euphrat & tigris  

Updated 11/29/2008

2008 WBC Report    

 2009 Status: pending 2009 GM commitment

Alfred Smith, NC

2008 Champion

Offsite Links

  GM Site

Event History
1999    John Kilbride     77
2000    Chetan Radia     49
2001    Aaron Fuegi     66
2002    Jeff Cornett     66
2003    Lance Ribeiro     47
2004    Aran Warszawski     44
2005    Matt Calkins     53
2006    Jeff Cornett     38
2007     Aaron Fuegi     41
2008     Alfred Smith     43

Euro Quest Event History
2003    Joe Bellizzi     22
2004     Scott Buckwalter     21
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Jeff Cornett       FL    08     98
  2.  Aaron Fuegi        MA    08     70
  3.  Craig Moffit       NJ    08     54
  4.  John Kilbride      PA    03     42
  5.  Ananda Gupta       MD    00     42
  6.  Chetan Radia       UK    00     40
  7.  Rob Kilroy         PA    08     36
  8.  Matt Calkins       VA    08     32
  9.  Aran Warszawski   ISRL   04     30
 10.  Lance Ribeiro      NH    03     30
 11.  Joe Bellizzi       NJ    03     24
 12.  Frank Hamrick      NC    01     24
 13.  Alfred Smith       NC    08     20
 14.  Eric Freeman       PA    06     20
 15.  Scott Buckwalter   MD    04     20
 16.  Ann Cornett        FL    04     18
 17.  Jeff Evich         MD    04     16
 18.  Mark Guttag        VA    03     16
 19.  Pat Beaudoin       PA    01     16
 20.  Daniel Eppolito    CA    07     12
 21.  Brian Stone        NY    05     12
 22.  Lucimara Martins   MD    04     12
 23.  Mario Lanza        PA    04     12
 24.  Will Wible         VA    02     12
 25.  Luke Moffit        NJ    01     12
 26.  Stu Hendrickson    VA    00     12
 27.  Bruce Glassco      VA    99     12
 28.  Thomas Wojke       PA    05      9
 29.  James Hopkin       CA    99      9
 30.  Deniz Bucak        PA    07      8
 31.  Jack Jaeger        VA    04      8
 32.  Steve Brooks       FL    00      8
 33.  Brad Sherwood      PA    07      6
 34.  Jeff Pounder       ON    05      6
 35.  Marty Hoff         TX    04      6
 36.  Haim Hochboim     ISRL   04      6
 37.  John Kerr          VA    03      6
 38.  Brian Reynolds     MD    03      6
 39.  Doug Smith         PA    02      6
 40.  Andrew Greene      VA    04      4
 41.  Ivan Lawson        MD    03      4
 42.  Geoff Engelstein   NJ    04      3
 43.  Mark Neale         RI    03      3
 44.  Jason Levine       NY    02      3
 45.  Kevin Wojtasczcyk  NY    99      3
 46.  Joshua Ostrander   NY    07      2
 47.  Jarett Weintraub   NY    06      2
 48.  Marshall Phillips  VA    04      2
 49.  Doug Hoylman       MD    03      2
       

2008 Laurelists                                              Repeating Laurelists 

Jeff Cornett, FL
2nd

Craig Moffitt, NJ
3rd

Rob Kilroy, PA
4th

Aaron Fuegi, MA
5th

Matt Calkins, VA
6th


Past Winners

John Kilbride, PA
1999

Chetan Radia, UK
2000

Aaron Fuegi, MA
2001, 2007

Jeff Cornett, FL
2002, 2006

Lance Ribeiro, NH
2003

Aran Warszawski, Israel
2004

Matt Calkins. VA
2005

Alfred Smith, NC
2008


 

Roderick Lee, Jeff Cornett and Tom deMarco in a Preliminary round contest.

E&T was voted Legacy status this year after ten years of consistent performance.

Acquiring Civilization ...

Membership voting returned Reiner Kniza's tile placing masterpiece Euphrat & Tigris to the convention as a Trial event for the second straight year. A demonstration session and the Saturday start option helped attendance pick up slightly, however support from fans of the game will again be required for 2009.

