Hey all,

 

It was great to hear the closing remarks from everyone. It appears looking at the game history that the east started in a AIR alliance vs turkey, which then quickly devolved into the RIT that won the game. In the west England and germany appeared to work fairly well from the beginning, taking down France slowly but surely. The RIT advance was quick, and the level of trust and cooperation allowed the team to advance rapidly. I was suprised, for example, by turkey's ability to walk around all those russian centers in Austria without nabbing them. I'm sure you had russia biting his nails those last couple of turns!

I'm also terribly suprised everyone voted yes on the draw. It seems everyone kind of expected everyone else to vote "no," but no one did. I think this may be due to the tournament scoring, in part. The three way knew they had a good score to end with, and were probably afraid if they waited it might become a 2-way, with them being stabbed by their former partners. The western votes also suprised me, France was clearly happy to pull a survival through this, and I suppose England and Germany could just see the writing on the wall. It was suprising, though, to see Alan conceed when he had the same number of scs as two of the winners, and *more* than the third winner. But again, I think he was cutting his losses and taking his points while he had them.

 

All in all, a quick, fun game. We had some minor spats over various issues, but I think they all worked themselves out. Good game all!

John