Pignotti Wins Royale; McNamara Takes the Undercard

For those of you who are new to the group, our club has four major events each year:

• Our tournament at the CODCon gaming convention in April at the College of Dupage in Glen Ellyn.
• Weasel Moot, our annual club tournament, which in three years has been held in June, November and then September.
• The Weasel Pyle, our season-ending gala hosted at Eric Brown’s home in Wayne each August.
• And the Weasel Royale, our annual club championship.

The second annual Weasel Royale was held yesterday at Dan Burgess’ home in Downers Grove. This year, we added an Undercard game, which counted as a regular club game, and that contributed to the festive atmosphere. dan had house filled with Diplomacy players. Actually, the yard was often more crowded, as many of us took advantage of the beautiful weather to negotiate outside. In fact the Undercard game started on Dan’s deck before eventually moving inside when darkness fell.

Dan and Tracy did their usual excellent job of hosting and of catering to our every need. When Dan wasn’t live blogging the Royale, he was running around to ensure that our mugs were never empty. And perhaps because Dan’s attention to that detail, Tracy made a couple of booze runs for us and even picked up two pizzas for us.

As you’ve probably read by now, Paul Pignotti, the fourth seed who selected third, won the Royale as Turkey. He stabbed my Austria in Fall 1908 to vault from fourth to first place. The game ended the following turn. Christian MacDonald as England and Matt Sundstrom as France finished with nine centers each. Mike Morrison’s Italy and Peter Yeargin’s Russia were knocked out in 1905, with Eric Brown in Germany being eliminated the next year.

Here are the final center counts:

Austria (Jim O’Kelley): 6; 75 points.
England (Christian MacDonald): 9; 105 points.
France (Matt Sundstrom): 9; 105 points.
Germany (Eric Brown): 0; 6 points.
Italy (Mike Morrison): 0; 5 points.
Russia (Peter Yeargin): 0; 5 points.
Turkey (Paul Pignotti): 10; 135 points.

Meanwhile, the Undercard ended after Fall 1909 with Pete McNamara topping the board with 14 centers as Germany. The final center counts there were:

Austria (John Ritz): 0; 7 points.
England (Scott Cheever): 0; 9 points.
France (May Ling Chong): 9; 105 points.
Germany (Pete McNamara): 14; 183 points.
Italy (Greg Duenow): 0; 6 points.
Russia (Amanda Baumgartner): 1; 25 points.
Turkey (Ted McClelland): 10; 115 points.

Thanks again to Dan and Tracy and to all the players. Hope to see you at a game soon!

Jim