Thanks mr_snuffelupagus ! And congratulations for your course in this tournament ! 5 - 4 is a nice record in such a difficult event. You were not very far from a trip to Paris !
But some other players were closer... so close that they will receive their ticket soon. Two more players are officially qualified for the finale. After Cournot, BalduvianHorde, scorps4 and will_will, congratulations to ...
DAEDIN28
The leader of the spanish team managed to qualify for the semifinals with the minimum required : a quarterfinal in the China Standard Time tournament... that he lost against OldThousand. But he forgot quite soon this defeat, starting his semifinal with 3 victories (against GeoPiglet, cannonade and scorps4)... G7 womble and Sunny369 then stopped his winning streak. It could have been hard to keep faith after two defeats in a row, but daedin28 reacted perfectly, and managed to win his 4 last games. With a 7 - 2 record, he is the 5th finalist for Paris !
For his last game, he was opposed to nyan-cat, an american player who did very well in this semifinal, winning against some of the biggest favorites : chooosen, dandee15, Elric_S, G7 womble... and who absolutely needed a win in this game because of his medium tiebreaker. Unfortunately for him, daedin28 won this qualifying game... and now, he has to wait till the end of all round 9 games to know if he's in the 8.
Daedin28 started with a 22 pts coast to coast ticket : Seattle - NY, accompanied by Duluth - El Paso (not really in the way, and a bit expensive for a dead ticket... but the third one was San Francisco - Atlanta !). And nyan-cat also played a coast to coast ticket : LA - Miami, 20 pts... with a potential dead ticket : NY - Atlanta (only 6 pts, and small routes). With such different playing areas, this game could have been a "solo-duel" where both players developed their games independently.
And... that's not entirely what happened ! The two opponents started on separate zones, daedin28 colonizing the centre : from Seattle to Toronto while nyan-cat occupied the south : LA to Houston... But; daedin28 intuited LA - Miami and blocked the path with Houston - New Orleans. It could have been a losing bet, as at the time he did it, nyan-cat only took position in the south, and showed nothing to indicate his goal (only blind draws). But it wasn't. daedin28 claimed a small route, faraway from his track, but this proved a smart move, who cost lot of time to his opponent and disturb his track. Nyan-cat tried to answer, trying a block with Montreal - Toronto, but that did not work. Daedin28 could develop his track in the north, optimizing his longest path, and securing his ticket to Paris.
Daedin28 is the 5th player to qualify for the finale, representing Spain, a 5th nation too. 5 qualified players, 5 different nations... but soon after, a country managed to place a second player in the finale. And this player is....
EXALTEDANGEL
After BalduvianHorde, a second member of the italian squad will be in Paris in May ! After will_will, ExaltedAngel is the second winner of a qualifying tournament to earn his place in the Paris Express. The champion of the Eastern Standard Time Tournament 2 proved in this semifinal that his title was not obtained by chance. He ends the 20th Anniversary Tournament with a 15 - 2 record (only Cournot and Schwen84 managed to take the best of him)! And that's quite impressive.
For his last game, he was opposed to a french player, LeGoupil (who was one of the last hope for France to have a representative in Paris), and he drew three eastern tickets to start : Montreal - New Orleans ; NY - Atlanta and Sault Ste Marie - Nashville. What to do in such a situation ? ExaltedAngel chose to keep the three of them. LeGoupil kept only two, but the ones he kept touched the eastern coast too : LA - NY and Dallas - NY ! Even with only 2 tickets, LeGoupil could expect more points from his destinations : 32 against 27 (but that, he did not know).
With so many tickets in the east, we could have expected a terrible fight, and many uncomplete destinations...
But that's not what happened ! Both players managed to complete all their tickets... there was a fight for some routes in the east and both players had to adapt their strategy to the moves of their opponents... but they succeeded in developing their track. Just, ExaltedAngel did it faster. LeGoupil, to develop entirely his track, missed one yellow (or loco ?) and had to overdraw, and this cost him the move he needed to end his longest path...and the game.
