19th Annual International Risk® Championship

by **mbohn2** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:23 pm

A 13-5 advantage for me shrunk to a 3-1 lead for 5 cards and a cash in of 95 armies with only Sully, myself and the 3rd player with his lone army alive. Sully had 1 card, I had 3 and the 1 army 5. Needless to say I lost the last 2 rolls, Sully got the 5 cards and was fortunate enough to make 2 sets with the 6 cards. Good luck in the final.....

by **sully800** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:47 pm

Yep, I advanced to the final because of shear bad luck on mbohn's behalf. I was sure he would win the game but the dice roughed him up terribly.

So I made it to the finals, but lost. I'll give a more full report later. And Happy2seeyou is currently on about the first hour of the 9 total it will take her to drive back to Michigan. What a champ!

It was great meeting so many CCers this weekend

by **0ojakeo0** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:53 pm

nice try sully. You coulda pmed me for advice though

by **cena-rules** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:54 pm

well done sully

now get back to your job

not many busts recently

by **lackattack** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:51 pm

Good job sully for making to the final game! I am proud of you

by **ourhero16** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:45 pm

missed winning the whole tournament by one roll of the dice. can't post the details now -- no time...

and i only took two countries and got one card that last game.

by **mbohn2** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:00 pm

Good luck on the drive home Hap.....was nice meeting you

by **Haucky** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:07 pm

I can add a little info!!

ourhero16 lost 14 of his 20 armies in the first round down in AU to the winner of the finals. He then just sat in Europe and deployed his three armies there each turn while everyone else got taken out for their cards.

Sully floated around in Europe & Asia most of the game and then took out one player in North America with four cards but got no set. He was then taken out for his five cards.

Sully and hero both played well this weekend.

I wasn't as lucky, but did come within one victory of my second final table.

It was another fun weekend and hopefully more CC players will get in the tournament next year!!!!

by **0ojakeo0** on Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:22 pm

were there any kids

by **ourhero16** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:58 am

Yes, I made it to the finals my first year at the TOC. It was a lot of fun for my son and myself. My son is 9 and lost both his games on Saturday, but but it to the final on Sunday of the 2nd chance tournament, where he came in 5th.

In the final game, both the eventual winner and myself had 2 countries in Australia, and both of us put every single one of our armies there. It was a game of chicken, and I thought he would vacate. Instead, he rolled killer dice and I lost 13-3, and before I even got my first turn I had exactly four armies on the board! Not wanting to be a target with even one card, I used every turn to simply put my 3 armies on Ukraine and hope to be ignored. I was ignored. Earlier posts say how the first two players were eliminated, and I found myself in the final 3, with no cards, having taken no countries, and with about 25 armies. I finally took ural and mongolia to let out a hoard that the winner (dick) was trying to isolate by the 3rd place winner. I let them out, hoping he would trade and go after dick. He did trade, but instead fortified in australia. Dick got a card, I sat for another turn and the 3rd place finisher (sorry I can't remember his name) tried to wipe out dick. But dick had his usual killer dice (this was the guy who beat me in australia) and the guy came short. Then it was dick's turn to try and wipe out the 3rd place finisher. dick had one card, 3rd place guy had 4 cards, and i had 1 card. it came down to dick with 4 armies against the other guy's 3 in brazil...and dick got him and his 4 cards to trade for 50 and win. If the other guy would have held him off, I would have easily used my 25 armies to take out the 3rd guy, trade cards, and march on to victory having won only one battle prior to the last round! what heartbreak!
Still, it was great fun and I am definitely going with my son every year!

by **happy2seeyou** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 12:14 pm

Yeah I am home!!! That was a fun trip. Nice meeting some people. The batteries in my camera are dead right now, after I charge it I will post some pics. We tried to get a pic with all the CC'rs but we missed getting some in the photo. Also, sad to say ... we didnt get Sully hammered.. needed him to be able to do well in his last game! I did buy him some shots and drinks though.

fun fun weekend... my friend Stephanie and I have a lot of funny stories to share now, well.. the ones we remember.

We drank too much and too early on Friday haha.

