Nortrom's Stratego (and other topics) blog

Introduction (When you click on the caption below one of the images, it should open the actual image, in higher resolution) For part 2 click here For those who have not yet read the story about the "WC 2018": WC Naarden 2018 - Part 1 of 3 WC Naarden 2018 - Part 2 of 3 WC Naarden 2018 - Part 3 of 3 And for those who have not yet read the story about the "Trip to Patras": Trip to Patras - Part 1 of 4 Trip to Patras - Part 2 of 4 Trip to Patras - Part 3 of 4 Trip to Patras - Part 4 of 4 The story about the WC 2019 will be done in similar fashion, mostly focusing on the overall experience and on how I have experienced the trip. _________________________________________________________________________________ Day #1 (22nd of august 2019) During the period of 22nd of august through 25th of august the world championships of Stratego, live, 2019, were held in Sheffield, UK. The last live WC held in the UK was in 2011, Newcastle. It was good t...

Why you should participate in the WCO Previous blogposts about WCO: WCO History WCO Improvements and thoughts The World Championships Online (WCO) take place a few weeks after the live WC has concluded. Not everyone will be able to make it due to various reasons. This year's live WC will be held in Sheffield, UK. Participating in either the online or live WC, does not exclude one from the other event. This means you have two shots at winning a world title ;). The WCO uses the swiss pairing system which means that you'll be getting paired up against players that have gathered a similar amount of points, resulting in more equal and thrilling matches. More interesting may be even all players are put into one big group. As a newer player, you have a very good chance of getting to play against a top, experienced, player that you usually would not be matched up against. In WCO #3 (2017-2018) I had to play against Major Nelson in the first round, who at that time, was a rat...

Everyone has had to endure this unpleasant experience some time, you get matched up against a player with thousands of games and approximately a 50% win percentage and you know what is coming your way. You start preparing for a game you're not interested in and prepare your setup or load up your favourite "anti lotto/blitz" setup. Sometimes chance is on your side, your opponent manages to lose the game within the first 30 moves, down a marshal and general, the opponent surrenders (or disconnects as some like to be a prick), you reap your sweet +1.. or +10.. Whatever amount of points it gets you. On the bright side, you can drastically increase this chance by preparing properly. Now most of the time, this is not how the scenario unfolds. Theoretically, it should about 50% of the time, but since the quick victories mean nothing, there was little thought or investment into it, it just feels like you have won an empty bottle of water. Great. Often players will feel frus...

Day #4 (Monday) With as little as 2 hours of sleep, we grabbed a breakfast, which actually was surprisingly good. I had something with banana, bread and sugar. At first, it did not look that tasteful but I decided to give it a try anyway and liked it so much that I even ended up taking a second one. We, again, did not want to try out luck and ordered a taxi which drove us to the airport. We arrived quite early, but well, better than too late for obvious reasons. Upon arriving at the airport, we decided to just go to the gates as soon as possible. Somehow, both of us were picked for a security check. Fun! The guy in front of us also was picked out. Upon going through some detection device, an alarm went off for him (and it did too for Dennis and me). Amazing, just what we were waiting for. They took some weird thing and put it on my shoes, hands, chest and then analyzed it.. and determined that nothing was found (same for Dennis and the other, unknown, guy) and we could continue. St...

Day #3 (Sunday) After a decent rest I woke up and had a good breakfast full of mostly sweets. As we hadn't really made plans of travel arrangement, Dimitrios (Don mitsos) offered us a ride to the playing venue. As we arrived at the playing venue, it was good to see everyone present again. My first game of the day and thus fourth of the tournament would be against John Vandoros. I preferred to play him at round 3, day 1, opposed to round 4 (round #1 of that day), day 2. During the game I was looking at an early deficit the entire game, I did manage to equalize it, but at the expense of some information giving the initiative to John. I was not really as sharp as I need to be in a game like that and after some back and forth, John managed to make a decisive strike. After the game I felt a bit of a void, after all, on paper, this should have been the most promising game. The fifth round, after the game against John, I was matched up against his father, Spyros Vandoros. A great op...

Day #2 (Saturday) The day started off by taking a quick shower, followed by breakfast and later exploring the area a bit more. Our driver, Greg, whom I have to say, is a responsible and good driver (if I wouldn't write a positive review I would have to walk to Patras.. 😊) picked us up and Charlie (TheOptician) was there already too'as he stayed with Greg. Greg picked up one more person, Ioannis (Périgord) in Athens and our journey to Patras took off. During the trip to Patras, Ioannis seemed to be quite knowledgeable about the landscape and happily told us, in detail, about the mountains, what area we were in, etc. If you ever need a guide in Greece, ask Ioannis 😊. Greece was nothing how I expected it, I expected things to be flat, like in the Netherlands, but the opposite was true, we were driving through mountain-like areas all the time and also came across some places that had forest fires previously. While it was fascinating to see the difference between an alive fore...