WC 2019 Sheffield - Part 2 of 2
(When you click on the caption below one of the images, it should open the actual image, in higher resolution)
Day #3 (24th of august 2019)
The next day, after waking up, it was time for a shower and breakfast. After this had concluded, I went to the playing hall and waited for the first round of the second day of the classic WC to begin. As expected, I was matched up against Dennis. Prior to the round starting, I played a best of 5 barrage against Sebastien. He won the first one and was happy about it; the tides quickly changed and the end score was 4-1 in my favour.
Game #6 - Dennis Baas
Being 5-0 thus far, I felt confident going into this game. I was not sure what exactly to expect from this game. I went for a rather conservative approach. The game evolved quickly around Dennis having to make a choice, either he would make a choice that would work out for me (essentially 2 majors vs 2 captains) or he would make a different choice that would basically end the game right away in my favour; he did the latter. After that, it was pretty much over. A desperation attempt from his side failed and thus an other win for me.
Game #7 - Sebastien Crot
I feel that this game, without any question, based on my own performance, was the most disappointing one from my side during the tournament. It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly went wrong, besides the obvious. I experienced two huge memory failures during that game, leading me to, in essence, gift a major, spy and position for no reason. Unfortunately, for me, Sebastien did not make any mistakes that I could capitalise on in order to still get out with a victory and thus I had to hang on for a draw, which was the highest achievable result for me that game. Had the clocks been in my favour, I may have been able to steal a victory, but since I needed to use quite some time to figure out how to deal with the situation at hand this was not the case. The game, eventually, ended in a draw.
To wrap up things, currently I managed to get 6 victories and 1 draw, still holding #1 spot, but not allowed to make an other mistake, unless the competition for the title also made one.
Game #8 - Ricardo Kik
Finally. I had a bone to pick with Ricardo based on the last time we played during a WC in Naarden. The game in Naarden was a truly thrilling, close and fun game, and arguably one of the most enjoyable ones I have played in a long time, but nonetheless, it was not won, so naturally, I had a score to settle with him. The game started reasonably well for me. I had decent info and eventually Ricardo took an unknown piece that he hoped to be at least a colonel or a major, using his marshal. He got a scout and my general happened to be in the perfect spot to take advantage of that, forcing him to sacrifice a captain in order to save his known colonel. I got an other decent piece then we swapped generals. I now had a materialistic advantage and advantage on information. Yet, Ricardo put up a strong fight but in the end fell short due to the deficit he had. It was by no means easy to close out the game.
Game #9 - Angel Baron
Once more showing that Stratego and tournaments in general are also a matter of willpower, I needed to win the game, but lacked the conviction, I felt, that I would be taking the 6 points no matter what. Nonetheless, the game started and I felt my pieces were not positioned in a great manner based on how the game was developing, but nonetheless, very manageable. The game went a bit explosive after some big trades were done, I felt I came out ahead, which I still feel. The net difference, that I remember, was me being up a general, major and captain and Angel being up a marshal and sergeant. Not much later, I gained a lieutenant at the expense of a miner. I had a pretty good idea about the whereabouts of his last major, my captain would be lost, but I would be able to get rid of his last major (by trade) so I was ok with that. In reality, he ended up taking the captain with the marshal instead, much to my surprise. Even more surprised I was, when his major showed up at the other side of the board, costing an other lieutenant. Net difference: marshal, sergeant, miner for Angel, general and major for me. I could not really get much done and managed to find three bombs in a row with pieces not intended to hit bombs. A costly loss, mostly set up by the result of game #7, as I could not afford an other mess up.
Game #10 - Josh Critchlow
Finally! Getting to play against my clowny friend from Stratego.com (no, not you, Charlie). Prior to the game, I considered my options. I knew I had to win this game in order to have a shot at the title. Should I lose, I would, finish 2nd place still. I considered playing an all-out aggressive game, the quicker I could report a victory, the more pressure there would be on Tim. I did not expect Tim to realistically drop points to Sebastien, thus I did not go for the aforementioned option and instead went for a more classic approach. In retrospective, perhaps I should have done the other approach, you never know..
The game started off slowly, nothing special. I grabbed a major and Josh applied pressure on the other side, after finding a colonel, he made sure to capture it and used both the marshal and general for this task. I got up more middle pieces, but Josh still had an annoyingly strong presence. There was a moment I could have forced him into taking a chance with his colonel, should he lose it, the game would be over immediately. Ultimately, I opted against it, I felt Josh would have chosen the right option which would have done quite some damage. The game eventually got down to an exciting end-game where Josh had the highest piece on the board, but I managed to out-manoeuvre him, wishing I had played better in game #9 but especially #7.
