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Allen Hill vs Roy Gibson |
Kevin Emery meets 2011 champ Richad
Beyma in the semifinals. |
Finns Again Take the Early Team
Lead ...
A substantial downturn in attendance caused a drop in the
number of rounds played. Consequently, the tournament consisted
of three swiss rounds to advance the top eight to single elimination.
The tie breaker was points based on countries played with the
lesser played countries from 2012 worth more. Each player was
only allowed to play each of eight different countries once throughout
the tournament.
During the swiss rounds, we played in a pod where you played
all three other players in your pod; this was done to move the
rounds along quickly without having to wait for the slowest game
to finish before starting the next. Two of the people who had
been 2-1 managed to be included in the top eight. The countries
played balanced out more as France and Russia were played 21
times, but only the US was played less than 13. Points for playing
countries based on playing last year have changed things considerably.
The W-L records for the countries in winning percentage order
are Spain 5-1, Prussia 7-4, Ottoman Empire 6-4, France 5-4, Britain
6-5, Austria 6-6, Russia 1-10, and United States 0-2.
The single elimination rounds saw very strong competitors
advance as four formr semifinalists and two former champions
returned.
All four quarterfinals were British/French matchups with an
even split between the two sides. The results were as follows:
Mikko Raimi's French defeated John Emery's British.
Kevin Emery's British defeated Brad Raszewski's French.
Richard Beyma's British defeated Allen Hill's French.
Nathan Hill's French defeated Mike Shea's British.
The four semifinalists have shown year in and year out to
be strong in this tournament. Interestingly, three of the four
are adult sons of long time gamers.
Defending champ Mikko's British defeated Nathan's Spanish
to prevent Nathan from advancing to the last round for the third
year in a row. Kevin's French bested Richard's Ottoman's.
The Final was just a one game match again. Kevin had the Russians,
Spanish and US left to play. Mikko had the Russians, Ottomans,
and US left to play. Neither wanted to play the US, so the die
roll before the game even started was very important. Mikko won
the roll and selected Russians so Kevin took the Spanish. After
a long close fought battle night fell, the Spanish had managed
to get five units into Russian territory while the Russians only
had two units but they penetrated further behind the lines which
resulted in a tied score of 7-7. The first tie breaker is losses
and that was tied 1-1. The next tie breaker was reduced units
which the Spanish had one. Therefore, Mikko's Russians won, making
him the first two-time champion and confirming it was another
trip from Finland.
The tie-breaker points for next year will be very different:
1-Spain; 2-Ottoman, Prussia; 3-Austria, Britian, France; 5-Russia;
7-US
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Nathan Hill again falls in the semifinals
to defending champ Mikko Raimi. |
GM Andy Lewis watches champion Raimi
turn back Kevin Emery in the Final. |
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