Despite a litlle bypass by Washington, ExaltedAngel managed to end the game in 11 claims. The Nashville-Pittsburgh he claimed with 2 locos might have been the key moment of the game. At this time, LeGoupil had 8 yellow in hand, had he planned to claim it just after ? In any case, that was a very interesting game, very offensive with two players who did not wait to have a full hand to develop their track. And it really ended in a very close game, where a small detail made the difference. And a big difference for these two players, as ExaltedAngel is now sure to be in Paris, while LeGoupil joined the 6 - 3 group... with all other players who have to wait for the final calculations to know if their tiebreaker allow them a place in the 8.
And about these 6 - 3 players, many games ended in this part of the standings :
- Batze defeated MadManMark... 135 - 134 !!! and joined the 6 - 3 group. His current tiebreaker is quite high (40) and allows him to dream of Paris... but nothing is certain yet... His tiebreaker could end from 45 to 53, depending on the results of all his previous opponents. That's a very unconfortable state here, having to wait for all other games to end, hoping for the victories of other players without any mean to act on it.
- The same goes for Elric_S, who won 94 - 59 over Olimpionik. He is now the best chance for France to have at least one of their representative in Paris thanks to his current 37 tiebreaker... But once more, there's a long time to wait, and many games to end before knowing where he will stand in the ranking.
- MorientesZL also won his last game, 120 - 102 against mr_snuffelupagus. His 6 - 3 record leaves him a small hope... but many 6 - 3 players currently show a better tiebreaker, and he might end a bit below the 8th place.
For the two remaining finalists seats, the current standing is the following : Batze ; Elric_S ; nyan-cat ; LeGoupil ; MorientesZL ; Eichi05...
But some games will provide new 6 - 3 players : Nicolas21 vs Qorlas ; Sunny369 vs Schwen84 and Pechnik vs cannonade.
3 more players will join the "sorting"... they will be 9, for only two seats...
Most of them must have a look on the results of their previous opponents... hoping for them to win and raise their tiebreaker.
And finally, far from this pressure, Cournot and BalduvianHorde played "almost for fun" the "finale" of this semifinal. The winner would earn the honorific title of "n°1 of the semifinal of the 20th Anniversary Tournament". Only a title, but that's still important for competitors, and Cournot and BalduvianHorde played a very serious game there. And Cournot finally won : 124 - 117.
He also took the time to make a small comment of this game :
But some other players were closer... so close that they will receive their ticket soon. Two more players are officially qualified for the finale. After Cournot, BalduvianHorde, scorps4 and will_will, congratulations to ...
DAEDIN28 The leader of the spanish team managed to qualify for the semifinals with the minimum required : a quarterfinal in the China Standard Time tournament... that he lost against OldThousand. But he forgot quite soon this defeat, starting his semifinal with 3 victories (against GeoPiglet, cannonade and scorps4)... G7 womble and Sunny369 then stopped his winning streak. It could have been hard to keep faith after two defeats in a row, but daedin28 reacted perfectly, and managed to win his 4 last games. With a 7 - 2 record, he is the 5th finalist for Paris !
For his last game, he was opposed to nyan-cat, an american player who did very well in this semifinal, winning against some of the biggest favorites : chooosen, dandee15, Elric_S, G7 womble... and who absolutely needed a win in this game because of his medium tiebreaker. Unfortunately for him, daedin28 won this qualifying game... and now, he has to wait till the end of all round 9 games to know if he's in the 8.
Daedin28 started with a 22 pts coast to coast ticket : Seattle - NY, accompanied by Duluth - El Paso (not really in the way, and a bit expensive for a dead ticket... but the third one was San Francisco - Atlanta !). And nyan-cat also played a coast to coast ticket : LA - Miami, 20 pts... with a potential dead ticket : NY - Atlanta (only 6 pts, and small routes). With such different playing areas, this game could have been a "solo-duel" where both players developed their games independently.
And... that's not entirely what happened ! The two opponents started on separate zones, daedin28 colonizing the centre : from Seattle to Toronto while nyan-cat occupied the south : LA to Houston... But; daedin28 intuited LA - Miami and blocked the path with Houston - New Orleans. It could have been a losing bet, as at the time he did it, nyan-cat only took position in the south, and showed nothing to indicate his goal (only blind draws). But it wasn't. daedin28 claimed a small route, faraway from his track, but this proved a smart move, who cost lot of time to his opponent and disturb his track. Nyan-cat tried to answer, trying a block with Montreal - Toronto, but that did not work. Daedin28 could develop his track in the north, optimizing his longest path, and securing his ticket to Paris.
