Board Game Arena

chooosen wrote: ↑29 January 2025, 09:09 What a draw,
I got my finalist opponent in the draw ;/

Same! I'm playing Pello again, same match as in qualifiers)

1 ... 2 ... 3 ... and 4 !
There were 4 undefeated champions before round 3, all of them lost their invincibility at the same time... ExaltedAngel suffered the same fate as SuperPello, ommie32 and will_will, with his first defeat after 11 victories in a row. How did it happen ?

ExaltedAngel chose to leave aside Portland - Nashville, and to keep two "small" tickets : Chicago - Santa Fe and Denver - El Paso. Only 13 points to collect, that means the longest path was quite mandatory... but also that it could be easy to drop one destination if needed (if ExaltedAngel chose to start a "game of block" for instance).
Cournot had "higher" tickets in hand, and chose to play west with Winnipeg - Houston and Vancouver - Santa Fe. Just one of these tickets gives the same points as both ExaltedAngel's ones.
With these choices of tickets, we could expect a real fight in the centre of the map !
Cournot seemed to have good colors to develop his game in the north west part of the map : many yellow, white.. purple, and mostly orange ! And he did not hesitate to pick a 6th orange in the river to claim Helena - Duluth early. His problem came with green, that can be used to go south, or to claim a 6 for Houston. Maybe the 5 locomotives would be useful ?
ExaltedAngel also had 5 locomotives in hand, but not many orange or yellow... His dominant colors were black, red and blue... not the strongest colors to compete with Cournot in the upper side of the map. But maybe could he disturb his attemps to join the south ?



That's indeed in the south that ExaltedAngel started his game : with LA - El Paso... and immediately, Cournot secured his interests here, spending 3 locomotives to claim El Paso - Houston ! An expensive move, but a decisive one for him to keep his link to Houston. After this, each player seemed eager to focus on his tickets... ExaltedAngel drew his track to Chicago while Cournot was heading north... Sometimes, opportunities for block seemed open, but no attempt was made. Thanks to his yellow and white, Cournot could conquer the northwest, while ExaltedAngel tried to score on 6 everywhere he could... losing the longest path in the way. His last try to draw a new destination did not work, and he stayed behind... 118 - 96



Cournot wins his 3rd game in a row in this semifinals, getting a seat in the 7 upper places of the rankings. He will be opposed to Trainalot in round 4, who managed to get his third victory too, after a close win against BalduvianHorde : 112 - 105. For now, Cournot is "the last" 3 - 0 players, as the tiebreaker is not in his favour. A 4th victory would be a perfect way to climb some steps and to ensure a good position for the second part of the semifinals. For ExaltedAngel, the draw placed will_will on his way , a duel between two tournaments' winner... and one of them will end this day with a second defeat !

After Olimpionik, G7 womble, Elric_S, Cournot and Trainalot, 2 other players won their 3rd victories :
- daedin28 left no chance to cannonade : 127 - 83 ! daedin28 got a seat in the podium thanks to this victory, with 5 opponents' points and an average opponent's ELO of 703... He will face the 2nd of the ranking : G7 womble, for a very high level game in round 4 !
- Schwen84 had such a close game against Qorlas ! 120 - 119 and what a script ! Both players managed to put all their trains on the board... both managed to complete their destination tickets.... both managed to score 23 points with their tickets !!!! Both managed to align all their trains !!!! 23 - 23 with tickets... 10 - 10 with the longest path.... this game was determined by 1 point in routes.... Only 1 point ! It's not much, but it's enough for Schwen84 to stay undefeated in this semifinals.



A nice West vs East map.... and for once, someone who chose Toronto - Miami won ! Its pairing with Montreal - NY helped a bit, and Schwen84 conducted it well, ensuring the longest northern roads right from the start.
This victories also helped Schwen84 to get back a title he owned for long : the highest ELO player of the tournament : with 786, he got past Olimpionik and is again the n°1 ELO. He will be opposed to Elric_S in the 4th round, a player with a surprising run in this semifinals... this game will be a game to follow closely !