I don't remember which game finished first, Josh vs. me or Tim vs Sebastien, I think they finished at a similar time. I looked for a proper moment to congratulate Tim on his 3rd classic WC title and found it, we shared a short chat and things proceeded into the prize ceremony preparations. Full results here
During the prize ceremony the winners from the previous events (Thursday: Ultimate lightning & barrage) were given their prizes and then things proceeded with the junior and senior WC. Prizes were handed out, pictures were made, country teams were formed, some people were heading home already and goodbyes were exchanged. Some formed groups to enjoy a meal or do other stuff.
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| Tim celebrating his victory |
In my case, it was time to head towards the meeting with ISF members. Because of the inclusion of some other people and to give it a nicer name, it was named "International Stratego community meeting" instead. Regardless, during this dinner the WC was evaluated, new WC's were decided upon and other agreements regarding improvements in several areas were made. More importantly: A nice dinner (and dessert) was had. Afterwards, like the day before, a group was formed to enjoy some games.
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| Dinner & Meeting |
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| 😀...... |
The game of choice was "niets aan te geven" also known as "nothing to declare" which is a game about people trying to get goods through customs and pay as little as possible tax. Each player plays as custom once and then collects money from others. We played a round with: Dennis (who explained the rules quite well), Kees, Anthony, Roseline, Jonathan and myself. Just before we started, Ricardo also joined the group, I opted to re-distribute the money since he had not really started yet, but he stated he wanted to just watch and deal with his headache. After the first round, Kees went to bed. Kees's roommate, Dennis, luckily, stayed thus we played an other round and Ricardo did join this time. People being caught lying, making up funny but (somewhat) true stories throughout the game caused for some hilarious moments. At around 2.30 AM some unfortunately were getting tired and everybody returned to their rooms. I'm sure it is no surprise that some (including me) would not have minded to see the clock reach 3... 4 AM.
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| Niets aan te geven |
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Day #4 (25th of august 2019)
The very last day of the event. I could write a long story about the country teams but nothing special happened. NL played 2-2 vs UK. NL won 4-0 vs BE. UK won 3-1 vs BE, because of this, NL was crowned champion, UK took silver and BE had to be content with bronze.
The open tournament I did not pay much attention to, Ricardo Kik won, Ruben van de Bilt took the 2nd place and veteran Theo Gerrits took the bronze. full results can be found here
After everything concluded, goodbyes were said, it was time to head towards the airport. Two taxi's escorted the group travelling back to NL. After reaching the airport, we had about 2 hours to kill. This time was spent through chat, finding our way through the airport etc.
However, not everything went smoothly. Security check had to be fun. Before entering the airport, I emptied, by drinking, a bottle of water I had with me still. Before leaving the WC playing venue, I also took with me, as a souvenir (so yeah, if you guys are missing a small Dutch flag..) a Dutch flag, that was used to decorate playing tables. It had a bit of a sharp point to it, so I hoped it would not be causing any issues with the security check.
After I put my bag through the scanning device, it went off and thus it was taken apart. Great.. just what I was hoping for. I was standing there a bit stoic, knowing I had nothing with me, except for that flag, that could cause any issues.. turns out, after a small investigation, one of the bottles of water, from Thursday, was still in my bag. About 1/10th (0.5L bottle) was still in it and was taken for further investigation. Realising how stupid this was, I apologised to the security officer for the inconvenience caused by my careless action (or lack of..). It was determined that indeed there was water in it, the bottle was confiscated and I could move on.
Those people work under high pressure, so having caused an inconvenience for them felt stupid, after all, they are the ones having to be sharp 24/7 to ensure other people's (and mine) security. I was not the only one with water still with them, but still, it did not feel good.
We boarded the plane, the plane took off without any problems and landed without any problems. We even landed +- 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. Some were a bit in a hurry, some less. Either way, goodbyes were exchanged and people headed back home which marked the final end of this event. Much to my surprise, Dutch railways did not cause any trouble and actually provided me a smooth trip back to Rotterdam.
Some more pics
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| Teammates at the annual Stratego teamcup; surely you guessed that anyway.. |
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| 2nd place |
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| Two of my dear friends battling out the "Battle of the clowns" 😏 |
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| George Tryp and Dennis |
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| Dennis vs Ricardo |
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| A classic |
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| Get it here |
Last but not least, hopefully, after this long read, you will have an idea about how I have experienced the live WC 2019. Of course, slightly disappointed by the end result, but nonetheless, I had a good experience.
For other blog posts, see the index here
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