Hi Everyone,
The deadline for turning in your spring 1937 orders is coming up, due this Tuesday at 5 PM ET! This is the first time I have not gotten a complete set of prelims (and to this moment have only five sets of orders) so be sure you don't forget and miss the deadline with nothing submitted!
A few of you have asked me privately about the Dip tournament at Origins and I thought I would thus respond to everyone. Lots of detail here so feel free to ignore if you're not interested.
The tournament was designed as a three round tournament, with playing beginning at 6p each evening of Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
On Thursday it was veeeery slow to get started, not kicking off until about 7. The turnout was very low and thus there were only enough people for one board. Typically they play 3-4 boards and last year had 7. Unfortunately for me those people who came this year were all the "cream of the crop": along with me - who had never played face-to-face - there was another what I would call lesser player who had played quite a bit in college but not since for a long time, then four former champions of this tournament and one fellow they all said was very dangerous and expert. One of the former champions was Thomas Haver who won the 2008 North American Grand Prix (series of tourneys around the continent, highest weighted score wins); another was Chris Mazza, a 2-time DipCon winner and North American champion.
I drew France and allied with England (Haver) against Germany (the other player who, along with myself, seemed inferior to the rest). I opened to Pic and Bur with support and had Bel, Mun and Spa at the end of 1901. After that I largely stagnated and sat on 7 centers for a number of years. Haver grew more slowly but, since he had position on me starting in 1903, I was forced to allow him to grow in a better and more complete way. On the other side of the board it appeared a Juggernaut was on but in 1902 Turkey stabbed and by 1903 Russia was crippled. It then became immediately apparent that an AIT was on so Haver and I offered solace to Russia (Jason Seifert) and hurried to get the stalemate line in place. We did so despite AIT insisting we wouldn't be able to which was nice, from the standpoint of showing off some tactical chops.
The AIT was horribly imbalanced, with Italy (Robert Zahn) stuck on 4 centers all game until the veryvery end, Austria (Mazza) topping out at 5 or 6, and Turkey (Nate ?) behind them all with even more. As soon as the stalemate line was hit Turkey stabbed. However he did it at exactly the wrong moment and in the wrong way: a year before or after and I think it would have been lethal, or, if he had ordered Rum - Bud instead of Rum - Bul out of defensive paranoia he would have cracked Austria. So, Austria was *just* able to cover his remaining centers during the following year while completely vacating the territory around the stalemate line. We surged, they regressed and England and I simply waited to see who would prove strongest in order to execute a 3-way with them. It proved to be Austria but we were only able to get the vote after eliminating Italy who - we think - was voting it down. At the end it was just the three of us, along with a 2 center Turkey. England had 13 dots, I had 10 dots and thus Austria must have had 9.
My sharing in the draw was thanks in some real part to Haver's largesse. There were two moments where he could have - or I might even say should have! - stabbed me but he stayed the course. One of those two times I even ordered Eng - Lon for purely self-preservationist purposes but he blocked it. Much of the game he had position on me and could have gone for the solo. I don't know that he would have made it, but he certainly could have gotten me out of a draw and increased his count.
Since it started so late on Thursday, and since everyone said that really late starts are typical, I came around 6:30 on Friday. Big mistake, as they had already started and I was frozen out! Needless to say I was hugely dejected. I had become really friendly with the core guys from the night before so hung around off-and-on for a couple of hours watching and serving as their conscience as they kept pulling me aside and telling me what they were thinking. That was kind of fun, the disappointment notwithstanding. At the time I left, around 11:30p, Seifert (now as Austria) had played a magnificent game and was positioned to certainly be part of the final result. Zahn (now England) likewise had played well and it was hard to see how he could be played out of the end. Haver was crippled but alive and with a chance to force into a draw as Russia, Turkey (new player) had just been stabbed by AR and his future was clearly terminal; France (new player) was sort of spinning with 5 or 6 centers and nowhere to go; Italy (Mazza) had just been stabbed by Austria and seemed done for; Germany was again the first one out, this time helmed by a hotshot traveling player from Chicago.
I had intended to play the final round tonight but decided that, since I would have no chance to win it all, I would get a start on going back home.
So, it was mixed: while I played well and had an excellent result in my only game, to be frozen out of the second day for being late was incredibly boneheaded. I'm really dejected about it.
For those of you who, like me, are children of the online era of diplomacy, playing face-to-face was actually a great time. I can't wait to do it again. However I do think it is dramatically harder than playing online. Once the adjudication is read everybody looks at the board for 30 seconds or a minute, then they immediately want to start diploming. There is not much time to get a sense for things and work thru the best moves without outside influence. I actually think this will be *good* for me longer term - quick, strong tactical assessment is one of my few strengths - but for the first time playing this way the lack of time to gather your thoughts and assess the situation definitely felt like a lot to deal with. Of course it wasn't helped by playing with such strong players. There were VERY few poor tactical choices, the game was almost entirely won and lost in the negotiating room. When people ordered they ordered very, very well, I daresay better than most if not all online games I've been a part of, top-to-bottom.
So, that was my little adventure!
Dirk