Windy City Weasels

Season five was our biggest and best year yet of Windy City Weasels Diplomacy. Fittingly, it ended yesterday with our biggest and best Weasel Pyle yet.

A total of 26 players participated, and thanks to Nate Cockerill and Matt Sundstrom who volunteered to play on two boards each, we fielded four on the day. Here's the rundown.

At the start of play in Game No. 104--held Saturday at Dan Burgess' home in Downers Grove--Pete McNamara and Sam Bassett were holding down the sixth and seventh spots, respectively, in the Weasel Royale field. But with scores of 403 and 345, they were low-hanging fruit for other Royale hopefuls. 

So, Saturday's game represented an opportunity for them to solidfy their tenuous positions. But by the end of the day, they were on even shakier ground.

Instead, it was Amanda Baumgartner, Christopher M. Davis and Dan who improved their Royale chances. As Germany, Italy and Turkey, they each finished with eight centers and 92 points in a game that ended in a five-way draw after the Fall 1910 turn. Peter Yeargin, meanwhile, topped the board with a nine-center France, but his score had no bearing on the Royale.

The final center counts were:

Here's the supply center chart.

The Weasel Pyle at Eric Brown's home in Wayne on Aug. 14 is the last scheduled event of season five, and with three or four boards and so many players in contention, each game could have Royale implications. Check out the club standings here.

There's still room on the Pyle's fourth board, so sign up now and join the fun. In the meantime, let's hear from the players in Game No. 104.

We've filled three boards for Weasel Pyle V, which is still 3 1/2 weeks away, but that's not enough for host Eric Brown. He wants to make this our biggest Pyle yet, so he's opened a fourth board!

Join us as we celebrate five years of Windy City Weasels Diplomacy. We'll have up to four boards of Diplomacy plus other games on the side, our Season 5 awards ceremony, special awards recognizing achievements at the Pyle, an election for the two open seats on the Sneak, and the announcement of the 2010 Weasel Royale bids.

1. Eric Brown
2. Jim O'Kelley
3. Adam Berey
4. Nate Cockerill
5. Amanda Baumgartner
6. Peter Yeargin
7. Matt Sundstrom
8. Christian MacDonald 
9. Pete McNamara
10. Aash Anand
11. Sam Bassett
12. Martin LeBreton
13. Dan Burgess
14. Grant Smith
15. Tony Prokes
16. Andrew Bartlein
17. Christian Kline
18. John Gramila
19. Paul Pignotti
20. Christopher M. Davis
21. Greg Duenow
22. Bob Moore 
23. Mike Morrison
24.  Michael Bartlein
25.  Peter Lokken
26.  
27.  
28.  

Late Arriving: Thom Comstock

In a game featuring four players who had joined the club in the past two years, it was cagey old vet Christian Kline who emerged with the board top in Game No. 103, played July 17 at Peter Yeargin's home in Lakeview.

Kline, who joined the club in Game No. 3 back in January 2006, turned in a vintage performance. Drawing Russia, a country that has rebounded this season, he built only once in 1901, but followed that up with two in 1902, three in 1905 and four in 1907 to finish with 13 centers. It was Russia's sixth outright board top of the season.

The final center count for the game, which ended in Spring 1909, were:

Click here to check out the supply center chart. Hopefully the players will post their comments below.

I showed up for the end of the game, and afterward we played a four-year game of Wilsonian Diplomacy, which was fun. Matt's Turkey had 10 centers when we stopped playing to my nine-center France. Josh had six centers as England; John, four as Germany; Peter, three as Austria; and Aash and Christian, one each as Italy and Russia, respectively.

After the Wilsonian game, five of us met Meghan and some of her friends out for drinks. It was a good night.

John Gramila was good enough to grab Best England from Sam Bassett in Game No. 102, played yesterday at Sam's home in Chicago's Near North neighborhood, but he was stopped two short of the magic 18. The game ended after the Fall 1913 turn with the following center counts:

I'd like to publicly thank John and Kurt for answering our call for replacement players and also Matt Sundstrom for graciously stepping aside when we thought we'd found a third. That player couldn't make it, however, so I was called in as an emergency replacement. Sorry, Matt. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I won't ever ask you to sit out again.

We selected powers in reverse order of our standing in the club. Kurt took France; John, England; Ted, Germany; Nate, Russia; Sam, Turkey; Pete, Italy; and me, Austria. The game was really interesting, at least for the first eight years. I had to leave after that. But during those years, we saw Italy twice build three times and once remove three. England also built three times.

We knocked Russia out of the game in 1908, and at that point, with the consent of all the players, we turned over my Austria to Nate so that I could rejoin my plans in progress. Our House Rules actually forbid that, but no one had a problem with it, and we all felt that it was better than the alternatives of playing with Austria in Civil Disorder or turning it over to a reluctant Ashley Bassett, who was a trooper, by the way, as we occupied her home for some 12 hours.

Hopefully the players will post endgame statements. The game was fun, and there was a lot of play remaining when I left.

Here's the supply center chart.