Let's have a look at the ranking post step 3 :



Only 7 players with a 3 - 0 start... indeed, nyan-cat was the 2 - 0 player to be opposed to a 1 - 1 player in round 3. After two good first games against Gattivo4 and chooosen, he lost against the surprising Batze 120 - 101. Batze, who already won against Eichi05 in round 1, is now 12th in ranking... his next game will be a tough one, against dandee15... a good test for him to see if he can pretend to a ticket for Paris !

Other facts in brief :
- thekid and Loindufroid must have expressed some relief after their first win in this tournament ! These two players were amongst the highest favorites at the start of the semifinals, and yet, they suffered two defeats for their two first games... a third one in a row could have meant the end of their hopes to be in Paris in May. Hopefully for them, they're still in the run with their 1 - 2 sheets... but pressure is still strong on them and fate seems to persist on them....
After BalduvianHorde and smartin(93-70), thekid will now face an experienced compatriot, MadManMark for a high pressure game between two 1 -2 players.... and the same goes for Loindufroid, who will be opposed to another polish player, chooosen, in round4 , for the remake of the CET2 final ! chooosen won this first opposition, will LoinduFroid take his revenge ?

- two other favorites missed their round 3 games here .... onyxpuffin and Sysyphus are now in the lower part of the rankings, with their 1 - 2 sheets. onyxpuffin was surprised by mattECM2 in a 121 - 121 defeat, while Sysyphus lost on a missclick against pegaso74... a hard time for these two players who have consumed their two jokers after round 3. The pressure will be strong on them two for round 4, where they will face GeoPiglet and sheepwin10.

- smartin23 also faced a second defeat in round 3, a severe 116 - 66 against the finalist of the Pacific tournament, scorps4... smartin23 was not very lucky with the draw in his first 3 games : Qorlas, thekid, Scorps4... an average opponent's ELO of 703, the highest of the semifinals ! That can explain his 1 - 2 record. His next game will be against a less experienced player, mr snuffelupagus, ELO 469... maybe a relief for him, but he should not become overconfident here. We've witnessed many surprises since the start of the tournament, and the slightest mistake can have heavy consequences in a TTR game.

Round 4 starts tomorrow, and there will be many very interesting games to follow... I've mentionned some before, but there will also be some tension here :
- the french duel LeGoupil - Knockando ;
- scorps4 against Qorlas !
- SuperPello against Diger74... the remake of a CET1 quartefinal won by SuperPello ;
- the ukrainian duel MorientesZL vs Cannonade... another CET1 remake, won by MorientesZL....
and many more...

And we do not forget players who had a bad start, and who faced a 0 - 3 at the beginning of round 4. At this moment of the semifinals, another loss could signify the end of their hopes to reach Paris. 8 of them are concerned, and some might have lots of regrets with close defeats... Bunger (not lucky with his pairings, and a 628 opponents'ELO... and two 2 points only defeats !) , chucrute2000 (who had not lost once before the 20th anniversary tournaments, and who only lost for 1 point against Elric_S!) ; EBLcar, nickismyname, Mihails, Mac-Leod, seasonalsleeper and OldThousand. 4 of them will keep hope alive, and 4 will be in a very hard position.

Good luck to all of you !

To add flavout to my game with Schwen: in the last move I had practically a 50/50 decision to make. In any case I had no regrets on my decision in that move

Qorlas wrote: ↑30 January 2025, 06:40 To add flavout to my game with Schwen: in the last move I had practically a 50/50 decision to make. In any case I had no regrets on my decision in that move

That's good attitude, don't go with "Outcome bias"


BTW. Nice screenshots and last relation Rwain!

Rwain wrote: ↑30 January 2025, 00:51... smartin23 was not very lucky with the draw in his first 3 games : Qorlas, thekid, Scorps4... an average opponent's ELO of 703, the highest of the semifinals !

Not the highest anymore, lol. For whatever reason I got matched against 3 of the 5 top opponents by ELO in my first four games, will_will, Nicolas21, and thekid, even though I've yet to break above .500 in my record in this tourney (as is the case with smartin23 I see, won only 2nd round, now 1-3). So now I have the highest opponent average, 692. The current next closest is G7 womble at 660, and a 4-0 record.

