WC 2018 Naarden - Part 2/3

Main event (friday & saturday - day #2 and #3)

In the previous post the barrage tournament at one of the best if not the best venue ever for a Stratego tournament was discussed. In this post I will take a look back at the main event of the WC Stratego 2018 in Naarden.

The day kicked off for me with one of the things I heavily dislike; an alarm that goes off early. All of this after a bad night rest which could not possibly have happened during a worse time. Moving forward, a quick breakfast was had. Shower. Clothing and ready to go.

Upon arriving at the venue, some of the other organisers were present already and it was good to see them. Decorations were present too, for which, we owe great thanks to Jumbo. Despite the actions taken the day prior to friday, there were still some things that had to be done. One of these were the goodybags; all ingredients were present, candies, bags, bottle of water and WCO promotion cards. They now had to be put together into one goodybag.

WCO Promotion card

Live WC decoration outside

As the time passed, the first players were coming in. It was good to meet for the first time Daniel (Napoleon 1er) and Napoleon jr. also known as Sebastien (Napoleon 2éme), Charlie (TheOptician), Astros, Dalee, ~~firefighter 4~~ Nikos Kouvatsos (Major Nelson) and many others. Of course, many others whom I've known for quite a while were present too, for example George Franka, holding the flag of one of the Netherlands's Stratego clubs.

George Franka and the "road to victory" flag

Things were a bit chaotic, many players coming in at once caused the registration process to be overloaded, but this is to be expected. All things considered, I feel a good job was done nonetheless.

In between arranging goodybags, greeting/welcoming players, helping with registration, media was present too, requiring some attention. After the sign up period, finally, closed, it was time to get going. Before the start of the live WC, the handing out of the WCO prizes from 2017-18 was conducted by Dennis. Starting with nr 3, who unfortunately was not present, Losermaker, but yet, mentioned. Want to know what happened to his prize? stay tuned. Nr 2, Napoleon 1er was awarded his dipoloma, medal and a well deserved applause by the audience. After this, nr 1, Nortrom, was awarded his prizes too. A perfect moment to take the microphone, promote the WCO and give some support to one of the WCO organisers, Greg (KARAISKAKIS), who was handed over a token of gratitude for taking the initial lead for setting up a WCO, a symobilic token, a cannon. Not only does this fit the theme of the WC 2018, it also is a symbol for having to take a shot at things in order to succeed. Click here to see what happened to Losermakers prize

WCO 2017-18 winner

After this, the WC 2018 introduction movie was played, it featured pictures from up to 2006, the countyflags of the present players, an overview of the winners starting from the first live WC and the wish for all to have a pleasant and fun tournament. Click here for the introduction movie.

Preview of intro movie

Now it was time to move back to less fun things; formalities, rules and procedural stuff. The most important rules were explained, for example call an arbiter when there is an issue, leave the playing room after finishing, check your results, etc. A groupphoto was taken outside.

WC 2018 Group photo

After the groupphoto, it was time to kick off with the tournament. A tournament that would lead to many surprises, upsets, joyful moments, disappointment and disbelief. A healthy mix of emotions. Does anyone remember the controversy between Napoleon 1er and KARAISKAKIS in the WCO 2017-18? fate decided that these two players would face off in the very first round of the live WC, in which Greg managed to get revenge.

Some pics of games in action:

Eventual runner-up and winner

From here, I'll give brief descriptions of the 10 games I played. Very brief. This part is less about the tournament itsself, and more about my own experience

Round #1 - Vs. Edy Schurink (NL). A tough opponent. Tough nut to crack so to speak. A bad start from my side led to an early disadvantage, which I managed to overcome. Upon surprising Edy with a certain play, I doubled the lead and safely closed out the match.

Round #2 - Vs. George Petroulakis (GR). After game #1, one would think lessons have been learnt regarding bad starts; none of this is true, yet an other bad start for me. The small deficits did allow me to pin down one of George's key pieces, which after a few exchanges elsewhere, I grabbed, his Spy was not there to punish it. Still, playing out the game was not as easy as it may have looked to.

