The Weekly Weasel — Week of April 13

Here’s what’s going on with the Weasels.

Matt’s Con
Like a comet or a locust or maybe a weird STD, you can count on Matt Sundstrom winning CODCon every three years. He won his first CODCon title in 2009 after finishing 2 points behind champion Mike French the previous year. Then he won again in 2012 on the strength of a Turkish solo. And last weekend at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, he won yet again. This time, he didn’t even need the Turkish solo; he could have won with his other two results.

A total of 26 players competed on eight boards over the weekend. We fell short of our goals of more than 30 players and at least one four-board round, but we got close. And while the board’s worth of teenagers we were hoping for didn’t materialize, we still had three kids play. Danny Grinnell was eliminated in all three rounds, and Kevin O’Kelley was eliminated in his only round, but Jorge Zhang rebounded from two tough Saturday rounds to finagle a decent result on Sunday.

Jorge was one of five first-time tournament players to participate. The others were local players Geoff Serednesky and Brad Harrington and travelers Zach Moore from Minnesota and Chad Kemp from Ohio. Kemp heard about our club on DiplomacyCast and decided to check us out. Moore just started playing a couple of months ago and was dragged along by Ben Johnson, who attended CODCon back in 2013.

So we were excited to have so many first-timers in attendance, but we were even more thrilled to welcome one of the hobby’s luminaries. Chris Martin, the former world champion, three-time Alpha Weasel, and president of the North American Diplomacy Federation, was in town on business and dropped by to play in the Saturday evening round. His board-top earned him seventh place in the tournament and a bid to the next biennial invitational that he hosts. (Top seven finishers in Grand Prix events over a two-year period receive bids to the invitational. The next one will be in 2017.)

So, our ninth CODCon Open was a pretty good one. Thanks to strong regional support (two players from Kentucky, two from Minnesota, two from Ohio, and two from Wisconsin — not to mention Martin, who was in town from D.C., and Aash Anand, who flew in from Denver), we had our largest turnout since the first one in 2007 and the most boards we’ve fielded since 2010. Check out the tournament summary, and make your plans to join us June 13-14 for Weasel Moot!

Help Needed!
The Sneak is looking for someone with expertise in Joomla to take on the responsibility of administering the back end of our website. Also, we need help converting Matt’s rating system to a searchable, web-based database. Please email us at wcwsneak@gmail.com if you can help with or have questions about either project.

Seis de Mayo
We’ve scheduled a bonus night of Dip and Drinks at the Red Lion. Join us May 6 starting at 6:30 until no later than 11 as we entertain a visiting webdiplomacy.net player from Milwaukee. Let’s show him why we all love the face-to-face hobby.

Moot Preregistration Is Now Open
With CODCon behind us, our focus shifts to Weasel Moot, which this year is just 8 1/2 weeks away. Yikes! Weasel Moot IX will be June 13-14 in the Atrium at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Housing is available in a dorm attached to the Atrium, but only if you preregister, which you may do now. You can get a single room at the dorm for $41 per night or share a double for $30. (In either case, you’ll be sharing a bathroom with another room.) The website lists other housing options for those who are done with dorm-style living.

Dues Are Due
Dues for 2015 are now due. We’ve kept our rates the same. A regular membership will cost you $25; the student rate is just $10. Dues will get you a discount on our tournament entry fees (including $5 off at this weekend’s CODCon Open!), eligibility for club awards and the Weasel Royale championship game, and–when we think of it–first crack at our house games. Dues pay for our club awards, the Meetup group, our website, and the Royale award and hosting subsidy. Please consider paying dues today. You may do so via PayPal here or by giving cash to a member of the Sneak. Thank you to the 24 Weasels who have paid up so far, including Amanda Baumgartner, Nate Cockerill, John Gramila, Nathaniel Olson, Matt Sundstrom, and one other whose name escapes me at the moment but whom I will publicly recognize in the next issue. We appreciate your support.

Upcoming Games

• May 6 at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square, beginning at 6:30 p.m. until no later than 11. Have two; need five more!
• May 13 at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square, beginning at 6:30 p.m. until no later than 11. Have six; need one more for the first board!

Sign up for games here, on Meetup, or by emailing War Weasel Dan Burgess (danburgess67@gmail.com).

Important Dates

• June 13-14: Weasel Moot IX!

Up Next on the Tournament Circuit

• 2015 WDC: May 1-3 in Milan. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1500292310187264/)
• DixieCon: May 22-24 in Chapel Hill. (http://dixiecon.com/)

That’s all for this week.

Jim