Quick Diplomacy
Web
of Power started life as Kardinal & Konig. It
was designed by Michael Schacht and was published in 2000 by
the German publisher Goldsieber. The English edition was published
by Jay Tummelson and Rio Grande Games. (Thanks, Jay!) It has
been a favorite of mine since I first played it early on at a
Gathering of Friends, and I have wanted it to be a WBC tournament
since that time. So I signed up as a volunteer GM before the
December window for voting in new Century games, hoping that
enough others would share my interest. Alas, WOP was only able
to garner enough votes to gain 18th place in the 2004 Century
voting results. But then WOP was granted a reprieve when GMT
Games, in the person of BPA Board member Andy Lewis, sponsor
ed it as a trial tournament. (Thanks, Andy!)
The tournament was run in two three-hour heats, allowing enough
time to play three games in succession per heat. To advance to
the semi-final, players had to win two games out of the six opportunities
to play. Alternates would be the players who had won one game,
and would be ranked according to their percentage of board's
total points for their win. And it would be a "B" tournament,
with a demo session to be held at Café Jay's. The demo
was held in the earliest possible slot (6:00 PM Tuesday), and
was attended by four newbies and one veteran who wanted a refresher.
The first heat started at 9:00 PM that night, and was attended
by 25 players. There were six games played in the first set.
Ray Pfeifer won at his table with 47 points, which was the lowest
winning score in the entire tournament. David Gantt won in the
tightest bunching of all the four-player games in the tournament
with only nine points separating 1st and 4th. In the second set
of games David Gantt and Jason Matthews became the first two
to qualify for the semi-final by each getting their second wins.
In the third set of games Andy Lewis and Roderick Lee each got
their second wins, with Roderick winning his game with the highest
total points (71) in all the four-player games and the largest
lead over the runner-up (22 points) of all the games in the tournament.
So at the end of the first heat there were four qualifiers for
the semifinals, with Ray Pfeifer and John Kerr as the leading
alternates.
The second heat took place on Saturday at 9:00 AM, and was
attended by 11 players, four of whom had also played in the first
heat. In the first set, Bill Beckman got his second win in the
game that had the most total points scored (221). In the second
set, Bill got his third win in the 3-player game with the tightest
bunching at five points between 1st and 3rd places. And in the
third set, Steve Simmons and Ray became the final two qualifiers
by each winning their second game. At the end of the second heat
there were a total of seven qualifiers and ten alternates.
Six qualifiers and four alternates posted for the semi-final.
After deciding to take nine of the ten players for three three-player
games, and crunching the winning percentages, I determined that
I (whose Team Tournament game was WOP) was the one alternate
who would not get to play! At one board, Travis St-Denis was
able to come back from a poor showing in the 2nd round cloister
scoring to win with a huge score in advisors to win over Jason
and Bill. Andrew Greene beat Ray and John by holding off a surge
of advisor points by Ray to win by one point. And Steve led Roderick
and Andy throughout their game to win with 74 points, the highest
total of all the games in the tournament.
In the final, Steve and Andrew were tied at 14 points and
Travis had seven after the first scoring of cloisters. During
the second half, Andrew concentrated nearly exclusively on cloisters
and led Steve by 47 to 35 after the second scoring of cloisters.
Andrew was the only one to score any cloister chains; scoring
three for four points each. And though Travis scored 24 points
(for a total of 51) and Steve scored 18 points (for a total of
53) to Andrew's zero points in advisors, neither total was enough
to beat Andrew's total of 59 points to take the first ever WOP
plaque.
Looking at the comparison of seating position to finishing
position for the 16 four-player games played, the first seat
finished first or third five times each and second only twice.
The second seat finished first six times and last only once.
The third seat finished last six times and first four times.
And the player starting last only won once, but finished second
six times and last five times. The results for the 13 three-player
games were even more interesting: The first seat had the most
wins (6), the second seat had the most seconds (6), and the third
seat had the most thirds (7).
Although Web of Power may be offered at WBC in 2005 as a Continuing
Trial, I hope that everyone interested in playing this game next
year will remember to register for BPA before December 31st and
vote to help raise it up to Century status. Thanks to all who
took the time to attend, and thanks to Don and the Board for
putting on such a great convention. See you next year in Lancaster!
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