The NADF

I remember watching the Alamo as a kid. It was on TV over two nights. The second night, I had to fight the babysitter to let me stay up to watch it. When it ended, I couldn’t believe I had invested all that time only to see the good guys lose and John Wayne die. That’s sort of how I feel about this year’s NBA finals. Oh well, at least this time around, I didn’t care enough to cry.

 

So, here’s the latest news from the North American hobby.

 

You’ll Wish You Were at Dixie

Organizer David Hood’s DixieCon report is up at the website. Check it out here. If you haven’t been to a tournament, Hood gives a great account of what you’re missing.  

 

The Host Gets the Most

Peter Yeargin hosted another Potomac Tea and Knife Society game at his home in Herndon, Va. His hospitality ended at the board, where he romped to a 12-center board top as Turkey. The game ended after Fall 1906 in the following center counts:

 

Austria (Stephen Gaillot): 1

England (David Maletsky): 8

France (Collen Reedy): 5

Germany (Chris Barfield): 5

Italy (Andy Bartalone): 3

Russia (David Johnson): 0

Turkey (Peter Yeargin): 12

 

The PTKSers have now played a total of three games at Yeargin’s house in two events since March. Yeargin has taken advantage of the free advertising and recordkeeping services offered by Laurent Joly’s World Diplomacy Database. If you’re interested in logging your games in the WDD, contact me. I will send you a template to simplify the process and put you in touch with Joly to get you a login.

 

Yeargin also scored the game and is using the WDD to track stats, as we do with the Weasels. That touched off a flurry of posts to the PTKS Diplist as the faithful debated the merits of scoring house games. You can subscribe to the Diplist here, ptks.org/community.php.

 

The PTKSers are planning to play again this weekend at Ed Prem’s home.

 

Weasels Play Three More Games, Reach 80 Players on the Year

Prime Weasel and WDC Tournament Director Dan Burgess hosted another game at his home in Downers Grove last Saturday. When Burgess hosts, he prefers not to play so he can wait on his guests and also log the moves in RealPolitik. He then broadcasts a live map of the board to the three networked conference rooms on his main floor. That touch, as well as his legendary hospitality, make his games a favorite among our crowd.

 

This one featured the return to the table of Paul Pignotti, a former stalwart of the club who took a leave of absence of nearly two years. He came back tanned, rested and ready and guided France to an 11-center board top. The game ended by draw vote in Spring 1908 in the following center counts:

 

Austria (Nate Cockerill): 0

England (Don Glass): 0

France (Paul Pignotti): 11

Germany (Matt Sundstrom): 6

Italy (Brad Harrington): 0

Russia (Tony Prokes): 9

Turkey (Erik Bergquist): 8

 

Read more about the game here.

 

The Weasels followed that up with a two-board session at the Red Lion in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood on Tuesday.

 

The sharks’ board ended by time limit after Fall 1907 in the following center counts:

 

Austria (Matt Sundstrom): 2

England (Aash Anand): 3

France (Don Glass): 8

Germany (Nick Rohn): 2

Italy (Mike Whitty): 0

Russia (Nate Cockerill): 12

Turkey (Ulysses Peterson): 7

 

It was Cockerill’s fifth board top of the season.

 

Meanwhile, we broke in two more new Weasels on the newbie board. That game ended by time limit after the Fall 1906 turn in the following center counts:

 

Austria (Peter Lokken): 4

England (Ben DiPaola): 0

France (Laura Kliman): 4

Germany (Herve de Theux): 12

Italy (Dave Koob): 5

Russia (Mike Morrison): 1

Turkey (Jakub Mirski): 8

 

The newcomers were Kliman, a friend of Lokken’s, who was playing her first game, and Koob, a friend of hers who had played before but not with us. Mirski, a Polish national, and de Theux, two more of Lokken’s recruits, were playing in their second and third games with us, respectively. Each now has a board top.

 

You can read more about the Tuesday games here.

