WBC 2008 -> Day 2

Prelude
Day 0
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
PR Finals
Recap

Last year we stayed at the hotel across the street which came with 2 free breakfast buffets, which we made full use of. We decided to hit the breakfast buffet at the event site this year, even though it wasn't free. Despite it not being free it was actually much worse. The selection was smaller, the cereal was stale, and they didn't have an omelette guy. We were not impressed, and I for one didn't go back.

Titan 2-player - 10 am - Titan 2 player is run as a single elimination event with rounds scheduled haphazardly. The goal is to be done by the end, and you're supposed to arrange to play your next match with your next opponent as soon as is feasible without screwing your week. Unfortunately I didn't take this to heart, as we will see...

Anyway, they set things up with seeding such that all previous winners are spread apart on the single elimination bracket. I was matched up with a former winner. I don't remember much about the game but my notes say I won in 35 minutes during the first battle of the game. Short and sweet! What I should have done is looked at the schedule and found something else to do. What I actually did was wait around for the match containing my next opponent to finish. They didn't finish for over 7 hours...

Now I was really annoyed at this at the time, but the problem is really my own. I should have found something to do and let the guys playing know that I'd be back in a couple hours to check in on them. For no good reason I stuck around skipping events I wanted to play in so I could be available as soon as they finished.

The kicker here is they finished and the winner decided he'd rather play the next morning anyway as he'd played enough Titan. *sigh* At this point they were trying to put together some 4 player Titan games and were short some players. I always want to play at least one game of multiplayer Titan each year to boost their attendance numbers. (If you're trying to make the semi-finals you want to play 6 games ideally, less if you win a couple.) After sitting around for 7 hours to play Titan I figured I should get my 4 player Titan game in. The really frustrating part is the ended up with 7 people interested in playing multiplayer Titan and my 2-player Titan opponent stepped in to fill out the games. So, my opponent who didn't want to play more 2-player Titan put it off so he could play 4-player Titan. *sigh*

If I was a more assertive fellow I'd have pushed to play 2-player then and there but because I'm not I didn't.

In the middle of waiting I went to watch the Agricola demo. I should have then played in the Agricola round and I'd probably have been a lot happier with the day. Oh well.

Titan 4-player - 6 pm - I ended up in a game with Robb and there were things on the schedule I really wanted to do at 9 (Queen's Gambit), 10 (Vegas Showdown), and 11 (Can't Stop). I came second in Can't Stop last year and really wanted to improve on that so my plan was QG at 9 and CS at 11. So, of course, I end up in a fight for my life in Titan with Robb around 8. That one fight took 45 minutes. I managed to win the fight but ended up in a position where I was forced to attack a couple of turns later. I was eliminated and it was past 9. *sigh*

I could have aborted to Vegas Showdown but I really wanted to play Can't Stop. So I stuck around watching things until 11.

Can't Stop - 11pm - Last year I made it to the finals and the GM commented that he thought the game was incredibly random and he didn't expect to ever see the same people make it to the finals year after year. Now, I think Can't Stop has a lot of skill to it, and I think most people are very bad, so I really wanted to prove him wrong and make it back to the finals. I started off by winning the first round, but that incredible random part bit me in the butt for the second round. The guy who ended up winning stopped literally every 5 rolls. That gives your opponents so many turns to win its ridiculous. I, on the other hand, kept getting really terrible rolls, things like trips and quads only a couple of rolls in. I'm convinced my opponent's plan actually only gave him a really small chance to win as he needed both me and the third guy to consistently fail with good odds to succeed. Oh well! I'll be back next year!

Nefertiti - 12pmish - Robb also lost in round 2 and I don't think Pounder played at all. We headed back to Cafe Jay and looked for a new demo to play. We ended up playing Nefertiti which is an odd little auction/collection game. I set out to collect the rare stuff worth the most and got almost all of them. It was an interesting game, the costs of the auctions changed as time went on so it had a bit more variance than something like Ra and I'd consider playing it again.

Quo Vadis - later - We headed back to the room but for some insane reason decided to play Quo Vadis instead of going to bed. We ended up losing a piece but found it under the bed 3 days later. (Doesn't say much for the cleaning staff!)