Here is my summary report about this year's journey.
We (4 friends) started our trip on Tuesday, had a night in Poland and on Wednesday we arrived to
Mülheim an der Ruhr, where we rented an apartment. The apartment was clean and nice, with almost new furniture. We liked it so much that we will try to reserve it for the next year already. Wednesday evening we usually play some little games from home, this time we played
Skull King (which is a tradition already) and KJW new game
Mistkäfer, which I received from Udo Schmitz this summer.
First day of Spiel is the most busy one: you must buy everything from "must have" list until it is sold out. First such thing was Markets of Leipzig, of course! Gates were opened earlier, at 09:40, but Cundco booth didn't start selling until 10:00. Till that time the queue grew to about 50-60 people. Cundco didn't give more than one copy in one hands. To receive multiple copies I needed to stand in a queue several times. In the end I ended up with 4 copies
(to prevent spamming of this thread, please, don't post here something like "I want one"
). Approximately till 13:00 limited edition was sold out
This year I participated in Math trade, for the first time. I was able to exchange only one game, but I am happy with the result: instead of
King of New York expansion (unplayed) I received
Ticket to Ride: First Journey.
Then there was the fan-meeting, which kettlefish mentioned earlier, but I didn't have much time so after some talking I left the party, so I don't know if any games were actually played.
Last year I was too late to buy a copy of
Edenia, a fun family game, so I contacted the publisher (BLAM!) before Spiel, if they are going to sell it this year too. They answered that this wasn't in their plans, but they will bring a copy for me. Very exclusive! I bought a game which nobody else could at the fair!
Of course I wanted to grab a copy of Ticket to Ride: France and Old West. Ticket to Ride usually can't be sold out, but still I wanted to be sure. Interesting, that in the official Asmodee shop it was 40 EUR, but in some nearby retailer shop - 35.50.
Then I met Vladimir, Carcassonne World champion in 2016, with his friend. I offered them to try a game
Iguazú from HABA. Vladimir won
I liked this game and actually bought it. After that we went our own ways, I wanted to try some other games and ended up at the
Zoch Verlag stand to try
Café Fatal. I sat down and waited for someone to play with me. Two people came to my table, and one of them was ... Els Bulten, Carcassonne champion from Netherlands! I recognized her, then introduced myself and we talked for some time. This game was won by our third player
First day loot of our company:
Friday and Saturday were my workdays at
Queen Games stand.
My duties were to explain the rules of the games and help people to start the game. I was responsible for "family games" stand (one of three QG stands) and explained
Hide Tide,
Metro and
Glüx. I almost lost my voice at the end of the second day! Difficult job, but I enjoyed it. Most of the time I talked in English, I used my Russian once and my country's state language Latvian once
Me at work (thanks to Benny for the photo!)
Also this time I couldn't avoid Carcassonne champions: I explained Glüx to one couple, then someone asked if he could join the game, at it was ... Martin Mojzis from Check Republic! Same procedure: I recognized him, introduce myself and we talked for a while. He told me his story: he played final game in his country and lost by 3 points. At home he looked at the final landscape picture once again and realized that one of his cloisters wasn't scored! This could change things a little bit. Usually scoring of features is made by an active player, and in this situation Martin's cloister was completed by his opponent, but points weren't calculated (not intentionally, as Martin thinks). Martin tried to appeal, but organizers declined his appeal. Suddenly, HiG contacted him directly and offered a wild card for participation in World Championship due his 10th World Championship Anniversary.
On Sunday I was ready to be a substitute player, like last year, but this year it looks like every second-placer wanted to participate! There were some 10 candidates (comparing to two last year), and my chances wasn't so high. That was it, lucky draw was won by Belgium player, who is the son of actual Belgium champion. The rest could be found at the
official webpage, with all the standings. I can only add that during the final game I knew Thomasz will win, because already in the middle of the match he had complete advantage on the board. Excellent player!
I wasn't so upset of the outcome of lucky draw, as I had one additional day at the fair! I wanted to play some games, but almost all of them were sold out! That is why first day is so important! Still I bought some small games though.
Some photos of the championship participants:
USA
UK
Check republic
Italy
Poland
Final four
And, if you are still reading this, as a last word, my Essen loot (one HABA 2+ game didn't make into the photo)
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October 21, 2016, 10:51:18 AM