Excerpt: The 1st Qualifier for the Msian Catan Finals 2006 kicked off at Games Circle, the premier gaming venue in KL, attracting more than 16 participants who fought a 4-round modified-Swiss format to determine which 4 of them qualified for the July 29 Finals.

Participants (in alphabetical order): Ainul Azman, Casteo Teo, Chen Fawn Meng, Foo Tun Ching, Foo Tun Ziet, Hang Chen Sing, Lim Soo Jin, Low Jian Fei, Ng Kok Keong, Richard Nga, Rob Street, Ryan Hui, Saleh, Thien Tiong Kong, Wong Qi Shaun, Wong Yew Kai

Location: Games Circle, Damansara Jaya
Date/Time: 10 June 06 (Sat) 2.30 PM onwards

SETTLERS OF CATAN MALAYSIA QUALIFERS #1 REPORT @ GAMES CIRCLE 10/6/06
by Jeffrey Au (jack208)

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For the 1st time this year, Malaysia has been given two seats for the Settlers of Catan World Championship in Spiel 06 (Essen, Germany). What's the prize for being given the chance to represent Malaysia in Essen?

• One return airfare (economy) to Essen, Germany
• Accommodation for two nights
• Entry to Spiel ‘06 (largest designer games convention in the world) for four days
• And of course, be one of the two gamers representing Malaysia for the Settlers of Catan World Championship!

With such yummy prizes on offered, the 1st Qualifier held at Games Circle on 10 June 2006 kicked off to a resounding success! A total of 16 wanna-be-finalists registered themselves for the 4-round qualifying matches which started at 3.00 PM. Apparently there were a few more participants but they either could not make it on-time or decided to take part in the other (five more) qualifiers at other venues. Where are the other venues?

12 of the 16 participants posing for the camera before the competition starts

OVERVIEW OF TOURNAMENT FORMAT FOR SoC MALAYSIA
Let me start by giving an overview picture of how this tournament will run. The Finals shall be held on July 29 (Sat) with a group of 16 qualifiers who shall compete over a few rounds to determine the 4 finalists. These 4 then compete in one final round to determine the 1st and 2nd position, who shall be nominated as Malaysia's representative for the Settlers of Catan World Championship in Spiel 06.

Two of the 16 qualifiers have already been determined - Ms Yong and Michelle Foong - from last year's GAMECON-1 SoC competition. We are now running six SoC Qualifier events between 10 June till 22 July to select another 14 qualifiers. The 1st of such qualifiers were held at Games Circle (arguably the most popular gaming venue in Klang Valley) yesterday where 4 qualifiers were selected to participate in the July 29 Finals. The contribution from the other qualifiers would be:

• Toybox - 2
• Boardgamecafe.net - 2
• Starbucks Bangsar - 2
• Starbucks 1 Utama - 2
• Panglobal Club - 2

There is no entry fee for entering the qualifiers, they are completely FREE (and there's also no prize for winning the qualifier except for a space in the July 29 Finals). And you can enter as many qualifiers as you wish - until you manage to get selected for the Finals! Therefore the earlier you join the qualifiers, the more chances you will get.

For a complete schedule of the Qualifier events and contact details for registration, please visit the KL Boardgames Event page.

QUALIFIER #1 AT GAMES CIRCLE - JUNE 10, 2006
The Qualifier kicked off at Games Circle, the most popular gaming venue/club in Klang Valley when Richard started briefing all the participants on the tournament rules, and the use of his modified-Swiss system to rank the participants for this qualifier. 1st round pairing is by random draw but after the 1st round, players are ranked into groups of four with the following 1-5-9-13 (table 1), 2-6-10-14 (table 2), 3-7-11-15 (table 3) and 4-8-12-16 (table 4).

Richard Nga briefing the participants on the tournament rules

Players score 10 pts as the winner, 2nd place gets 5 pt,  3rd gets 2, and last place gets zero. Victory points earned are also important as they are accumulative over the 4 rounds and used as tie-breaker. Each 4-player round plays to win for 10 VPs.

Specific rules or etiquettes mentioned:

• Setup is as per the standard setup in page 13-14 of the Almanac
• Player to count their game items before game commences - 5 settlements, 4 cities and 15 roads
• Highest of 2D6 starts the game, and next player in clockwise order.
• When a player decides to end his/her turn, say "Pass" and hand over the dice to the next player.
• The 2D6 dice must be rolled properly; not dropped or rolled from a low height
• If one or more dice is tipped more than half or drops to the floor, re-roll BOTH dice
• Players can only talk to the active player; offering and accepting trades
• No suggestions or table talk to be made when another player is taking his turn
• No transitive player trading is allowed; e.g. player 1 offering an item for player 2 to be passed to player 3 later
• Any resource production not collected in the active turn is deemed to be lost when the active player has passed his turn to the next player
• Game ends immediately when a player has reached 10 VPs.

With that out of the way, the 16 players quickly draw for starting tables. Soon 4 players were grouped into 4 tables and Round 1 began in earnest. The youngest player as Qi Shaun and he had arguably the toughest draw for the 1st round when he was paired in the table together with Richard Nga (da boss in Games Circle), Ryan Hui from Settler's Cafe and another Games Circle regular!

Richard Nga setting up the tiles while Shaun looked on

The 1st Round soon ended with Ainul, Rob, Richard emerging among the winners. They re-ranked their positions based on the points earned and regrouped into the four tables based on the modified Swiss-pairings.

After about 5 hrs of intense settling in Catan, the results of the 1st Qualifier were tabulated and announced by Richard; the four qualifiers for the July 29 Finals shown in bold below.

(L-R) Ainul, Saleh, Ryan and Casteo

Ainul Azman Ryan Hui Casteo Teo Saleh -------------- Lim Soo Jin Rob Street Foo Tun Ching Ng Kok Keong Richard Nga Foo Tun Ziet Wong Yew Kai Thien Tiong Kong Loo Jian Fei Hang Cheng Sing Chen Fawn Meng Wong Qi Shaun.

NEXT QUALIFIER: TOYBOX PARAMOUNT GARDEN ON JUNE 24 (SAT)
Those who did not qualify for the Finals yesterday need not lose hope for you can immediately get ready to bounce back two weeks from now at the 2nd Qualifier which will be held at Toybox in Paramount Garden. The event organizer for Toybox, Nic Leong, was seen at Games Circle no doubt getting to know some of the participating players as some of them will be going to his Qualifier venue on June 24.

To know more information and the contact number to register for that qualifier, click here.

Also seen at the Qualifiers were Edwin Wong, CEO of Panglobal Insurance, the sponsor for this tournament. In the picture is Alvin, a PGI staff who shall be organizing the two qualifiers in Starbucks next month.

Meantime those non-participating gamers in Games Circle kept themselves occupied with Ticket to Ride Europe, RA and Battle Line.

A big KUDOS to Richard (GC), Edwin (PGI), and everyone else who helped make this a great SoC Qualifier! See you all in two weeks time at Toybox Paramount Garden!

Meantime, Holland is playing Serbia next. Viva Oranje!

Click here for more photos of this event.
To discuss this event, visit our forum in BoardgameCafe.net

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