Author Topic: Qualifications for French Championship  (Read 13840 times)

Offline Jéré

  • Chatelain
  • ******
  • Posts: 1187
  • Merit: 62
    • View Profile
Qualifications for French Championship
« on: March 29, 2015, 12:30:54 PM »

Today, there was a tournament at Ludinord event in Lille, France.  I played 3 games:  first round, semi-final and final. I won all 3 and qualified for the French Championship in Paris. It was quite tough to reach the final as I had to win two 5-player games!

Full report and pictures will follow later this week. I am still traveling at the moment.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1646.0

Offline quevy

  • Duke Chevalier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 1820
  • Merit: 105
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2015, 12:40:23 PM »
 :(y) :(y) :(y)
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

  • Global Moderator
  • Chatelain Officier
  • *
  • Posts: 4682
  • Merit: 127
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2015, 12:45:45 PM »
Hi Jere,
great.
That means you go to Paris for the national Championship.

Offline jma03

  • Count
  • **
  • Posts: 308
  • Merit: 6
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2015, 12:50:29 PM »
Jere well , did not expect less from you¡¡¡¡n  ;D
Congratulations and good luck to win the championship .
 :meeple:
When you lose, do not look at what you lost, but what's left to win ..

Offline jungleboy

  • Viscount Chevalier
  • ****
  • Posts: 3045
  • Merit: 89
  • Nine points!
    • View Profile
    • Spirit of the Camino
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2015, 02:09:26 PM »
Great news Jéré! Good luck in the national championships!

Offline Chooselife

  • Viscount
  • ****
  • Posts: 629
  • Merit: 25
  • Just Ask
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2015, 02:27:30 PM »
Félicitations  :(y) :(y)
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother;

Offline DLloyd09

  • Vassal
  • *****
  • Posts: 91
  • Merit: 2
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2015, 07:13:59 PM »
Congratulations, Jéré!

Offline MrNumbers

  • Duke Chevalier
  • *
  • Posts: 1830
  • Merit: 91
    • View Profile
    • Carcassonne Latvia
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2015, 12:00:54 AM »
Congratulations, Jéré! :(y)
It is not easy to win in 5-player game (twice!). Good luck in the National championship!
"I never lose. Either I win or I learn." (Nelson Mandela)

Offline danisthirty

  • (not thirSty!)
  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand-Croix
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6940
  • Merit: 293
  • "First to 4 points wins?"
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2015, 05:19:29 AM »
I can't say I'm surprised, but well done and many congratulations! Good luck at the next stage of the competition...

Offline Hounk

  • Baron
  • *****
  • Posts: 965
  • Merit: 15
  • I haven't updated my profile yet!
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2015, 02:47:46 PM »
Congratulations from me, too.  :(y)

Offline Jéré

  • Chatelain
  • ******
  • Posts: 1187
  • Merit: 62
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2015, 03:33:29 AM »
As promised, here is my report of the event. It was on Sunday March 29th in Lille, France.

Location

First, a few words about the exceptional location of the tournament. Where would be the best place to play Carcassonne?  Well, inside the fortifications of a French city of course! Tournament matches were played in a room of the Fort de Mons, a fort built between 1878 and 1880 (ok it's not medieval but that's a small detail :P), sold by the French Army to the city in 1972, then renovated and open to the public in 1984. Now, inside the fort you can find the municipal library, an exhibition room, a music school, a multimedia centre, a restaurant, a pub and an open air theatre.

Some pictures I took:











The tournament

Format of the tournament was the following:  We were 20 participants divided in 4 tables of 5 players for the first round. 1st and 2nd of each game would then form 2 tables (4 players per table) for the semi-final (others are eliminated). Winners of the two semi-finals would battle in the final to be declared the champion whilst the two 2nd places would fight for the 3rd and 4th position. Only the base game was used for the competition.

I previously said that I won two 5-player games.. that's is because something happened in the first round that the organisers didn't really expect.

About the level of the participants. I think some where quite good but there were also lots of casual Carcassonne players and a few beginners too. But due to the format of the competition, I thought that it could be challenging even for good players to reach the final. So many things can happen in a 5-player game!

There was a special rule for this tournament that I had never tried before, and I really liked it! Players had to choose from 3 face-up tiles layed on the table instead of picking a random one. I believe that it reduces a bit the luck factor and increases the strategic aspect of the game. You can try to anticipate which of the remaining tiles your opponent will pick and choose that one just to screw your opponent's plan.

For obvious reasons, I don't really know what happened on the other tables. Though I heard that one table really screwed up the rules! If there was a tie for the majority of a feature, they divided the points by the number of players instead of allocating the full amount to all participating players. They were unsure and didn't ask any officials so it's their fault.


My matches

First Round

The first game was the most difficult, surprisingly. I had the feeling everybody played carefully and in kind of a friendly manner because it was the first game and I guess nobody wanted to be labelled as the nasty player too early. I think I played well, even won the main field and the game finished as a draw for the first place!