Puzzled how that came to be, but water under the bridge (I hope?) More generally, as I momentarily step out from lurking on this thread, I want to join in thanking you Rwain for all the effort you are putting in here to make this feel like a real "sporting event." It's been fun reading your running commentary!

MadManMark wrote: ↑01 February 2025, 13:34 Puzzled how that came to be

Elo is not taken in account for pairings, only current record in the tournament, so yeah, pretty unlucky, but facing low Elo opponents isn't always better, since that can compromise your tiebreaker score

MadManMark wrote: ↑01 February 2025, 13:34 I want to join in thanking you Rwain for all the effort you are putting in here to make this feel like a real "sporting event." It's been fun reading your running commentary!

I agree, thank you Rwain

ExaltedAngel wrote: ↑01 February 2025, 19:17Elo is not taken in account for pairings, only current record in the tournament

Understood, hence I said "for whatever reason" - I knew the pairing was based on record primarily, not ELO, but I was directly replying to Rwain's comment about average opponent ELO.

ExaltedAngel wrote: ↑01 February 2025, 19:17facing low Elo opponents isn't always better, since that can compromise your tiebreaker score

Here I come back at you with the same comment as you made above, to me: primary tiebreaker is opponents' total wins. Perhaps average ELO is the further tiebreaker after record & opponent wins, but after 9 rounds I suspect it's unlikely to be relevant for who "on the bubble" gets to go to Paris -- and that seems to be the only thing that ultimately matters in this tournament, placing in the top 8? Eighth is just as good as first?

Thanks for your encouragement ! This gives another reason to continue writing here !
And that's perfect, because round 4 came to is end, and time has come to make my approximate report !

First, let's talk about players who already have one little toe on the Parisian cobblestones... They might have been 4, but they're only 3 to succeed in the 4 - 0 record : G7 womble, Cournot and Elric_S ! And that's where you see how relevant my analysis are... as none of them were part of my tier 1 list... and neither in my tier 2 list ! Cournot and Elric_S appeared in the tier 3 list.... but G7 womble did not... and she leads the ranking after round 4 ! Two options here :
1) I'm a very bad consultant... Feel free to boo me...
2) The tournament gathers so many high level players that many can pretend to a place in the 8 finalists, and that also means that the slightest mistake, the smallest missclick, the one too many hesitation can lead to an unexpected loss...
I let you choose which option suits you the most.

And about high level players, let's have a look of G7 womble's last victory. She was opposed to the spanish n°1 ELO, daedin28, who had made a perfect start despite a harsh adversity : GeoPiglet, scorps4 and cannonade ! A close game was expected here.
Starting with Toronto - Miami (the unloved ticket), she decided to leave it aside and to keep SF - Atlanta and Denver - El Paso. Not the worst pairing, Denver and El Paso could be part of her track, and if it came to be impossible to connect them, it's the perfect dead ticket (only - 4 pts).
daedin28's destinations happened to share some points of interest as he left aside Winnipeg - Little Rock to keep Portland - Phoenix and Kansas City - Houston. A great battle in the south was coming ! And in this battle, G7 womble stroke first. As soon as she got her 6th black, she claimed LA - El Paso. Daedin28 did not panic for this, he stayed patient and continued to build his hand of cards... but when G7 womble chose a green in the river, he immediately jumped on El Paso - Houston. Foundations were laid, the fight could go on... or not ! Daedin28 chose to leave the southern part of the map, to focus on the centre : Seattle - Helena - Duluth... big points, but that left the south open for G7 womble to strengthen her positions ! She did not hesitate to focus on small routes like Omaha City - Little Rock early, to ensure the connection from SF to Atlanta... deadin28 finally tried to block her, claiming Miami - New Orleans, but that was not her destination ! Cut in half, with trains far from his destinations'cities... daedin28 was not in the best position to win.
G7 womble could ensure her big ticket, and had not to fight a lot for the longest path... that left her freedom to place trains in the north, forgetting about Denver - El Paso. She was far beyond in route points, but with 0 destination completed, and a discontinuous track, daedin28 had no way to outscore her.



