Excerpt: Finally after so many weeks of Cataning and playing on qualifiers, 16 of the top Settlers of Catan players in Msia gathered in Starbucks 1U to fight for the rights to represent Malaysia in the Catan World Championship which will be held in Essen (Spiel '06), Germany in October. Find out who our two representatives are.
Location/Date: Starbucks - 1 Utama Old Wing (July 29)
Time: 2.00 PM onwards
SETTLERS OF CATAN MALAYSIA FINAL REPORT @ STARBUCKS 29/7/06
by Jeffrey Au (jack208)
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
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! You get to compete with the best Catan players worldwide!
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The Settlers of Catan Malaysia Championship is a Panglobal Rocks! event
and all prizes are sponsored by Panglobal Insurance Berhad. |
OVERVIEW
Beginning with the 1st Qualifier held on 10th June at Games Circle, and ending after 6 qualifying rounds stretching over 6 weeks, where no less than 70 players have participated in those qualifiers hoping to win a seat in today's Final, 16 of arguably the strongest Catan players in Malaysia gathered at Starbucks to battle it out for the two Winners' place to represent Malaysia in Germany.
The 16 finalists from the 6 Qualifiers:
MALAYSIA FINAL - JULY 29, 2006
Round One (16 pax)
For Round One of the Finals, the 16 finalists were spread out over 4 groups of 4. In each group, the 4 players throw 2D6 to determine seating order and starting player. Once decided, the terrain tiles were set-up via standard random mode.
Even though we are playing in Starbucks, we used the full-size version (and not the Travelers Set) of the game to ensure the players do not have to squint to see what's happening on the board.
Table 1.1
- Bryan
- Ryan Hui
- Casteo
- Triona
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Table 1.2
- Denise
- Foo Tun Ching
- Kok Keong
- Ainul
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Table 1.3
- Yong Siew Mee
- Foo Tun Ziet
- Justin
- Nirmala
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Table 1.4
- Sara Yasmin
- Hafyzan
- Andyputra
- Alan Woon
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Round Two (8 pax)
After close to 2 hrs of tense gaming, two winners from each table qualified for the next round. The winner and 1st runner-up in each group were separated and balanced out so that no two players played each other again from Round One.
The two tables in Round Two were then set up as followed:
Table 2.1: Foo Tun Ziet, Andyputra,
Triona and Kok Keong
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Table 2.2: Hafyzan, Ryan, Justin
and Ainul
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Round Three (4 pax)
After two hours of tense gaming, two winners emerged from each table to claim a seat in the last and final round that will decide the two Malaysian representatives for the Catan World Championships.
From Table 2.1, Andy (from Wolfgameshop) and Kok Keong (from Games Circle) triumphed. From Table 2.2, we have Ryan (Settlers Cafe) and Ainul (Games Circle/Jelutong) coming out tops.
These four took a quick 10-min break and were soon gathered around the table again to their final round of Settlers of Catan.
L-R: Kok Keong, Andy, Ryan and Ainul
The final started off in an easy-going manner with all four players joking and exchanging banters. But as each player built their roads, settlements and cities to increase their victory points, you can begin to feel the tension in the air.
Each moves were being scrutinized and players were getting more reluctant to trade lest they offered their competitors an opening to move ahead of them. The game moved into the end-game stage when Ryan was the 1st to reach 9 VPs (game ends on 10 VPs). Two other players have 8 VPs while the remaining player has 6 VPs.
At this stage, no one was willing to offer much concession to the other players.. and play pretty much continued in a hush-hush manner, everyone hoping for the die roll to be favorable to them.
Finally Ryan made his breakthrough when he upgraded his settlement to a city for the last of his 10 VPs! However the 1st Runner-up cannot be decided as Andy (leftmost player pictured above) and Kok Keong (player in red t-shirt pictured above) were tied on 8 VPs...
The tie-breaker is to play sudden-death (in normal play order) and the 1st player to score above the tied VP shall be declared the winner.
In this scenario, Andy was the next player to play after Ryan! But alas, he did not have sufficient or the appropriate resources to claim his winning tie-breaker VP! Next in turn was Ainul who also could not add to his VP tally.
Then play passed to Kok Keong who beamed with delight as he DID HAVE THE RESOURCES to claim his winning tie-breaker VP! What a dramatic way to end this tournament!
The 2nd and 3rd runners-up (Andy and Ainul) received as consolation prize a special-edition not-for-sale Settlers of Catan expansion while both Ryan and Kok Keong now look forward to their October trip to Essen, Germany.
CONGRATULATIONS to Kok Keong and Ryan (pictured above) and THANKS to all participating players, organizers, hosts and those helping out in this competition. Special mention goes to Panglobal Insurance Bhd for sponsoring the prizes in this event, and to my gaming buddy Edwin Wong for making this event happen.
Other reports
Edwin has also posted a news report to Boardgamenews.com. You can read the article here.
LINKS
Past Event Reports
To discuss this event, visit our forum in BoardgameCafe.net
If you wish to join our boardgames meetups, sign up now at KL Boardgames Meetup!