63 Yellow (me)
63 Black
60 Blue
43 Green
34 Red





Organisers didn't expect this situation to happen and decided that both 1st places would move on to the semi-final as well as the 2nd position, so a total of 3 players instead of normally just 2.

Semi-final

Normally, 8 players would be divided in 2 tables of 4 players but because of the tie for 1st place at my table, we were 9 to move one to semi-final. I was assigned to the 5-player table and played with the Red meeples this time.

Among the players at my table, there was one that I identified as a potential menace as he was quite agressive claiming the fields at the beginning at the game. I was quite worried about that as the field he claimed with 2 followers was to become the main field but then I saw an opportunity to trap followers and, at the same time, seriously reduce the number of points he would get for that field. It was a difficult decision because the trapped followers included one of mine but it was in the part of the city worth the most points so I decided to do it. It turned out to be a very good decision because later I blocked another city and, at the end, that main field was worth... zero points. Mouahahahaha (evil laugh). I won the game relatively easily.

64 Red (me)
38 Black
35 Green
29 Yellow
25 Blue






Final

Sigh of relief... the final is a duel, one-on-one, which I much prefer so I was super happy I went through the previous rounds.



The game started with a fight for a HUGE city, but I decided to withdraw my troops from the battle with a "city splitter" tile and try to trap her 3 meeples in there. I knew she would get a lot of points for that uncompleted city at the end of the game but I took the chance. Actually, I think that big unfinished city are quite valuable in a 2-player game with only the base game. However, 3 trapped meeples is a big handicap, plus an extra (bonus) meeple got trapped as well because she didn't manage to get a fccc tile to finish her cloister. I trapped another of her meeple by completely surrounding it with roads, yes that's right, a closed field with no cities at all. I was a bit astonished I managed to do that in a final, normally it's the kind of trick one can use against beginners... I think that indicates that it is not necessarily the best players that reach the final which such a format (multiplayer games). So, with 5 trapped meeples and whilst I was scoring smaller cities and placing farmers in the fields, my opponent has never been able to recover.

Final score:

126 Yellow (me)
 68 Blue
 



 
Interview of the winner




Getting my prize. A boardgame called Colt Express. Looks fun.
(https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/158899/colt-express)




What's next? (hum.. nothing)

By winning the tournament, I automatically qualified for the French National Championships that will be held in Paris in June. However, there is one little problem: I'm not French and I'm not a resident of France either so that means I can possibly participate (to be confirmed...) but for sure I cannot be declared the champion if I win. All things considered, better not go there to be the troublemaker ;)
« Last Edit: April 10, 2015, 03:38:31 AM by Jéré »

Offline danisthirty

  • (not thirSty!)
  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand-Croix
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6940
  • Merit: 293
  • "First to 4 points wins?"
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2015, 03:57:05 AM »
Thanks for this. Merit for your great report, and photos too...  :(y)

Congratulations again on your victory. This makes me feel better about losing to you on iOS so often!  :)

Offline Chooselife

  • Viscount
  • ****
  • Posts: 629
  • Merit: 25
  • Just Ask
    • View Profile
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2015, 04:04:55 AM »
Nicely done.
Congrats!  :(y) :(y)

Offline Paul

  • Marquis Chevalier
  • ***
  • Posts: 2491
  • Merit: 86
    • View Profile
    • sydby.com
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2015, 04:21:27 AM »
Beautiful outdoors location spots.

I'd like to see more photos such as these from where everyone is right now. Go out and take a photo or two and post them in a new thread called Photos where I live. I'll be sure to do the same!
World record holder for a single game of Carcassonne using 10 007 tiles!

Offline Decar

  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand Officier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6719
  • Merit: 317
  • Shut up and take my money!
    • View Profile
    • tehill.net
Re: Qualifications for French Championship
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2015, 08:18:18 AM »
Thanks Jéré a great run down of what you had to go through!  A merit to you for sharing :)


Share via delicious Share via digg Share via facebook Share via furl Share via linkedin Share via myspace Share via reddit Share via stumble Share via technorati Share via twitter

  Subject / Started by Replies / Views Last post
xx
French National Championship

Started by Jéré

22 Replies
7383 Views
Last post July 05, 2016, 08:36:35 PM
by Rich_The_Fish
clip
Carcassonne French Championship

Started by oldbonz

30 Replies
3849 Views
Last post September 23, 2022, 09:12:19 AM
by oldbonz
xx
Little buldings French rules

Started by yimhj

5 Replies
7520 Views
Last post May 15, 2014, 12:16:29 AM
by jungleboy
xx
WTB Winter Edition French version

Started by Alexio

2 Replies
1799 Views
Last post May 22, 2018, 12:45:32 PM
by Alexio
xx
French version of the fan-made expansions rules in pdf

Started by Gagoune

29 Replies
5902 Views
Last post March 03, 2021, 04:45:28 PM
by Gagoune