Thanks Steelhorse for making sure we got to where we needed to be and hanging out with us all weekend.

by **dcowboys055** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 3:58 pm

Congrats Sully

by **sully800** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:58 pm

Thanks everyone for supporting me and the other CC reps at the tourney!

With no further ado, heres my story...(and if anyone would prefer not to have their pictures on here, let me know and I will remove them).

I awoke early Saturday morning (7:30) to get ready and drive to Jim Thorpe. At this time Happy2seeyou and Steelhorse were fast asleep from a hard night of Risk playing and bar hopping. Both had lost their first games, but would play again on Saturday since its a double elimination tournament.

The drive to Jim Thorpe was rather uneventful, because there was literally nothing to see. A thick fog had descended on the Lehigh Valley and would obscure the beautiful view from Flagstaff for most of the morning.

The parking lot and welcome sign obscured by fog.

Beer and Risk- a match made in heaven

A shot of the venue

by **sully800** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:13 pm

As I walked into the Flagstaff resort, I saw Brian Claus (last years champ) outside. He was discussing the final game from 2006 with two others who were at the table. I laughed to myself because risk players will recount old games and bad beats as much as any poker player.

Once inside, I walked around and looked at some of the prizes. They had a mini fridge with some Risk insignia...

...All the games, and memorabilia shown in this pic...

...and a vacation package to anywhere in the world!! (excellent prize)

Shortly after arriving I met Steel Horse, and we talked about CC for a little while. Happy2seeyou was not happy to see anyone at the moment... she was still at the motel, resting up.

I struggled in my first game of the day, perhaps because I hadn't played the physical board game in a year and a half. I've become so accustomed to having 3 armies on each country that it was hard to adjust to placing my own men. 3 of the people in my first game deployed all their men in a continent and held them easily. I tried the common CC strategy of roaming around without worrying about continents, and was eliminated rather early. When it came down to the final two, they were approaching the 2.5 hour deadline and sets were up to 80 men. Once you pass the deadline, you finish the current round and whoever has the most armies at the end wins (you also get credit for uncashed sets). The last player cashed and had to take out the other person to win, because he had an uncashed set and would get credit for it after the game was over. I commented that he should be able to take the player out, and one of my opponents from Brooklyn said I was out of my mind and it was impossible. He challenged me to a side bet of $10, and I gave him 3:2 odds that the attack would succeed. I didn't tell him that I calculate dice odds pretty much every day of my life while playing on CC. The dice held out, the attacker won with 20 or so armies left over, and I was ten bucks richer.

A shot of the final attacks being made in my first round game...

by **sully800** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:26 pm

Around this time Happy arrived with her friend from Michigan (who thought they were going to a Clue tournament and had no idea what the game Risk was

) I hit her with the joke I've been dying to say for months: "Hi, I'm happy to see you!!" :roll:

After the first round of games ended, they had a lunch buffet, and announced the winner of the first raffle. I was a mere two tickets away, but the winner was unbelievably our very own Happy2seeyou!

Here she is with Steelhorse and the prize package: A collection of Risk games, a flashdrive and a CC tshirt, even though she was already sporting her own....

You can see from the background that the fog had lifted so I took some pictures of the valley, and Jim Thorpe is the town at the bottom.

by **happy2seeyou** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:31 pm

You forgot to mention my speech.. :oops:

Note to self... don't give me a microphone after only 6 hours of sleep in 2 days and after a night of drinking that started at 2pm!