Thanks to this 4th victory, G7 womble becomes the 3rd player to lead the provisional ranking (after MorientesZL in step 1 ; and Olimpionik in steps 2 and 3). With a 4 - 0 record, and a pretty nice tie-breaker at this moment, she might have up to two toes in Paris ! And maybe an entire feet after step 5 should she win against Elric_S !

But beware of the French player ! Elric_S showed his ability to adapt his game to any situation.... and won even when he thought loss was inevitable (watch his game against will_will if you don't know what I'm talking about)... For his 4th win, he was opposed to the highest ELO player of the tournament, Schwen84... who had the benefice of the start !
Vancouver - Santa Fé and Chicago - Santa Fé in hand, he had to overcome Sault Ste Marie - Nashville and Montréal - New Orleans... Schwen84 was playing east... not the easiest but he won against Qorlas in round 3 with the east... and Schwen84 started with the same strategy : to conquer the East, he conquers the North first : Duluth, Helena, Calgary, Winnipeg, Sault Ste Marie, Montreal ! 64 pts and a nice track in progress... Elric_S stayed cool, and ensured his tickets... but Shwen84's development was getting too well, and maybe Elric_S thought he could not lose time and points in an attempt to block him... And he chose to go for more tickets :


Elric_S, playing green, had a good instinct here, recovering Seattle - NY ! Schwen84's end of game had to slow down to reach New Orleans...and that left enough time to Elric_S to complete his third destination... and to earn 22 points that made the difference : 126 - 117 !

Once more, Elric_S showed his ability to adapt his game to any situation, and to take risks when he finds it necessary. And that works pretty well for him as he's one of the three only players to stay undefeated in the semifinals !


The third one is Cournot, who had such a close game against Trainalot ! Trainalot tried the long track : LA - Seattle and Seattle - NY. From south to west to east... And he succeeded, scoring 31 points from his tickets, but, without being able to build a perfect road... and Cournot took benefit of this. With only 19 pts thanks to Helena - LA and Portland - Phoenix, he ensured the longest path... and secured his victory thank to the start. For his last move, Trainalot was short of cards... and had to draw some... only one little card would have offered him the game...
116 - 116, two destinations each, the longest path for Cournot !



4 games, 4 victories, a nice serie for our Canadian player, who will face a 3 -1 player in round 5, cannonade. And why not a 4 - 0 player like it could/should have been ?
Because of another canadian player, a player that seems to like creating surprises !!! Just a reminder for those who do not read here often :

The second surprise is more like a blow of the club... a kind of earthquake... something impossible, that I still cannot believe.
DrakeStorm, defending champion, top seed of the Pacific Standard Time tournament, just got eliminated by olihelm, a "young TTR player" (on BGA at least), from Canada...

That was 38 days ago...
Olihelm became known thanks to his feat against Drakestorm, a great victory, and the story could have ended there... We saw in the qualifying tournaments many players who were out immediately after their unexpected victory against a seed... But Olihelm's story was not of this kind. He honoured the fallen champion by making the grade in the semifinals. A 3 - 1 record for now, and a very close defeat (118 - 118 against acebano in round 1...). And now, another prestigious victory against the leader of the semifinals : Olimpionik !

Olihelm made an unusual choice for his ticket, keeping the three : LA - Miami ; Duluth - Houston and Chicago - New Orleans. The track that could link all these cities would need a strong position in the centre and in the south.. But, Olimpionik was going for LA - Chicago and LA - NY. The centre of the map was likely to attract our opponent's attentions... and the area around LA too ! And Olihelm secured it soon with LA - El Paso... A bad news for Olimpionik ? Maybe not, as he could go north for his tickets. The problem was that he understood quite soon that Olihelm intended to join Miami... and he decided to slow him by claiming Miami - New Orleans. A good think to do, but maybe he could have go more offensive for this block... as he let Olihelm bypass him by Atlanta...
The game ended with a battle around Chicago... Olihelm had to connect Duluth to Chicago, and that's what he did... Was this road on Olimpionik's track ?



