Ticket to Ride 20th Anniversary World Tournament

[Knockando]

I never knew how to find out the tiebreaker in tournaments.

You have to go to the page of the tournament, and then click on the "+" button (which doesn't work when you are on your game page)

[smartin23]

You have to go to the page of the tournament, and then click on the "+" button (which doesn't work when you are on your game page)

Yep, that is what I find out because of Rwain's picture

But what about the "opponent points". As far as I can see, it is also a tiebreaker?

[Qorlas]

Opponent points is the first tiebreaker, then second BGA ELO.

For example... we played last round. So for our wins we get 1 opponent point for each win. Currently I will give you 2 points and you give me 1 point

[smartin23]

I forgot that it was the first tie-breaker. Thank you for explaining.

[Rwain]

Round 2 is coming to its end ! Only one game still running. That means that we know 14 of the 15 players with a 2 - 0 start !

The first to get his second victory in the semifinals was....
Olimpionik !

Olimpionik was opposed to a very strong player, member of the italian squad, dandee15... These two players display an ELO above 700, that shows the level of this game.
dandee15 had the start, and two destinations that seemed to match a little : Helena - LA and Winnipeg - Little Rock (19 pts)... but Olimpionik kept a ticket that worth more than dandee's pair : Vancouver - Montreal (20 pts), associated with Denver - Pittsburgh. After a long serie of blind draws, dandee15 chose to open with LA - El Paso.... spending 3 locomotives in this first move ! Dandee15 identified this route as a key route for him, and was ready to be less flexible in the last part of the game (only 2 locomotives left in hand). That must have been welcomed by Olimpionik, who had few interest in the south, and who saw his opponent spending a lot for a route he could deal without.
A sign of this : he chose to draw in the river right after dande15's claim : yellow and purple, no fear to show his interest in the northern part of the map. Olimpionik stayed patient, and then unfolded his game : Seattle - Helena, then Duluth - Toronto... (for those who might wonder why he did not claim Helena - Duluth before, just know that he had 9 orange in hand.... not much chance that dandee15 could claim it !)
Denver - Pittsburgh was soon completed, and with big points ! Dandee15 tried to disturb and score in the north, to prevent Olimpionik's easy road to victory... but he was one step behind.... and he understood it quite quickly, trying a "lucky shot" in his last move : drawing three destination. It worked for BalduvianHorde against thekid... but it doesn't work often, and this time, dandee15 could not get a completed ticket.



Thanks to this victory, Olimpionik was the first to get the 1st place of the ranking post round 2. 2 games, 2 victories, a nice start that makes him part of the favorites to reach Paris...

Who are the 14 others two-time winners ?
In the upper part of the ranking, it seems that only very strong players are still there... Not many suprise in the list... And among those top players, there are 3 of them who seem invincible : after 11 games in our tournaments, they remain undefeated ! Who are those 3 champions ?
will_will, who defeated LeGoupil in a close game : 101 - 91
ommie32, who crushed Acebano 126 - 70
And finally...
https://x.boardgamearena.net/data/avata ... bbcb6c3cf2 SuperPello ! Our CET1 champion had a tough game against Micalis, the CET4 champion : 111 - 103 (and maybe more details soon if I find the time to write a bit more about this round 2 top game)

Micalis ad it close to stay undefeated too... but SuperPello was too strong... However, this close loss shows that Micalis stay a player who can pretend to a good ranking in this semifinal, and this defeat does not end his hope to reach the final...
And he is not the only champion who lost his invincibility in this round 2 ! Knockando and chooosen also lost for the first time in this round 2.
It's not a big surprise for Knockando, who was opposed to a very strong player in this round : Schwen84. A good pair of destination tickets, a game well handled, and some hesitation to try a block for the CET3 champion lead to Schwen84's win : 130 - 114.
It's more a surprise for chooosen, who seemed the big favourite of his game against nyan-cat (ELO 446), and who suffered a big loss : 128 - 56 ! nyan-cat. A nice feat for nyan-cat, who was not expected amongst the 15 best players of the semifinals. And yet, after a victory over a solid italian player in round 1, Gattivo4, he now adds a win against a tournament's champion to his records !

nyan-cat is the surprise player of the upper part of the ranking. Will he manage to add a third victory next week ?

After Eichi05 (who avoids the worst after his first defeat, with a victory against GeoPiglet in round2), Knockando and chooosen knew their first defeat, and those three champions will join the middle part of the ranking amongst the 30 players to display a 1 - 1 sheet. Their next game might be played under pressure !
And for now, we do not know if our last tournament champion, Exalted Angel, will join them in this middle part, or if he will stay undefeated, as it's his game against Pechnik that is still running.

[dandee15]

Olimpionik had the start

[Rwain]

Oh ! Sorry for this mistake ! I will modify soon asap.