by **wicked** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:36 pm

nvm

by **rebelman** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:39 pm

sully come on your fans demand more

by **sully800** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:46 pm

In my second game I ended up at the same table as Steelhorse. I captured Africa in the beginning and held it through most of the game which made me quite strong. Steel faced the same challenge I had earlier, and had no continent he could hold. He tried to capture Europe but I had to break him to prevent the bonus. Within a few rounds he was low on men, and I eliminated him. There were several instances of CCers cannibalizing each other in this tourney! The finish of my second game was quite exciting. We were down to three players and I had a lot of men, but few cards. One of my opponents tried to take out Clay, a spirited veteran of the TOC, but the odds never looked great. On one front, he had a mix of great dice and spells of double sixes on defense. He started with pretty good odds to win that battle, but it dwindled to 2 men vs 1. He managed to win with his single die and I thought for sure clay would be eliminated and I would fail to advance. The other front looked promising I think it was 16 vs 12 and 1 (72% chance of victory) but he failed and left 3 of clays men behind. I played next, and swept up to poor victim from the gallows. After eliminating him I had 2 sets worth 40 and 45 and easily cleared the rest of the board. The saving grace was that I had a set with my three cards and I should have been able to eliminate Clay myself, even if the other player didn't try and fail. This advanced me to the semi finals.

Throughout the day, I discovered more and more CCers which was great. I believe we had about 10 or so in all, a pretty decent turnout but I'm sure we can beat it next year!

Haucky is the other CC expert in the TOC (in addition to steel). He's gone several years before, made the semi finals each year and won the whole thing in 2004!! Here he is discussing the outcome of the game which advanced him to the semi finals this year. (It was not a posed picture, risk players actually do stand up and reanalyze the game once its completed!)

I also caught up with ourhero16 and his son. His son was eliminated in the first two rounds, as was Happy2seeyou, but ourhero forged ahead carrying the CC flag!

Finally I met a pair of friends, Wildstar and mbohn2. We spent a good deal of time discussing the site, and different players. Once again, it was great to meet new people and I was struck by how friendly everyone at the tournament was.

Wildstar on the left, mbohn on the right. Both made it to the semifinals.

by **GreecePwns** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:05 pm

How many players in all were there? 10 CCers is a lot to me.

by **sully800** on Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:06 pm

The semi finals:

There were 4 semi final games of 5 players each, so it looked like some members from CC would be able to advance, since we managed to qualify 5/20. (2 players advanced directly to the finals by winning their first two games)

Unfortunately, I ended up at the same table as mbohn and Haucky, wildstar and ourhero all ended up together as well. Once again we would be forced to prey on our friends :wink:

As mbohn recounted earlier, he was in great shape to advance to the finals. Unlike the previous attack against Clay, I thought for sure that mbohn was going to succeed in eliminating the third remaining player in our game. I had a single card and a force of 40 or 50 men. Sets were at 40, and throughout his attack mbohn was dominated by bad dice. It turns out the ones generated from random.org aren't the only thing that's streaky! After losing way too many men along the path he had a force of 4 and a force of 10 attacking a final group of 10. He won the first roll, so it was 10,4 against 8....pretty good odds! But he lost 8 men in a row after that and it came down to 3 men against 1. He lost both rolls in a row, and hung the player with 1 man left and 5 cards on the table. It was no fault of his own though, I am certain me made the right choice by starting that attack, he just faced very tough luck. So I started my turn with 50 men on the country right next to the single man....eliminated him and got 2 sets for 95 total to place on the board. mbohn gracefully conceded and I advanced to the final. As my shirt from Day 1 says: "Risk happens."

I didn't get to follow the story of the other table since I was involved in my own game. Haucky was eliminated a bit early after not being able to start in a continent (a clear trend throughout every game) and relayed me a few messages. Also, Happy and Steel were kind enough to bring me my dinner from the restaurant next door, because it was an hour wait for food with the sudden rush of Risk players. I couldn't ask more a nicer or more generous group of people to meet! As you can surmise from previous posts, ourhero ended up lasting through the semi final round and joined me and 4 others in the finals which would be played the next day.

Following the semi final game, I went to the motel and proceeded to talk about CC for probably 2 hours with Happy and steelhorse. We talked about various members, dramas that have happened, scandals in the past and even game strategy and site improvements! It was very unique to actually be with people and talk to them face to face about CC...usually the only way I get to talk about the site is through the site itself, so this was refreshing in a very nerdy way :lol:

We then hit the town of Jim Thorpe for another fun night....starting it off in a sports bar with a very low key scene and then moving over to Molly Maguire's Pub where things were a bit more exciting. Details not necessary, if you want to know what happens in Molly's then you'll need to join us next year!!