I went to the World Boardgame Championships last year. I was only there for two days, but it was fun. I had hoped to detail my experience at the time, but the forum hadn't been fixed yet. I just remembered about it today. I was skeptical that it really was a world championship, but was surprised at the number of people in attendence and the long distance they travelled, so I'm satified to acknowledge it as such.
Briefly... Al games were two-player with only the base set. I played my first game against a young guy who we pretty good, but I defeated him by about 20 points or so. If I recall correctly, I took the big farm from him to seal it.
My second game was against a 20-something girl who got extremely lucky, but perhaps only when compared to my bad luck. I think I drew something like 12 road-only tiles in a row, mostly straight roads. She seemed genuinely sorry for me and my bad luck. Meanwhile, she drew four cloisters almost in a row and put them all together is a 2x2 block and quickly completed them all for 36 points while requiring only 16 tiles. I was severly demoralized and sort of threw in the towel at that point. She ended up building a small city at the end of my really long road out the side of the main gameplay. That small city quickly got up around 20 points before I quite snivelling long enough to notice. By that time it was too late to get into it and as you probably guessed a while ago, I lost. It wasn't an overwhelming defeat though as I managed to catch up enough to lose by somewhere around 10 points. If I hadn't been so busy feeling sorry for myself and let her have that city, I'd have had a real chance to win. I found out later that she was a champion from a year or two previous. I guess I don't feel so bad losing to a champion, but I think I could have hung with most of the players in the room.
Despite my whining, it was fun.
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