Maybe, maybe not... Hard to say it, as Olimpionik still had 8 locomotives in hand at this time, and many options to connect LA to NY. He seemed to have what he needed to bypass by Toronto... and spent 4 locomotives to claim the 6 pink... he was only a route to complete both his tickets... But he chose to forget about it to try a block with Denver - Omaha, at the cost of 4 locomotives ! ... and got blocked immediately after when Olihelm played Toronto - Pittsburgh.
Olimpionik managed to prevent Olihelm from completing his two other tickets... but LA - Miami was enough to get the victory here as Olimpionik lost 39 points from destinations. No regret for Olimpionik though, who fought till the end to get a chance to add a 4th victory.

Olimpionik lost the n°1 seat of the semifinals... but his 3 - 1 record leaves him in the upper part of the ranking. He will face Trainalot in his next game, another player who came close to the 4 - 0. Which one of them will get back to the top of the table ?

For Olihelm, another tough game is waiting for him in the next round. He will be opposed to pegaso74, who won all his games except against G7 womble (amongst his defeated players : Sysyphus and... Micalis, a tournament's champion ! )

It's time to have a look at the standings :



- ExaltedAngel is back in the 8 best players after his victory against will_will in the duel against the Eastern and the China's champions. His next game will not be easier... as he will face the n°1 ELO, Schwen84 !

- What's happening to our champions ? SuperPello, Knockando and Micalis all lost for the second time ! Diger74 took is revenge against the italian champion who exited him from the CET1 tournament, while Knockando had a close defeat against his compatriot LeGoupil 112 - 107.
They will join chooosen and Eichi05 in the middle half of the ranking, as both of them managed to secure a second victory... it was quite difficult for chooosen, who ended with a 2 pts victory against Loindufroid in the remake of the CET2's finale. And his next game won't be easier ! The draw placed another tournament's champion on his way : Knockando !

- Loindufroid, finalist of the CET2 tournament, has a hard time in this semifinal. After this second defeat against chooosen, he displays a 1 - 3 record... qualifying for the finale in Paris is not over, but he has no right to any more defeat... and the same goes for thekid, who lost for the third time against his compatriot, MadManMark ! Loindufroid will have to win against Sheepwin10 to keep hope alive.... but thekid will face... MorientesZL !!!! (the ex n°1 in the standings, actual n°23 with a 2 - 2 record). Sometimes, fate seems to be relentless.

- After this victory against thekid, MadManMark is now the one with the highest opponent's ELO : 692. As he stated himself :

For whatever reason I got matched against 3 of the 5 top opponents by ELO in my first four games, will_will, Nicolas21, and thekid,

Hopefully for him, his next game will diminish it a bit, as he is opposed to sonics2054, ELO 437. That does not mean that this game will be easy... nobody is here "by accident".


Round 5 starts tomorrow, and amongst all the games scheduled, we might have a closer look on some of these :

- the french duel (again) between Nicolas21 and LeGoupil. One of them should reach the top 8 after this game.

- the opposition between daedin28 and Sunny369. The finalist of the CET4 tournament stayed quite discreet for now, starting with a loss against cannonade... but since then, he won 3 games in a row, and shown that he is one of the real pretender for a place in the finale.

- And finally, a very interesting game : the remake of the Pacific tournament's finale : ommie32 against scorps4 ! A 100% american duel, agaisnt two players who made a good start with a 3 - 1 record.

That's all for today, good luck to all players !

How does BGA handle longer Swiss Tournaments. I'm used to a 64 person Swiss Tournament lasting 6 rounds in which case there is 1 undefeated person at the end (and if cut to top 8, using a tie breaker). After 6 rounds it seems you either have to play the same opponents again (if matching best record to best record) OR ignore that part to ensure no duplicate matches (so match up with player with best record you haven't already played).

I'm curious which it will be.

DrakeStorm wrote: ↑04 February 2025, 03:58 How does BGA handle longer Swiss Tournaments. I'm used to a 64 person Swiss Tournament lasting 6 rounds in which case there is 1 undefeated person at the end (and if cut to top 8, using a tie breaker). After 6 rounds it seems you either have to play the same opponents again (if matching best record to best record) OR ignore that part to ensure no duplicate matches (so match up with player with best record you haven't already played).

I'm curious which it will be.

When you create a tournament there's an option to configure it, here:
so it will try to find another closest opponent you haven't played before.