WBC 2013 Schedule

Wow, time sure flies when you're having fun. This year's World Boardgaming Championships are coming up in less than three weeks! Normally I have an Excel sheet with the schedule built out in June with a grand plan for what I'm going to play; I hadn't even downloaded the list before this morning. There's still so much stuff to get done before I'm ready, but I did spend a few hours today massaging the schedule into my format and building out a preliminary schedule...

I only have three finals listed on here this time around. Vegas Showdown, which I've final tabled twice in the past. Le Havre, which I've final tabled all three years it's been an event. And A Few Acres of Snow which I'm GMing so I have to show up. So all three of those feel pretty reasonable. I finally found a time where I can squeeze in a crayon rails game. It remains to be seen if I'll still feel this way come WBC itself, but it's in the sheet for now! Stone Age was left off entirely despite having a new and improved format. No more surprise bonus round right after winning a game. Instead they're finally getting a quarterfinal round so they can advance 64 winners if they need to. But I'm still bitter about a couple years ago, and it didn't seem to fit.

There's still lots of holes in the sheet. I wonder if that means I'm getting jaded and am unwilling to show up to more things now? Or maybe I'm just starting to accept that making a schedule in advance does nothing as I end up deviating based on making or not making different semifinals. Even with all the holes I have a few random things in here that I bet I don't go to when the time comes. Cities & Knights, Egizia, Small World, a 9 am Puerto Rico heat... Or maybe I just want to have plenty of time to eat? That doesn't sound right...

Eating is actually a pretty depressing thought. I suspect I'm going to end up sick again all week. Maybe I should bring large numbers of gluten free breakfast bars and the like, but they are not enjoyable to eat. But maybe that's better than being sick. I did some website searching and people seem to claim that Waffle House can be just fine as long as the cooking staff is careful about cross contamination. But they can't keep Robb's onions out of my hash browns. Or his slice of cheese! So I really have my doubts. Maybe if I stress to the waitress just how important it is? I feel like it may be easiest if I just lie and tell her I have Celiac disease and hope that sounds scary and important enough that they put in the effort. (And it may not even be a lie?)

I went out on the weekend and bought a new watch strap. Having easy access to the time is really important at WBC I think and since I hate carrying a phone (and my phone doesn't even work in that country) I really want a watch. Woo!

I should probably go buy a smaller air mattress or two to take down since my current ones are both big and potentially prone to being popped by cleaning staff.

And I really need to figure out what I'm going to be doing as GM of a game for the first time. Decide what I want on scoresheets, how I'm going to do pairings, maybe script out the demo. That sort of thing. I got a lot of responses to my post about bidding system obligations and I think I agree with the majority (and therefore disagree with Andrew) and no longer feel like I should try to sway people to my way of playing the game. Even if I think it's right. I know that when I attend a demo at WBC my goal isn't to then go win the event. It's to play a game or two and see how it works to see if I like the game. And I know from talking to people on Yucata and reading threads on boardgamegeek that with A Few Acres of Snow in particular people seem to have more fun with the game just doing random expansion than they do with the 'Halifax Hammer'. So I think I'll probably list the data from last year's recap on the scoresheet somewhere and not really talk about it at all otherwise.

It looks like teams for the team event need to be submitted by July 20th. I'm pretty sure I should just keep picking Le Havre as my team game. I haven't played a single time since WBC last year which is probably not very good for my chances of winning, but it's still my favourite game and I feel like the biggest advantage to making something your team game at WBC is feeling obligated to show up and play it. I want to show up and play Le Havre 4 times anyway! I guess the other option is A Few Acres of Snow. I feel a little wrong about GMing my team game though. Also I don't know that I have a team at all at this point. Probably I should send an email to my team from last year and see if they want to run it back?