When Peter Lokken joined our hobby, he was like a meteor lighting up the sky. Lokken played his first game with us in May 2010. By October, he had topped his first board.
Many more would follow. In fact during that 2010-11 season, his first full season with the club, Lokken compiled a record 7.5 board tops. That record still stands. He did it while playing in 25 games, a single-season total eclipsed only by Nate Cockerill’s 27 the same year.
More success followed. In 2011-12, a season shortened because we were hosting the World Diplomacy Championship in August, Lokken played in 19 more games and topped three more boards. During the second round of our WDC, he soloed as Germany, earning a berth in the world championship game (won by Doc Binder).
Lokken was shining brightly then. But the thing about meteors is they shine brightly only briefly. Then they burn out.
Lokken mustered only two shared board tops during the 2012-13 season, and his participation dipped to a mere 11 games, paltry compared with the standard he set the previous two years. And he missed both of our 2013 tournaments. We didn’t see him at all this season until our 14th game at the end of January.
Lokken posted a goose egg in that return to the table, and then managed just 9 points on five centers in his second outing three games later. The once bright meteor was now just a dead rock.
But yesterday in our March Madness tip-off at John Gramila’s home in Humboldt Park, the rock flared. Playing Austria, Lokken secured a rock-solid alliance with Turkey and rode it all the way to his first outright board top in league play since May of 2012.
Game No. 238 ended in Spring 1909 in the following center counts:
Austria (Peter Lokken): 10;38.760 points.
England (Dan Burgess): 4; 6.202 points.
France (Don Glass): 6; 13.953 points.
Germany (John Gramila): 5; 9.690 points.
Italy (Ben DiPaola): 0; 0.000 points.
Russia (Nate Cockerill): 0; 0.000 points.
Turkey (Mike Morrison): 9; 31.395 points.
The supply center chart is here. I hope the players will comment, as you don’t often see a three-build Turkey in 1901. And I suppose it’s even more rare that you see her build three fleets.
"I couldn’t break the Turkey-Austria alliance," lamented DiPaola. "They designed it so that Mike had all fleets, Pete all armies, and they stayed away from each other. … It was a crazy solid alliance."
March Madness rolls on this weekend at Concentric at the Holiday Inn Itasca. We have a game scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday. It’s full, but we can probably get you in if you’re interested. Concentric will charge $20 at the door. (For those of us already signed up for the game, the fee will be $15.) The game on the Ides of March (the 15th) at Tony Prokes’ home in Des Plaines needs players.
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Well the three turkey fleet build goes like this. Turkey mentions taking Greece to get out faster and in exchange help or at least be a non combatant with russia. That didn’t seem all that good of a deal but not bad so I waited to see what happened in spring. I mean you never want to let the big oozy spread. But I remembered listening to Nate, in pre-game banter, say how it was wrong to let Putin into ukraine. Needless to say once I read War->Ukr and someone pushed that white block in the Ukraine a half hour later I decided to call him on his hypocrasy.
And before John G gets to it I’ll explain why cell phones are not permissible writing instruments in the club anymore.
I decided to use my new droid (which has a stylus) to submit my orders. Maybe 5 game years into it, someone was reading the orders and accidentally deleted mine. Unfortunately mine were the last ones in so I saw everything. I couldn’t beleive it. I told everyone what I had written, stating that they were obvious moves. This did involve an attack on germany (but one he couldnt defend). Dan, our fearless Prime (along with most everyone else), agreed my orders were obvious and let them submit, in conjunction with an executive-order banning cell phones for recording orders. The newly enraged Germany let out a 2 hour barrage of the c-word to anyone and everyone. I didn’t know it was possible to get drunk on PBR.
All in all I had a blast And look forward to playing with you all again at my place in a few weeks
[quote]Dan, our fearless Prime[/quote]
Although Dan is indeed fearless, he’s no longer our Prime. Dan is the War Weasel now. The Big Oozy is our Prime. Just when you think you have Cockerill contained, he seizes control of the club.