The NADF

And they’re off!
 
Snatching Victory from the Jaws of a Buffalo
For three rounds, Andy “Buffalo” Bartalone dominated WACCon 8 in Seattle last weekend.

First, the Potomac Tea & Knife Society heavyweight thundered to a 13-center board top and the Best Russia award. Then, he stampeded to 14 and a near solo before settling for Best Austria. And in the third round, he rumbled into 10 centers, good enough for a shared board top and Best England.

Three rounds, three board tops, three Best Country awards.

Buffalo qualified for the top board with 133.53 points, nearly 16 more than his closest competitor. But the top board at WAC is a winner-take-all affair. Buffalo needed one more board top to seal the deal.

The powers were randomly assigned. Buffalo drew France. The other players, in the order they qualified, were Nate Cockerill of Chicago in Italy, Chris Brand of Vancouver in England, Jim O’Kelley of Chicago in Germany, Edi Birsan of San Francisco in Austria, Adam Sigal of State College in Turkey, and Brian Shelden of Austin in Russia. (Adam Silverman of San Francisco was in third after three rounds, but he was unable to play on Sunday.)

The game began with a misorder by Russia. Events quickly spiraled out of Buffalo’s control. Russia guessed wrong in Fall 1901, allowing the Turks a second build. Then Italy retreated A Trieste off the board after Spring 1902, allowing Austria to waltz into Venice. Finally, Germany built a third fleet instead of a fourth army, essentially opening his gates to Austria.

By 1903, the west was under siege. France and Germany stalemated the Austrians, which gave Sigal the opening he needed. He plunged a knife into Birsan’s back and gobbled his way to Best Turkey and a convincing victory. The final center counts were 13 for Turkey, 6 each for England and Germany, 5 for France, 3 for Austria and 1 for Italy.

It was a well-earned victory for Sigal and his second WACCon title. Only he and Andrew Neumann have accomplished that feat. For Buffalo, the tournament's top scorer, it was a disappointing finish to a great run and perhaps a reminder that even when you’re at the top of your game, you can never top the game.  

A total of 46 players competed on 20 boards over the four rounds. The Grand Prix purse was 160 points. The top seven, along with their Grand Prix points, were:

1. Adam Sigal (160)
2. Buffalo (144)
3. Nate Cockerill (129.6)
4. Adam Silverman (116.64)
5. Chris Brand (104.98)
6. Jim O’Kelley (94.48)
7. Edi Birsan (85.03)

The Best Country awards went to:

Austria: Buffalo

England: Buffalo

France: Kyra Olson

Germany: Peter Yeargin

Italy: Jim O’Kelley

Russia: Buffalo

Turkey: Adam Sigal

You can check out the complete standings here. You can read my Weasel-centric recap here. Robert Premus of New York posted his report here.

The Grand Prix continues this weekend at TempleCon in Providence. For the complete schedule, go here: thenadf.org/grandprix/2012-grand-prix-schedule.

Caught between the Archduke and New York City
Robert Premus has got himself a group in New York City. On Jan. 21, and for the second time in five weeks, he hosted a game at his place in Harlem. This one featured three of the game one vets and four new faces, his included.

They played through 1908, with Premus topping with 12 centers. The final counts were:

Austria (Robert Premus): 11

England (Sam Capasso): 10

France (Dan Dalton): 3

Germany (Jason Mastbaum): 2

Italy (Darren Tang): 4

Russia (Joseph Siesto): 0

Turkey (Tony Laufgraben): 4
 

Check out Premus’ thoughts on the game here: http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=25268. There’s also a photo of the positions at game end.

Premus plans to hold the group’s third game on Feb. 18 at his place.

DiplomacyCast is out!

Episode 13 of DiplomacyCast is out. Check it out at iTunes or diplomacycast.com. In this episode, hosts Eric Mead and Nathan Barnes empty their mailbox and interview kiwi Melissa Call. Check it out.

Weasels create Facebook page for WDC
If you’re on Facebook, check out the Weasels’ page for this summer’s World Diplomacy Championship at Weasel Moot VI: www.facebook.com/events/237129306368896/.  If you haven’t already received an invitation, feel free to join the event, and please invite any of your friends who may be interested.

The event again will be held Aug. 10-12 at the historic Congress Plaza Hotel in downtown Chicago. Preregistration is open and will save you $10. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/events/237129306368896/  or windycityweasels.org/wdc.
 
Hobby Roundup
Here’s what’s going on in the hobby hotbeds. If we’ve missed your hobby, let us know!

