[Daanz-dip] [DAANZ-Dip] The 13th DON Tourney (Part 3)

[William J Brown]

Board 1, Round 2

After a satisfactory lunch, the second round got underway in the early afternoon. With a reduced number of players, the second round would consist of only one board, albeit one of quality.

I picked out England, with Rohan as Austria, David Blom as Russia, Geoff Kerr as Turkey, Tristan as Italy, Guy as Germany and Sean with France.

I was hoping for a quick kill somewhere in the West. Sean felt he couldn’t trust Tristan so was looking south, Guy was looking East, so a three way was talked about. It was David who helped make up my mind with the offer of a very interesting combination of moves in Fall 1901. He would slip into the Baltic and encouraged me to move to Denmark, therefore letting the German fleet move from Denmark to Sweden
.. This would give me two builds and leave Russia and England in a strong position against Germany. With France seemingly on board, I took up the offer, and it worked
.

As we crunched into Germany France stayed onside. Austria and Turkey took on the East and came out on top as Russia continued to focus on Germany. His disband of his southern fleet, while placating them, became an invitation to attack when he built in Warsaw, leaving Sev unguarded.

Once this happened, I had to stake a claim in the north and took out StP. Sean encouraged, and continued to encourage me to send armies northwards. His “promise” that if I stayed with him he would do his best for me to get 18 centres was tempting, but knowing Sean I don’t think I could trust him to go that far. So instead of moving north, I parked a fleet in StP (hoping to encourage Austria and Turkey to come to blows) and moved south. Eventually, as I had most of Germany and was on the verge of taking out France, the others finally turned to stop me.

At this moment, we reached the end of the day’s session with the game to continue into the next day. While I was in a strong position, I couldn’t see how I could break into the Med. for a solo if Austria/Turkey stayed allied. At best, I could take two or three off France to end on 15 or 16.

The next day we played two turns before declaring a draw. Scores were England 13, Austria 10, Turkey 7 and France on 4.

Board 1, Round 3

The talk was that I was “leading” the Tourney, which I was. With Rohan Flavelle having played only the one game with a high score of 15 centres, I had 21 after two rounds with Sean and Rohan on 13. An 8 centre lead
..

I of course draw Italy. A tough country to play in a Tournament game (especially where a time draw is a possibility). The strategic options limit the chance of a really large game, and usually it ends up squashed between the big alliances in the West and East.

There is only one board again with Geoff as Austria, Kimberly England, David France, Frank Germany, Sean Russia and Rohan as Turkey. Geoff and Rohan had swapped Austria/Turkey from the previous game. Good/bad?? I didn’t know.

My usual strategy as Italy is to stick with Austria. The rider is to stick with Austria only if they are reasonable and sensible, and to stick with them while a threat of a steamroller still exists.  I couldn’t see how I could take on Geoff early and leave the board in a reasonable position to guarantee my survival, so I stuck with Geoff.

And did I stick! My centre count was 4 – for the first 6 years! A majority of my moves were A Apu-Ven, A Pie-Ven. I took up Geoff’s offer of the use of his fleet, and gladly “escorted” it through the Ionian, to Tunis, to the Western Med.

Meanwhile Germany and England had taken on France and I decided not to upset that situation too much. After an early shot at Marseilles, I settled back to work with David to hold them out. He did a good job too with the French defence (I think David’s strength – and sometimes a weakness as well, is to find an “unusual” move or set of moves. Sometimes simpler is better
) and Germany and England remained frustrated for a while. Russia had come under pressure from Austria and was knocked down to two units – armies in War and Mos.

>From here it was downhill for Germany and England. Russia made a pact with the devil and became a Janissary for Austria, with which he did an amazing job, rising to 4 centres with fleets in the North and Edi. France too was pushed back to 3 centres before making a comeback to finish on 4. Germany couldn’t hold back the tide and disappeared, and England finally had enough at the end and gave away centres in an attempt to get out of the game ASAP. I finally had a chance to grab some centres and moved to seven in 1907.

TIME DRAW! Final centre counts: Austria 10, Turkey 8, Italy 7, both Russia and France on 4 and England on 1. I have Geoff and Rohan to thank for making my position a safe one for all of the game.

My FIRST Tournament win. I get to move off the top of the Veteran rank to the Champion level. Only took me 18 years!

Thanks to Gary for organising, Frank for GMing and Sean for helping.