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WTCOC Friendly Match: UK vs. Portugal

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danisthirty:
It's been a while since the last World Team Carcassonne Online Championships, but 2023 will see the running of not just the annual World Teams Championship but also the bi-annual European Teams Championship. After months of hibernation, the UK team have been attempting to prepare ourselves for these upcoming championships by embarking on a series of friendly matches against opposing teams; the first of which took place yesterday evening with five of our members taking on five members of the team from Portugal.

To recap on the rules, a match consists of five "duels" with each duel being a best of three games between two players. 24 hours before the match is scheduled to be played, both teams submit a numbered lineup listing the names of their five players, and each of these players plays their duel against the similarly-numbered player from the other team. The match is decided based on whichever team wins three or more duels. All games are basegame only and the starting player alternates between the first two games, and is chosen randomly for the third game (if one is required to settle the duel). Everything is played online at BGA and all duels are played simultaneously, starting at a mutually convenient time that has been agreed between the two team captains (and their teams).

Portugal have always been a team that the UK has struggled with. They have some great players, including one who - somewhat confusingly - was declared UK champion in 2020 when there was no in-person Carcassonne championship so the UK Games Expo decided that that year's MSO Carcassonne championship should also serve the duel purpose of being the UK's championship. But this aside, when I first saw their lineup for our friendly I was unfamiliar with the majority of their players and assumed it should be a fairly safe win for us based purely on the Elo ratings and Win percentages of the players we were playing against. Oops.


Duel #1: FanaticalLime93 (1) vs. Priskus (2) :-\
#1: 99 - 67 to Priskus (watch game here)
#2: 100 - 79 to FanaticalLime93 (watch game here)
#3: 103 - 84 to Priskus (watch game here)

Duel #2: statmatt (2) vs. sisi (0) :)
#1: 111 - 78 to statmatt (watch game here)
#2: 102 - 91 to statmatt (watch game here)

Duel #3: ted the notty bear (0) vs. JMargarido (2) :o
#1: 100 - 82 to JMargarido (watch game here)
#2: 91 - 76 to JMargarido (watch game here)

Duel #4: danisthirty (2) vs. Paiva (1) 8)
#1: 84 - 80 to Paiva (watch game here)
#2: 97 - 95 to danisthirty (watch game here)
#3: 103 - 80 to danisthirty (watch game here)

Duel #5: wallaceprime (0) vs. Glovir (2) :-[
#1: 114 - 79 to Glovir (watch game here)
#2: 115 - 113 to Glovir (watch game here)

(you probably need to be registered at BGA in order to be able to watch the game replays linked to above)


This made the final scores 3 - 2 in Portugal's favour. Not quite the result we were hoping for, but it was still a great evening of international Carcassonne for us and we enjoyed the games and the experience very much despite the outcome. Thanks to the awesome Portuguese team, and congratulations on your win. :(y)

My next aim is to setup a match against our rivals from the Netherlands, and then hopefully Hungary next month. I'll be sure to share news of these friendly matches as soon as I'm able.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=6243.0

Decar:
Thanks for sharing these game reports Dan!

Leven:
Thanks for the report, Dan. It must have been a great match.
BTW, does the "Rematch" button work the way it used to? Since last summer there was no automatic change of the starting player in case of a rematch. (That's why last year's WTCOC final was played in 10-game tournaments.)

danisthirty:
Thanks Leven.


--- Quote from: Leven on January 17, 2023, 08:52:23 AM ---BTW, does the "Rematch" button work the way it used to? Since last summer there was no automatic change of the starting player in case of a rematch. (That's why last year's WTCOC final was played in 10-game tournaments.)

--- End quote ---

It certainly seemed to work as expected in the games I was part of and didn't hear any complaints from any of the other guys. So I think it does still work. The main reason for switching from simple games to tournaments in the WTCOC last year was to allow a specific amount of time per player per game, rather than starting with a small amount and having extra added after each move. It made things a lot more complicated, but I didn't realise it also negated the usefulness of the Play Again button.

Leven:

--- Quote from: danisthirty on January 17, 2023, 09:03:25 AM ---The main reason for switching from simple games to tournaments in the WTCOC last year was to allow a specific amount of time per player per game, rather than starting with a small amount and having extra added after each move. It made things a lot more complicated, but I didn't realise it also negated the usefulness of the Play Again button.

--- End quote ---

Yes, it was the reason for switching to tournaments but the reason for 10-game tournaments was that it was no longer possible to the change the starting player by a simple rematch.

And there was no change of starting player at the Belgium-Hungary friendly match in December either.

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