Regarding round2, it finally came to its end a few minutes ago, with the victory of Exalted Angel against Pechnik : 121 - 96. That makes ExaltedAngel the 4th undefeated player in this 20th Anniversary Tournament, thanks to Vancouver - Montreal combined with Houston - Kansas City (a dead ticket ?) He started with almost a perfect rainbow, except in orange with 7 cards, once Pechnik opened the game with Miami - New Orleans. Not the classic opening in the tournament, as it might give too much information to your opponent (LA - Miami in preparation ?).... Maybe not ! A surprising move followed : 6 green for Winnipeg - Sault Ste Marie... Definitelt no LA - Miami (who would spend his green in the north when Houston - El Paso neeeded them ? ), we might guess for Toronto - Miami... and this is something else, as Toronto - Miami is one of the slowest ticket of the game.
Exalted Angel had to answer immediately, as north was his main goal. And he did it with Toronto - Duluth. A few moves later, Exalted Angel seemed to have entire control of the game. He managed to take control of the center line : Seattle - Montreal (49 pts), and added 15 pts with Calgary - Winniped while Pechnik was struggling with small routes to link Toronto to Miami. And as Pechnik did not try to block Exalted Angel's track, he could optimize the end of the game, scoring lots of points, ensuring the longest path and ending it while Pechnik still had 5 trains in his stock.



Exalted Angel is then the 4th player to remain undefeated in this tournament, along with SuperPello, ommie32 and will_will. How long will last their success ? Can they win a 11th game in a row ? It might get harder and harder for them, as they will play against a 2 -0 player in round 3 :


Exalted Angel will be opposed to Cournot, SuperPello to G7 womble, will_will to Elric_S and ommie32 to Olimpionik, the actual leader of the ranking ! What games in perspective !

After a very close game against Bunger, Cournot took the best of Batze (the one who defeaed Eichi05) 125 - 103 ! Exalted Angel will have a tougher game here ! Just a word about bunger... we said previously that this player could surprise more than one opponent in this semifinal... yet, he lost his two first games. But ! After a 2 points loss against Cournot, he again lost for only 2 points against Diger74 !!!! That might leave him some regrets.

G7 womble is n°2 in the ranking after round 2, thanks to 2 victories against top players: pegaso74 and MorientesZL ! She is in a good serie, and will be a very strong opponent for SuperPello !

Elric_S came close to start with a loss against chucrute2000 (115 - 114), and had a tough fight against riche739 in round 2. Elric_S had to forget about scoring and to focus on a block strategy to claim the victory : 73 - 30. That's also there that we see the experience of players who know how to adapt to all situations. will_will had two clean victories in this tournament, but it will be hard for him to get a third one !

But amongst all this game, the most disputed one might be the one between ommie32 and Olimpionik.
OLIMPIONIK vs OMMIE 32
The top game of round 3 : the opposition between an undefeated champion and the leader of the semifinals !


If the tournament had to stop now, the 8 qualified players would have been :

[speedypuzzlement]

I can't wait to do some math on the tournament results. So many questions to ask:
- What is the win rate of going first / triggering the final round / winning longest path?
- What is the win rate of claiming the first route, broken down by route?
- What is the distribution of longest path? (e.g. frequency by which 39 trains win the bonus)
- What is the win rate based on the number of locomotives you draw?
- What destinations are most popular to keep?

The participants in this tournament must be more motivated than in any previous BGA tournament!

[Rwain]

What's happening here ???? What's happening to our undefeated champions ??? At the start of this third round of the Swiss semifinals, 4 players were still undefeated.... there's only one left now ! Almost all our invincible have lost in this round... except for ExaltedAngel, whose game is still running, will he resist or will he be the fourth victim of the 3rd round curse ???

The curse started with SuperPello, winner of the CET 1 tournament, one of the 10th year finalist. SuperPello was facing a player he knew well, G7 womble... and he seemed not very confident at the start of the game :

Never won with her.

SuperPello started with a nice combination of tickets : Helena - LA and Seattle - LA (17 pts) versus Sault Ste Marie - Oklahoma City and Winnipeg - Houston (21 pts). It seems quite balanced... as were their ELOS : 654 vs 655, only 1 point more for G7 womble !
SuperPello had the start... and 8 locomotives..and was the first to strike : 6 yellow for Seattle - Helena. Everything seemed quite fine at this time for our italian player, but maybe he could have hoped for more orange, black or purple.
G7 womble chose not to respond to SuperPello's first move. She kept patient and continued drawing hidden cards.
She kept patient again when SuperPello claimed LA - El Paso..
She waited till move 65 to show a bit of her intentions, taking a red and a black train card in the river, completing her hand that only contained 3 locomotives. She had to be cautious with her moves, and to find the perfect combinations for her track.
SuperPello was ahead in scoring, with a third 6 : Winnipeg - Sault Ste Marie... a very bad new for G7 womble who had to connect those 2 cities... but did she panic ? No ! She stayed quite still, doing nothing to show her opponent that she had to play north. She concentrated her efforts in the centre of the map : Duluth - Helena, Helena - Denver and then she spent 2/3 of her locomotives for Houston - El Paso !
And then she built her track, meandering from south to north... ensuring the longest path. SuperPello's move to Sault Ste Marie might have worried her a bit (maybe ?), but it also stretched his position on the map, and in the end, he could not fight for the longest path. And that made the difference. Even if SuperPello was ahead in scoring, he knew ha was beaten due to the 10 points bonus... and he tried the last hope move : "drawing 3 destination tickets"... but none was completed.