Bay Area
Five players from the Bay Area traveled to Seattle for WACCon. Two of them, Adam Silverman and Edi Birsan, finished on the top board. The other representatives were Australian transplant Peter McNamara, Everett Tishler and Clifford Tong.

The Bay Area Diplomacy Association will hold its BADAss Whipping tournament the weekend of May 5. The club’s Yahoo group is games.groups.yahoo.com/group/bayareadip. The BADAss website is bayareadiplomacy.org.

Central Iowa
The group will meet again Saturday at the Iowa State Memorial Union in Ames. The game will begin at 1 p.m. and end no later than 9.
 
Chicago
Five Weasels traveled to WACCon, led by Nate Cockerill and Jim O’Kelley, who finished in the top seven. The others were Dan Burgess, Peter Lokken and Tony Prokes.

The Weasels will welcome reigning Bull Weasel Peter Yeargin back to town next Wednesday with a game at the Red Lion in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. Between then and their sixth annual CODCon Open tournament in April, the Weasels have scheduled a slew of games. The Open will be April 21-22 at the College of Dupage in Glen Ellyn. Learn more at windycityweasels.com/codcon6. Learn more about the Weasels at www.windycityweasels.org.

 
Columbus, Ohio
Organizer Thomas Haver will run two Diplomacy events in Columbus: Origins from May 31 through June 2, and the Buckeye Game Fest tournament from Sept. 21 to 23. Contact him at
  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Dallas
Doug Kent would love to publish your accounts of WACCon. The deadline for the next issue of Diplomacy World is April 1. The Texas Yahoo group is here: games.groups.yahoo.com/group/texas-diplomacy.
 
D.C.
Five PTKSers attended WACCon. Andy “Buffalo” Bartalone finished second, posted the highest overall score, and bagged three best country awards. The others were reigning Grand Prix champ Chris Martin, his fellow former world champ Doug Moore, Chris Barfield and Peter Yeargin. Moore is living in Portland now, but we’ll count him as a PTKSer for now. Yeargin, meanwhile, is really more of a Weasel until the PTKSers break him in.

Yeargin and Barfield engaged in an epic duel into the wee hours Sunday morning as Yeargin pushed for a solo. Barfield helped stalemate him at 16 centers in a game that ended in Fall 1919. For Yeargin, the effort was good enough for Best Germany, but he fell about three points short of qualifying for the top board on Sunday.

Check out the Potomac Tea & Knife Society’s website at ptks.org. You can subscribe to the group’s Diplist at ptks.org/community.php.
 
Detroit
Nothing new to report. If you’re in the Detroit area, check out their Yahoo group at games.groups.yahoo.com/group/detroitdiplomacy.
 
Houston
Roland Cooke attended WACCon.

Owl Con is this weekend at Rice University. There will be a four-hour game of Diplomacy on Saturday beginning at 10 a.m.
 
New England 
The Grand Prix continues with TempleCon in Providence this weekend. Organizer Jim Burgess is hoping for at least two boards per round. Learn more about TempleCon at templecon.org. The New England website is nedip.org. Check out their list at groups.yahoo.com/group/MADip-L.
 
New York City
See the second story.

Robert Premus is officially all in. After hosting the game on the 21^st, he headed to Seattle for WAC. This weekend, he’ll be in Providence for TempleCon.

New York has a Yahoo group here, games.groups.yahoo.com/group/NYC-Diplomacy. In addition, there’s a Meetup group here, www.meetup.com/diplomacy-6, and a Google group here, groups.google.com/group/new-york-diplomacy.
 
Pacific Northwest
The Vancouver guys have scheduled their next game for Feb. 25 at Board Game Warriors in New Westminster.

The Pacific Northwest Diplomacy community has a Yahoo group here, games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Northwest_Diplomacy, but its Facebook page, the Greater Cascadia Diplomacy Consortium, is much more active. Check it out here: www.facebook.com/#!/groups/156748724347576/.
 
Philadelphia
The group’s Meetup page (www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Diplomacy-Club) has been quiet since early last summer, but maybe it’s time to change that. Looks like a couple of players made some noise last month, and there’s a player from southern New Jersey looking for a game on the playdiplomacy.com forum and another who says he’s 10 minutes from the city. Check out the thread here: www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=26015&p=397295#p397295.
 
Toledo
Organizer Eric Hehl created a guild on BoardGameGeek for the Toledo Area Diplomacy Club. Check out the guild page at www.boardgamegeek.com/guild/1171.
 
See you next week, when we’ll have a recap from Temple and possibly news from Central Iowa.
 
Jim O’Kelley
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