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Round 3, Board 1
The game ended by draw vote in Fall, 1909.
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Austria:
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Eric Grinnell
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(8)
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21.192
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England:
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Jim O’Kelley
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(11)
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40.066
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France:
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Jorge Zhang
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(10)
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33.113
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Germany:
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Mike French
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(0)
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0.000
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Italy:
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Brian Shelden
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(4)
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5.298
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Russia:
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Ali Adib
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(1)
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0.331
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Turkey:
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Ben Hafner
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(0)
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0.000
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A:Eric Grinnell
E:Jim O’Kelley
F:Jorge Zhang
G:Mike French
I:Brian Shelden
R:Ali Adib
T:Ben Hafner
E:Jim O’Kelley
F:Jorge Zhang
G:Mike French
I:Brian Shelden
R:Ali Adib
T:Ben Hafner
This Post Has One Comment
This was a path-of-least-resistance game for me. Tournament leader Mike French was in Germany. His price for giving Sweden to Russia (Ali Adib) was a fleet on the North Coast.
And then in France, there was the cherubic Jorge Zhang. We had played together in the first two rounds at CODCon, and I had treated him shabbily. I was cognizant of that. Also, there’s this:
In the first round at CODCon, my British raider sacked three of his Russian home centers. Nevertheless, by the end of the game, after Christian Kline had organized a Grand Alliance with the sole purpose of wresting away my board-top and giving it to the Turk, Jorge alone stood up and said, “No. I think he deserves a share of the board-top.”
So, the circumstances were right to repay that debt. I’m not sure I ever would have stabbed Jorge in this one. If there were a clear path to 18, maybe. But even when I was positioned to walk into Berlin and force Holland and Brest, I never even twitched.
My goal here was to score a big result with an ally not through an ally. Fourteens, or 14-13, or 13-12. First or second, I could have scored better than I ended up here.
Unfortunately, I got too cute in Fall 1907. Jorge had asked–[u][b]asked[/b][/u]–me to dislodge him from the Mid Atlantic so that he could avoid the guessing game and just retreat forward to the open space in the Mediterranean. I obliged (of course!), but my mover was Irish Sea instead of English Channel.
That wasn’t a mistake, of course. I put myself in the better offensive position intentionally, but I didn’t pull the trigger.
Jorge saw what I had done, retreated to Portugal instead of North Africa, and then Austria (Eric Grinnell) and Italy (Brian Shelden) pounced on him as soon as negotiations opened.
They convinced him to turn around, costing him a sure thing against Vienna. Someone, probably Eric, voted down a draw or two, and Brian and Eric pointed the finger at me. But it wasn’t me in this game!
I eventually persuaded Jorge to renew his assault on Austria, and the next draw vote passed. We both got nice scores, but I wanted us both to do better.