A first loss for SuperPello in this semifinals... but also the first loss since the beginning of this 20th Anniversary ! A great game from G7 womble, who became the first to reach 3 victories. A great start, that will place her in the top positions of the provisional ranking.


G7 womble will be one of the few to stay undefeated in this semifinals. Another win in round 4, and she might have a first foot in the plane for Paris !


As explained before, SuperPello was not the only champion to fall in this round. Ommie32, winner of the Pacific Tournament, also faced her first defeat. To be honest, it was not easy for her from the start : San Francisco - Atlanta and NY - Atlanta against Duluth - El Paso and Calgary - Phoenix. Big west against small east... the odds were not with her. Not against such a good player as Olimpionik, who also had the start, and quite a few locomotives !
Ommie32 tried to attract him in the south, with an early claim of LA - El Paso followed by San Francisco - LA. But Olimpionik kept focused on his own track, and "bombed" the western side of the map.



A clear victory for Olimpionik, who shows his ability to develop his game against top players in these first three games of the semifinals : he defeated consecutively Diger74 (ELO 673) ; dandee15 (ELO 724) and ommie32 (ELO 716) ! That makes him the n°1 of the ranking, and also the n°1 ELO of the tournament. He clearly is a serious candidate for a seat in Paris. And some in the upper hand of the ranking might cross fingers to avoid him in round 4 !


And finally, will_will also lost his invincibility, being defeated by Elric_S in a "strange" game where the winner thought he had lost...
Elric_S had to complete LA - Chicago and Denver - El Paso while will_will was playing east : Toronto - Miami and Chicago - New Orleans... not the best pair of tickets... maybe some of the slowest available... tickets that top players don't appreciate much in general, and so do will_will !
He doesn't like them so much that he tried to play with 2 dead tickets !
will_will played all his game as if he had western tickets, never going past Houston ! He managed to build a loop west of Helena, and to draw a nice "snake" to join Houston... and that frightened Elric_S, who could not compete for the longest path, and thought he was behind !

I saw my opponent on Cal-Pho + Dul-Hou (not sure, of course) + longest for him, so drawing at the end, when you think you are behind, is a common move, whatever the chances...
Of course, it was a delightful surprise when I discovered his combo

A delightful surprise indeed... Elric_S was so convinced he was behind that he chose to draw tickets in his last move... and got none (as it happens almost for all players who make this "desperate" last move ! 11 points loss with Winnipeg - Little Rock... but that was nothing in the end. With 17 points loss with his two dead tickets, it was almost impossible for will_will to win this game. A surprising choice, that could have suprised his opponent. In the end, it's the first defeat for will_will.



What an unusual course for Elric_S in this tournament : first , a 1 point victory against chucrute200, then, a "game of block" against riche739, where he was facing a strong combo and chose to forget about his tickets to prevent his opponent to complete his, and finally, this incredible ending against will_will.... What will happen in his 4th game ???

3 of the last 4 undefeated champions defeated... what an unexpected ending... Only one's left, but he's still struggling against Cournot at the time I'm writing. Will ExaltedAngel be the only one to stay invincible ?

For our 4 other tournaments 'champions, stories differ a lot from one to the other...
There are those who get better after their first disappointment : Knockando and Micalis soon forgot their first loss with two large victories :
Knockando won 103 - 78 against mr_snuffelupagus while Micalis won 132 - 91 against Niall. They both join the large community of 2 - 1 players and stay in the upper part of the ranking, with good chances to get their tickets to Paris.
It's not the same for Eichi05 and chooosen, who underwent a second defeat in this 3 round ! Eichi05 could do nothing against riche739 : 129 -94, while chooosen tried to develop a "block game" against LeGoupil, but could manage to develop it effectively and finally lost 115 - 89. These second defeats might be quite worrying for them, as they are falling behind the leaders, but nothing is written yet. 2 defeats are not equal to elimination, and the road is still long before the end of the semifinals.

[chooosen]

What a draw,
I got my finalist opponent in the draw ;/