 

With the addition of Kliman and Koob, plus Rohn’s first game of the season, we hit 80 players for the year, a record for us. The games were our 37^th and 38^th of the year. Our record is 41, which we set last year. Despite shortening our season by a month to accommodate WDC in August, we’ll certainly surpass that mark this year.

 

Massacre Starts Tomorrow

The sixth step of the Grand Prix begins tomorrow morning at Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge, Mass. Organizer Alex Amann is hoping for three boards per round. Defending champion Evil Phil Weissert will be there to defend his title.

 

The first round begins at 9 a.m., with round two to follow at 4. The final round will be Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

 

The August Gauntlet

After Massacre, the Grand Prix will rest until August, when in successive weeks, we’ll see the World Boardgaming Championship in Lancaster, Penn., Aug. 3-4; the World Diplomacy Championship at Weasel Moot VI in Chicago, Ill., Aug. 10-12; and HuskyCon X in Setauket, N.Y., Aug. 17-19.

 

The Grand Prix standings have been updated through DixieCon, the fifth step of the circuit. You can check out the standings here.

 

Aug. 3-4: World Boardgaming Championships, Lancaster, Penn., www.boardgamers.org/wbc/schedule.htm.

Aug. 10-12: World Diplomacy Championship at Weasel Moot VI, Chicago, Ill., www.windycityweasels.org/wdc.

Aug. 17-19: HuskyCon X, Setauket, N.Y., huskycon.com.

 

Hobby Roundup

Here’s what’s going on in the hobby hotbeds. If we’ve missed your hobby, let us know!

 

Bay Area

Nothing new to report. The club’s Yahoo group is games.groups.yahoo.com/group/bayareadip. The BADAss website is bayareadiplomacy.org.

 

Central Iowa

Russ Dennis is trying to schedule the group’s first game since March. For more information, email Dennis at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

Chicago

See the third story. The Weasels have a game scheduled for Wednesday at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square. Learn more about the Weasels at www.windycityweasels.org.

 

Columbus, Ohio

Organizer Thomas Haver will run another recruiting event at the Buckeye Game Fest, Sept. 21 to 23. Contact him at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

 

Dallas

Doug Kent is thinking about hosting a round or two of Diplomacy at TexiCon in Fort Worth, complete with awards if there’s sufficient interest. In the meantime, he’d like to remind you that the next deadline for Diplomacy World is July 1. He needs our help to make it a good one, so when you finish reading this, send him an article. The Texas Yahoo group is here: games.groups.yahoo.com/group/texas-diplomacy.

 

D.C.

See the second story. The PTKSers are planning to play again this weekend at Ed Prem’s home. The Potomac Tea & Knife Society’s website is ptks.org. You can subscribe to the group’s occasionally hyperactive 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

Nothing new to report.

 

New England

The Boston Massacre is this weekend. Find info about the event here, nedip.org/tournaments/boston-massacre/. The group’s list is here: groups.yahoo.com/group/MADip-L. The New England website is nedip.org. Organizer Alex Amann also has created a Meetup page. It’s here, www.meetup.com/New-England-Diplomacy/.

 

New York City

Nothing new to report. Follow the New Yorkers on Twitter @DiplomacyNYC. 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

Jay Heumann is hosting a game tomorrow at his place in Vancouver.

 

The Vancouver guys are planning to hold their first VanDipCon Sept. 21-23 at the Holiday Inn Vancouver. Stay tuned for more information.

 

Meanwhile, Christian MacDonald is trying to drum up interest for a WDC tune-up in Seattle on either July 7 or 8.

 

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. And Chris Brand created a Meetup group for the region. It’s here, www.meetup.com/Pacific-Northwest-Diplomacy.

 

Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Meetp group is trying to organize a July event at Redcap’s Corner. Their last known game was in June 2011. The group’s Meetup page is here: www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Diplomacy-Club.

 

Toledo

Nothing new to report. Check out the group’s guild page at www.boardgamegeek.com/guild/1171.

 

That’s all for this week. See you next week!

 

Jim O’Kelley

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PS Just a reminder that I’ll be out of town on business from June 26 until July 5. This Week will go on hiatus until July 11.