Disaster Helps Determine Winner

This is my first year running Ra Dice so I was a little bit nervous setting everything up, not knowing quite how it would go. One struggle I had was that I don't actually own the game, and when I tried to buy it I discovered that it is out of print and no copies were available anywhere for under $300. Thankfully I have friends with copies so I was able to bring one to the event without any trouble. It makes me wonder how many other GMs don't actually own the game they are running - probably not many!

The first heat went smoothly and as I approached the end of the heat there was one table that just wasn't getting anywhere. I wandered over to tell them that I might have to adjudicate the game, thinking that they were playing slowly. Ra Dice is usually over in 30 minutes or less, and they were nearing the hour mark. When I got there though I realized it wasn't a slow play issue, but rather a randomness issue. The Pharaoh track was full, everyone had their Nile track nearly full and flooded, and the monuments were full. The players were rolling frantically and passing the dice quickly, but they just never managed to roll suns, and when they did they were rolling three of them and scoring points.

Finally my heat was starting in the next event and I told them I had to adjudicate. All four players asked me if they could continue playing, and I decided that since everyone clearly wanted to finish up and they should only need a few more rolls to end it left I went to my heat and they finished their game.

The final scores were 66-77-79-81. 66, the distant last place, was a high enough score to *crush* every single other table in the heat. The lowest winning score in the heat was 28, and most wins were in the 30-45 range. I have never seen a score of 70 before, and 79 wasn't even enough to win. Many players might have found this game frustrating but all four at the table had a blast, which is certainly the most important thing.

Throughout the tournament people asked me what it would take to advance to the quarterfinals. I figured that a single win would be on the cusp, and so I told people that. It turns out that when the quarterfinals started I only had 48 people on hand, including a person with two 2nd place finishes but no win. It seems that anyone with a win was definitely in! As such we had 12 tables in the QF, 4 tables of 3 in the SF, and a 4 player final.

At that final table were twins, Michael and Matthew Thiessen, Faith Wobbeking, as well as Anna Sanverdine in her first final table appearance ever.

Throughout the final game Matthew had to cope with rolling 1-2 suns every turn. His point total was in the middle of the pack in spite of it all, but the dice clearly wanted the game to end and were against him winning it. Michael, on the other hand, used excellent Ra Dice strategy and didn't roll suns. He pushed the Nile track hard and reaped huge gains by flooding in all three eras. Anna was behind in the other tracks but dominated the Pharaoh track the entire game and made most of her point gains there. Faith struggled throughout the game with dice coming out in poor combinations and was substantially behind when the final turns of the game rolled around.

On the third last turn of the game it looked like Michael was going to coast to victory. He rated to score up 11 Nile points on the last turn and win by a solid 10. However, things did not go his way. Faith rolled a disaster on her turn and blew up all the floods on the Nile. With only 2 suns left to go in the game, Matthew called for a flood to get his Nile up and running again and suns to end the game. He got his flood and a single sun. Anna took her last turn, grabbed a few more points in monuments, and with a single sun it was over with Michael not able to get even a single turn to try to flood his Nile again.

When it was all said and done Anna snuck out a victory by a single point, beating the twins 37 / 36 / 36. Michael's sure victory evaporated in the face of a disaster, but he still hung on to second place. Faith finished back of the pack at 23.

It isn't often that flooding a second time to ensure against disasters is the right play, but if he had managed it Michael would have snagged victory here as he had points to spare. Congratulations to Anna on her first 1st place finish at WBC!