Round #3 - Vs. John Vandoros (GR). A game that many have looked forward. The plan I made for this game worked out very well early on, followed by a greedy action from my side which backfired, giving John an edge. The game came down to whether John could break off parts of my setup within time and without leaving option for counter attacks, in this endeavour, John prevailed. Funny detail, John jokingly pointed at a piece (C1) saying "That's your spy", which it actually was. A laugh was shared later in the tournament about it :).

Round #4 - Vs. Sem van Geffen (NL). I can be clear about this one, a game I should not have won I feel. Sem played a very strong and if not, incredible bluff, but it backfired at the moment I was willing to take a slightly negative trade-off in exchange for iniative and a potential attack on his flag. It turned out he was not as well covered as he had been pretending, giving me a comfortable material advantage.

Round #5 - Vs. Huib Speksnijder (NL). A weird game; an early rush gave me a massive material advantage which Huib was unable to recover from this game, leaving him wondering what just happened.

Round #6 - Vs. Alex Bregman (UK). Tough game once again, Alex had a slight material advantage, which was later exchanged for info. A fair trade for both. A bit of fortune was on my side when I managed to identify a piece which could not be saved (withouut costly sacrifice(s)) afterwards, tipping the balance into my favor. This turned out to be just sufficient to close out the game.

Round #7 - Vs. Nikos Kouvatsos (GR). Neither players were looking to break open the game and were content with a draw. I did not find a creative solution to the situation at hand.

Round #8 - Vs. Vince van Geffen (NL). A decent material advantage for me, info advantage for Vince, but within reasonable limits. The balance tipped into his favor as I lost one of the two higher pieces I was up for zero compensation. Still, it was playable. The game however turned into unplayable upon losing my Marshall on a risk I took. Making one wonder "Was this move worth it?" even in hindsight, I don't feel the play I went for was bad, it didn't have the desired result. Later on, after creating one chance, my general joined my Marshall after hitting a bomb. A good moment to surrender.

Round #9 - Vs. Max Roelofs (NL). What makes Stratego a great game is the fact there are multiple solutions to a lot of problems in this game. There is a downside to it too however. I had a fair lead in info and I considered the material to favor me as well. Max had a slightly better position that eventually would cost me a piece, but even taking this into account, the game was very winnable for me. Max made an assumption about the location of one of my unknown key pieces that was way off, but it worked out well for him, giving him a massive lead in material. Part of the game.

Round #10 - Vs. Ricardo Kik (NL). Finally! I'd been looking forward to play Ricardo, whom I've known since 2002, from the first round of the WC onwards. After round #8 and especailly #9 I was kind of done with the entire tournamentt already, I think this was the only opponent left I would be willing to charge myself up one more time and play a focussed game. The game itsself was going into my favor for a long time until I made a blunder, exchanging Colonels, but his piece no longer was a Colonel (Marshall). While it did give him control of the game, the game was still winnable for both parties. Later on, I missed an opportunity by moving too quick to force his Marshall into a 3-sided trap which could have won me the game immediately. I guess, difference between being sharp and just enjoying the last game of the WC 2018. Ultimately, it should have ended a draw, or a victory even but I wanted to do things a bit too beautifully, which proved to be a mistake and led to a lost game in the end.

After this game was done, a major newspaper wanted to conduct an interview. First time I felt I was part of a so called "loser interview". Still, the tournament itsself was a massive success, the last game was still a fun one and overall I had a good feeling about the event as a whole; I never expected to feel happy, energized and such during a "loser interview" 😊.

Interview after my last WC 2018 game

While all of this happened, battles for the title were being fought out too. John was playing vs. Max on table #1, while Vince was playing vs. (at that moment) current world champion, Anjo. John was leading by 2 points only, so it was essential that he would win his game. Vince won his game, but so did John, causing him to take the title, which resulted into a happy outburst. Similar expression happened during the award ceremony.

Final standings here