The tournament used a rules variant to balance the advantage of the first two players. Instead of their normal two actions, the first two players received only one action for the first turn only. For the elimination rounds, the higher seeded player was offered the choice of playing first or third. The distribution of wins for four-player games was three wins (19%), five wins (31%), five wins (31%), and three wins (19%) for players moving first through fourth, respectively. Overall, the change was well received and will remain in place next year.

Eleven winners plus the best second place result from the preliminary heats rounded out three semi-final tables. In the first semi-final, perennial finalist Rob Kilroy edged out prior champion Matt Calkins despite being stuck with one action as the second player. Top qualifier Derk Solko started with two actions as the third player, but finished last. In the second semi-final, Janet Otteg also chose the dual actions as the third player, but finished last. Instead, GM Craig Moffitt beat defending champion Aaron Fuegi. Two-time champion Jeff Cornett won the last semi-final as the third player. Alfred Smith finished second and advanced to the Final over Aaron and Matt on the strength of his "percent of composite score" tiebreaker.

Turn order preferences for the Final were similar to earlier rounds. Jeff had first choice and selected third player. Craig (1st), Rob (2nd), and Albert (4th) rounded out the championship table. Craig and Rob used their only first round action to start kingdoms with their black leader in the southwest and eastern parts of the board. Instead of starting new kingdoms, Jeff used his two actions to drop his Green and Blue leaders into Craig's and Rob's. Albert was content to setup by himself in the unoccupied northwest region.

Despite the tension, the next three rounds proceeded without conflict. Craig immediately baited a conflict with Albert by placing his green leader on the northwestern corner treasure, but Albert ignored him and expanded towards the center. Rob sought to regain control of the blue in his kingdom by placing his blue leader in the northeast corner treasure and expanding down on the 3/4 of monument river spaces. Jeff further mixed it up with Rob by dropping his red leader into the eastern kingdom, while building 3/4 of a green monument with his lonely green leader.

Action heated up in the fifth round with our first monuments, conflicts, and catastrophes. Rob merged to attack Jeff's farmer and build a Blue/Black monument on the river. Jeff countered by using a catastrophe on Rob's farmer's only Temple and winning an external conflict between their Kings to gain full control of the monument. In the south, Jeff finished the Green/Blue monument he was planning and scored several green points. Control of the blue half of this monument shifted rapidly as the players used catastrophes and internal conflicts.

The first major merger between the starting kingdoms saw Craig win conflicts against Albert with his Farmer and Kings and briefly had full control of the southern kingdom. This conflict also dislodged Jeff's Trader from the monument to briefly give Craig control of both colors. Albert returned his King to the board with an internal conflict against Jeff's to claim part of the eastern monument. Meanwhile, Rob struggled to find a strong home for his leaders.

The endgame was marked by a pivotal struggle among the large red kingdoms. Since no red monument was built, the players still needed red points for a balanced score. First, instead of risking a defeat that would have given Jeff five reds, Rob repositioned his last leader on the board into the corner. Craig moved his Priest into the south and maneuvered his Trader to break up some of Jeff's support. However, it was Albert who scored the bonanza of red points by having enough Temples in his hand to defeat against Jeff's Priest. Afterwards, Jeff merged the southern and western kingdoms. Albert won the red conflict again, this time by one tile. In the end, Albert was victorious with a score of 8-8-16-18; Jeff was second with 7-8-8-9 (6 red plus a treasure), Craig finished third with 7-7-9-10 (four red plus three treasures), and Rob had 5-6-6-6.

Next year, pending event status, the 1/1/2/2 action rules variant will be kept. In retrospect, the "percent of composite score" tiebreaker used was cumbersome to calculate and non-intuitive. The "margin of victory" tiebreaker will be used instead next year, easily calculated as the number of hypothetical treasures needed to pass the winner's score. For example, if the winner has 9-9-9-9 then 8-9-10-12 would win with one additional treasure and 6-7-8-17 would need six. The GM
would like to thank everyone for their votes and participation and looks forward to more next year.

 GM      Craig Moffit [4th Year]  NA
    tigriscraig@gmail.com   NA 

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