlefish

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #86 on: June 01, 2015, 09:08:07 AM »
Hi jazbang,
congratulations to you - the new UK Carcassonne champion 2015 and welcome to our CarcC forum.

Did you visit the workshop from Udo Schmitz before the championship started?

Greetings
kettlefish

Offline jma03

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #87 on: June 01, 2015, 03:29:21 PM »
Congratulations to all for your tournament and dan its final position .
pretty pictures and comments.
the truth is that it is nice to see such a good atmosphere and warmth in it.
after the summer or next year I would like to participate in any event or tournament.
and to meet any member of Central CARC .
tournament winners qualify for another tournament (world or something) ???
When you lose, do not look at what you lost, but what's left to win ..

Offline ScottMoore

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #88 on: June 01, 2015, 04:15:26 PM »
Hello all!

I was handed a Carcassonne Central business card during the UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 and also advised to solicit advice from members of this forum about future championships. With my mind and body still recovering from running 6 board game tournaments over the 3 days of the UK Games Expo, this might seem a strange time to be thinking about next year’s event. However, various conversations are still fresh in my memory and so here goes.

First, I should put everything into context. Just over three years ago, Halesowen Boardgamers was approached by Richard Denning, one of the two directors of UK Games Expo, asking whether we would be interested in taking over the running of the board game tournaments at the Expo. With less than three months before the Expo started, three wise fools with little or no previous experience of running tournaments volunteered and we threw ourselves in at the deep end. The end result was 150 more or less satisfied entrants to 7 tournaments over 2 days. We were invited by UK Games Expo to do it all again the following year, which we did, but being masochists we expanded to 11 tournaments over 3 days. To make life just a little easier for ourselves, we used the same format and points system for every tournament. After that experience, we streamlined back down to 6 tournaments for 2015 and kept exactly the same format.

We inherited the Carcassonne Championship from the previous tournament organisers. Although it is not as high profile as the Catan Championship, which is sponsored by Mayfair Games and thus benefits from an impressive first prize, it is nevertheless regarded as an important tournament by UK Games Expo as it attracts a healthy number of entrants – 52 this year – and provides the UK entrant to the Carcassonne World Championship. It has a prize worth £150 rather than the £50 voucher that is awarded for the other (non-sponsored) tournaments.

I started playing Carcassonne back in 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Budapest. Although, as a group of gamers, we soon “outgrew” it in favour of more complex (and less chance-based) games, I did also appreciate it as a gateway game that is suitable for playing with non-gamers, as well as one of the better light 2-player games. I should add that I have never had the chance to play a non-random variant of the game – I’m sure that I would appreciate that more – nor any of the expansions published in the last 10 years or so.

Having run the tournaments for 3 years now, we are well aware that 4-player games of Carcassonne are far from ideal for selecting the UK entrant to the World Championship – indeed, a member of Halesowen Boardgamers won the UK event a few years ago and subsequently came 19 out of 20 at Essen. Although I personally would be happy to run a 2-player tournament of Carcassonne using variant rules and possibly including one or two expansions, there are three major reasons why we have run the tournament 4-player using the base game and standard rules:
1)  It is a practical impossibility to run otherwise! This is for the simple reason that we cannot secure enough copies of the game to run a 2-player tournament. With 52 players this year we would have needed 26 copies – yet we had just 15-16 or so copies and counted ourselves blessed! We have learnt over the course of the 24 tournaments we have run at the UK Game Expo that we cannot rely on players to bring their own copies. We supplement the meagre number of player copies with games begged, borrowed and stolen from all available sources. For the same reason, we cannot even contemplate using expansions let alone such expensive gadgets as chess clocks!
2) UK Games Expo have clearly stated that they prefer us to run tournaments that attract larger numbers of players. Carcassonne is popular and widely played, but principally the base game and more as a multi-player rather than a 2-player game. We have to be cautious about making any changes to the format that might reduce interest in the tournament. Both UK Games Expo and we as umpires would be delighted if the tournament were sponsored – the chances of that happening are improved the more people take part. The fact that the tournament feeds an entrant into the World Championship is not unimportant, but neither is it the main reason behind it.
3) As I wrote above, we use the same format for all tournaments – it would be very difficult for us to run 6 or more tournaments for 250+ players if we had different formats for each one.

However, we are open to suggestions for changing the tournament. Indeed, I had a meeting on Saturday with Richard Denning and Udo Schmitz where we discussed ideas for next year. There could well be changes to the Catan tournament due to its increasing size (99 players this year) and profile, and it may make sense to introduce similar changes for Carcassonne. One idea is to expand the tournaments to 2-day events, while ensuring that players can compete in both of them. On Saturday we would run 3 “qualifying” rounds using the current format – we probably could not fit in more rounds – and then on Sunday the top 16 or so players would play a further 2, or possibly, 3 rounds in the “finals”. For Carcassonne, we would certainly consider running the finals as 2-player.

Scott

Offline ScottMoore

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Re: UK Carcassonne Championship 2015 at UK Games Expo
« Reply #89 on: June 01, 2015, 04:53:35 PM »
Dan, congratulations on reaching the top 4 on Sunday!

I noted your reference to not expecting to be in such a position again - you are right that the 4-player format means that chance plays a bigger role in determining the outcome than if it were 2-player. You only have to look at the position this year of twice-former champion Richard Gough (32nd after round 3) to realise that the results depend on more than just skill, or lack thereof. However, as I wrote above, there is simply no way we can run a 2-player tournament at UK Games Expo unless there is an event sponsor to provide at least a couple of dozen copies of the game. Even then, both UK Games Expo and any sponsor would probably be reluctant to consider a more competitive 2-player format unless we can provide convincing evidence that it would not significantly reduce the number of entrants (and UK Games Expo have experience from the past suggesting that it would).

If you'd really like to see a 2-player tournament and, especially, if you envisage one using expansions then I would suggest that you and/or other Carcassonne enthusiasts get involved in the 2016 Expo. There are three possibilities I can suggest:
- if we do move to a 2-day format for the UK Carcassonne Championship, then we would need help towards the additional umpiring requirements. It would make sense for Carcassonne experts like yourselves to plan and umpire the finals (among the three of us from Halesowen Boardgamers who run the tournaments, only Gordon has any knowledge of such arcana as the Swiss System and I'm fairly sure even he has no idea what a Buchholz tie-breaker is!) This could be in conjunction with the sponsor, if there is one next year.
- you could run an additional tournament on the Friday of the UK Games Expo. This would need to differentiate itself from the main Championships, so the more different the format the better. You should aim for at least 16 participants, possibly 24. Copies of the base game may be available, but any expansions would need to be sourced from somewhere.
- you could run a demo game. This would ideally take place in the trade halls as part of a sponsor's stand, but the Expo organisers might be persuaded to provide space for a demo game in a tournament room.

Scott 
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 04:56:25 PM by ScottMoore »


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