Ticket to Ride 20th Anniversary World Tournament

[Rwain]

Or start on jan 15, no overlap and 10 extra days for 2 more rounds
And still 15 days to prepare semifinal because you will know the classified players on jan 1

That's exactly what I suggested to Days Of Wonders. This would not affect the period between semi-finals and real final, leaving DoW with the necessary amount of time to organize everything for players to come to Paris.
And that would leave 15 days to check the eligibility of qualified players. It might be the best option for an extension of the semi-finals.

[Rwain]

Almost two weeks after the start of the Ticket to Ride 20th Anniversary Tournament, I think it's about time to present some numbers that illustrate what a unique tournament it is !

1. 3601

That's the number of registrations in the 8 qualifying tournaments of this first phase ! At first, we only planned for 4 qualifying tournaments : one for European Time, one for Eastern Time, one for Pacific Time and one for China Time... but it took less than a week for the European tournament to get full !



So we decided to create another European tournament... we did not want to frustrate players who wanted to be part of this event... but soon we had to create a third one, and a fourth... along with a second Eastern Time tournament !
In the end, even the China Time and Pacific Time became full... but a bit too late for us to create a second one for these timezones.

• 3060

That's the number of players involves in our tournaments. Despite our efforts to alert everyone of the specific rules of our qualifying tournaments, 289 players registered in more than one tournament. That's only 8% of the players. Some of them did it on purpose, arguing that they had no chance to reach the semifinal, others realised too late that there were specific rules.
Anyway, you still are more than 3 thousands who have joined our tournament, and that's very nice to see the vibrating passion for Ticket to Ride 20 years after its release ! So thank you for joining, and I hope you all have fun !

• 2667

That's the number of games played in the first two rounds of our tournaments ! 2667 games played in 10 days... 266 games a day... around 11 games per hour ! Impossible to follow everything, correct ?

• 786

That's the number of the highest ELO in all tournaments. Quite a high ELO rating ! A number that will certainly frightens all players who will have the bad luck to face it... And who is behing this highest number ? He is from Germany, and he will terrorize players of the Central European Tournament 2 : Schwen84 !

The start of his tournament is a no surprise : 2 matches, 2 wins... and for the third round, he is playing against Xharyn, ELO : 262... the issue seems written in advance, but who knows ? In Ticket to Ride, nothing can be certain !

• 633

That's the number of the highest ELO who left our tournament after two rounds. 633 vs 207, the odds were in favour of Mad Pete for his second game in the tournament...

but that's not how a Ticket to Ride game works ! Zwergenpunk took his chance and played a full game to create the surprise of these first 10 days, defeating an opponent who had 1 866 victories on BGA ! Was it a lucky shot, or is it the start of a wonderful road to the semi-final for Zwergenpunk ?

• 1024

That's... hum.. that was the number of players still in the running at the start of round 3... (as the round 3 started two days ago, lots of matches already came to their end...) for only 60 tickets for the semi-finals ! The road is still long for those who want to win their ticket.
If you're one of them, good luck to you ! I will come back soon for a summary of round 3 ! Stay tuned

[speedypuzzlement]

The highlighted game piqued my interest, so I wrote some commentary.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=596370846

Moves 1-75: Zwergenpunk played a brilliant opening, claiming the 6-black as telegraphed by the first face-up draw. The timing was perfect: as the player going second, striking with 38 cards in hand guarantees 11 routes even against an opponent going at maximum speed. Striking earlier is also tempting, but Zwergenpunk's patience ensured that Pete had minimal time to adjust.

Moves 76-88: Both players took risks in the race for the 6-orange but again Zwergenpunk struck first, pulling ahead.

Moves 89+: Logical continuations for both players. Zwergenpunk wins 128 vs 50, but Pete could have claimed Calgary to Winnipeg with 6 locomotives (!!) on move 94. Below are two example lines, which would have narrowed the margin of victory to 122 vs 112.

95: Zwergenpunk draws
96: Pete claims Calgary to Seattle (4 orange)
97: Zwergenpunk claims St. Marie to Winnipeg (6 white)
98: Pete claims Helena to Seattle (6 yellow)
99: Zwergenpunk claims Toronto to St. Marie (2 blue)
100: Pete claims Helena to Omaha (5 red)
101: Zwergenpunk claims Helena to Winnipeg (4 blue)
(final round)
102: Pete claims El Paso to Phoenix (3 green)
103: Zwergenpunk claims any 1-route

95: Zwergenpunk claims Calgary to Seattle (4 white)
96: Pete claims Calgary to Helena (4 orange)
97: Zwergenpunk claims St. Marie to Winnipeg (6 blue)
98: Pete claims Helena to Omaha (5 red)
99: Zwergenpunk draws
100: Pete claims Helena to Seattle (6 yellow)
101: Zwergenpunk claims Toronto to St. Marie (2 white)
(final round)
102: Pete claims El Paso to Phoenix (3 green)
103: Zwergenpunk claims any 1-route

[Goldeneye]

ELO doesn't tell the true story at all, especially if the player in question doesn't play on BGA often or usually plays it in another format (with/without 1910 and if that players usually plays this more often in 2er, 3er, 4er or 5er), etc.

It might be those who have been involved in previous tournaments (including the 2014 10th Anniversary World Championship) that may be the major players here... We will know for certain by the time the 60 semifinalists are determined...

[Elric_S]

That's exactly what I suggested to Days Of Wonders. This would not affect the period between semi-finals and real final, leaving DoW with the necessary amount of time to organize everything for players to come to Paris.
And that would leave 15 days to check the eligibility of qualified players. It might be the best option for an extension of the semi-finals.

Hello Rwain, +1 for more games to decrease the chance effect... thx for your help

Btw, is there an issue with the matches of the 4th round ? I can't enter in my game here : https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=601331597&nr, while it should have been open since 10 am this morning...

[Rwain]

Yes it seems something is not going well in the CET tournament. I don’t know why matches don’t start....

[Belgiangrump]

Exactly... My game is one of those in CET#2 where we can't seem to enter our game. I hope it gets fixed soon. It does seem it's not all games because i spotted a couple with 0% progress.

[Elric_S]

Yes it seems something is not going well in the CET tournament. I don’t know why matches don’t start....

Thx for the quick answer... cross fingers that it won't be too long...

[Elric_S]

For Rwain again (or anyone concerned) :
Maybe a clue for the investigation ? : all players who qualified with the clock limit (last results with 1-0) have their game started... any of the other players haven't got it (sorry for my rusty english ).
At least, it's the case in my tournament : CET#2 (5 players are in this case)

[Sysyphus]

Yeah it seems like only the games including players who qualified automatically due the clock running out are the ones that are open