Daedin28 is the 5th player to qualify for the finale, representing Spain, a 5th nation too. 5 qualified players, 5 different nations... but soon after, a country managed to place a second player in the finale. And this player is....
EXALTEDANGELAfter BalduvianHorde, a second member of the italian squad will be in Paris in May ! After will_will, ExaltedAngel is the second winner of a qualifying tournament to earn his place in the Paris Express. The champion of the Eastern Standard Time Tournament 2 proved in this semifinal that his title was not obtained by chance. He ends the 20th Anniversary Tournament with a 15 - 2 record (only Cournot and Schwen84 managed to take the best of him)! And that's quite impressive.
For his last game, he was opposed to a french player, LeGoupil (who was one of the last hope for France to have a representative in Paris), and he drew three eastern tickets to start : Montreal - New Orleans ; NY - Atlanta and Sault Ste Marie - Nashville. What to do in such a situation ? ExaltedAngel chose to keep the three of them. LeGoupil kept only two, but the ones he kept touched the eastern coast too : LA - NY and Dallas - NY ! Even with only 2 tickets, LeGoupil could expect more points from his destinations : 32 against 27 (but that, he did not know).
With so many tickets in the east, we could have expected a terrible fight, and many uncomplete destinations...
But that's not what happened ! Both players managed to complete all their tickets... there was a fight for some routes in the east and both players had to adapt their strategy to the moves of their opponents... but they succeeded in developing their track. Just, ExaltedAngel did it faster. LeGoupil, to develop entirely his track, missed one yellow (or loco ?) and had to overdraw, and this cost him the move he needed to end his longest path...and the game.
Despite a litlle bypass by Washington, ExaltedAngel managed to end the game in 11 claims. The Nashville-Pittsburgh he claimed with 2 locos might have been the key moment of the game. At this time, LeGoupil had 8 yellow in hand, had he planned to claim it just after ? In any case, that was a very interesting game, very offensive with two players who did not wait to have a full hand to develop their track. And it really ended in a very close game, where a small detail made the difference. And a big difference for these two players, as ExaltedAngel is now sure to be in Paris, while LeGoupil joined the 6 - 3 group... with all other players who have to wait for the final calculations to know if their tiebreaker allow them a place in the 8.
And about these 6 - 3 players, many games ended in this part of the standings :
- Batze defeated MadManMark... 135 - 134 !!! and joined the 6 - 3 group. His current tiebreaker is quite high (40) and allows him to dream of Paris... but nothing is certain yet... His tiebreaker could end from 45 to 53, depending on the results of all his previous opponents. That's a very unconfortable state here, having to wait for all other games to end, hoping for the victories of other players without any mean to act on it.
- The same goes for Elric_S, who won 94 - 59 over Olimpionik. He is now the best chance for France to have at least one of their representative in Paris thanks to his current 37 tiebreaker... But once more, there's a long time to wait, and many games to end before knowing where he will stand in the ranking.
- MorientesZL also won his last game, 120 - 102 against mr_snuffelupagus. His 6 - 3 record leaves him a small hope... but many 6 - 3 players currently show a better tiebreaker, and he might end a bit below the 8th place.
For the two remaining finalists seats, the current standing is the following : Batze ; Elric_S ; nyan-cat ; LeGoupil ; MorientesZL ; Eichi05...
But some games will provide new 6 - 3 players : Nicolas21 vs Qorlas ; Sunny369 vs Schwen84 and Pechnik vs cannonade.
3 more players will join the "sorting"... they will be 9, for only two seats...
Most of them must have a look on the results of their previous opponents... hoping for them to win and raise their tiebreaker.
And finally, far from this pressure, Cournot and BalduvianHorde played "almost for fun" the "finale" of this semifinal. The winner would earn the honorific title of "n°1 of the semifinal of the 20th Anniversary Tournament". Only a title, but that's still important for competitors, and Cournot and BalduvianHorde played a very serious game there. And Cournot finally won : 124 - 117.
He also took the time to make a small comment of this game :
Congratulation to Cournot for his n°1 standing. He will now be the main favorite for the finale in Paris !Quick game, no stress from both parts. I had slightly better tix and okay colors. We both got the longuest, but the tix did the job in the end. Gg
