There was an Undercard game yesterday. We bill the Undercard as an opportunity to steal a march on the sharks occupied in the Royale. This Undercard, though, had its share of sharks, headlined by John Gramila, he of the Italian solo at Worlds and near miss of the top board.
But the board-top didn’t go to Gramila or any of the other seasoned vets on the board. Instead, it went to Mick Johnson, who was playing his third game ever. The Undercard ended by draw vote in Spring 1910 in the following center counts:
Austria (Mick Johnson): 14; 57.988 points.
England (Carlos Trevino): 9; 23.964 points.
France (Sandra Ryan): 6; 10.651 points.
Germany (Brad Harrington): 0; 0.000 points.
Italy (Mike Morrison): 5; 7.396 points.
Russia (John Gramila): 0; 0.000 points.
Turkey (Don Glass): 0; 0.000 points.
Mick now has two board-tops and an elimination in his first three games with the club (and first three games ever). He’s currently in first place on the young season
Sandra Ryan, meanwhile, bailed us out when Amanda Baumgartner failed to show up. (We were shocked and saddened to find out later in the evening that Amanda had passed away on September 27.) Sandra is Dan’s ex-wife’s sister and is currently boarding at Dan’s. We’re not sure she’ll play again, but we’re grateful that she stepped in to round out the board.
Okay, supply center chart is here. How about some endgame statements?
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Congrats, Mick, for taking over first place in the standings! I’ll have the target sweater ready for you at your next game.
Thanks Brandon, I’m ready to wear it and trust “allies” even less than I normally do for the next several months.
The game was fantastically fun. There were buzzings of a Western Triple in Spring of 01 which helped in setting up an AIR, and rumblings of an RT in the Fall (after neither moved too aggressively toward the other) that helped solidify an AI that stayed strong throughout the game. Mike Morrison was a fantastic ally as Italy, and a slightly tweaked Key Lepanto (very glad he didn’t stab me when he was in Trieste and the Aegean) helped us keep Turkey out of the Balkans, and eventually invade. As it turned out, there was no RT, and Russia was chiefly focused with Germany and an encroaching England. John Gramila was also a great ally and a fantastic tactical advisor in the mid-game.
Germany and I played nice for most of the game, until around the time of Turkey and Russia’s eliminations and the switch-over from Sandra to Jake, when the Western powers got very serious about pushing me back. Taking advantage of some major tactical missteps I’d made in the East, took both Moscow and Warsaw from me. It looked as though the tides were turning and I was potentially going to lose more and stalemate somewhere between 8-10 centers, but then Carlos Trevino as England, who played a brilliant game, stabbed Germany in the Fall of 08, and took 3 centers from him. While he planned on following this up with a 3 center build as back-up, an unfortunate mis-order in the following build, left him with one build and an incensed Germany (Brad Harrington), whose mission then became helping me top (or solo). We voted to draw after Fall 09. While I think I potentially may have been able to solo (as others told me after the game was through), multiple people (myself among them) wanted to head home after a long day, and I didn’t want to hold the game hostage for an ego stroke that could’ve potentially taken a while longer.
As I mentioned before, it was a wonderfully fun game, and (as each game has been so far) a massive learning experience.
Nice AAR. One lesson I learned is that sometimes if you are friendly with the person you are fighting and encourage friendly competition, sometimes they will be nice to you if their ally stabs. Looks like you got a taste of that in this game. Figuring out who will behave which way is a huge part of this game I am still learning myself. We’ll played Mick!