Dear Gamers,

This year's qualifiers is well underway, with the 1st & 2nd qualifiers completed, and 4 finalists decided:

1st Qualifier - 29 June (Saturday).
GAMECON-1.5/Asia Game Zone 2007.
8 participants.
1st: Rob; 2nd Henry.

2nd Qualifier - 15 July (Saturday).
Mage Cafe.
16 participants.
1st: Kai; 2nd: Joshua.

3rd Qualifier - 29 July (Sunday).
Toybox (2 seats).

4th Qualifier - 11 August (Saturday).
boardgamecafe (2 seats).

5th Qualifier - 25 August (Saturday).
MySciFiFan OUTPOST (2 seats).

Special Qualifier (2006 finalists only) - 1 September (Saturday).
TBA (4 seats).

Finals - 8 September (Saturday).
TBA.

Hope to see you at one of the qualifers! Stay tuned to this site for any changes in schedule.

Despite the extremely small crowd at Asia Game Zone, we still mustered up more than 8 players for the 1st Settlers Qualifiers, which took place on Saturday, 30 June at the KL Convention Center.

Thanks to the few gamers who agreed to play in the event we got less than the minimum 8 players required. In the end, we got our 8, and could probably have fielded 12.

1st Round
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In a friendly, but nevertheless tense 1st round, I probably surprised a lot of people by winning Group A quite comfortably (considering my 1st round exit last year at the Toybox qualifier!), while Rob took the second spot with the next highest points. An interesting note: This group had to re-start the game after playing for more than an hour when some innocent lady and her daughters re-set the game while the players were taking a "sound free" break! (ie. the noise from the speakers during the XFresh radio show was unbearable causing the players to take a "sound free" break).

Vincent won Group B but Henry had to go to sudden death to grab the second spot.

Finals
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Midway into the finals, it became quite apparent that Rob was running away with the game, leaving the others to plot how to get the next highest points.

In the end, it came down to sudden death, as Henry and I tied with the next highest score. As the play passed to Henry, he grabbed the opportunity and closed the game with an extra point, giving him the privilege of playing in the finals in September with Rob.

Congratulations to the first 2 qualifiers - Rob and Henry!

Many thanks to Ryan and Denise for helping out, and to Toybox and boardgamecafe.net for lending their sets.

On a hazy Sunday afternoon, 14 pre-registered gamers were waiting anxiously for the last two to turn up, so that the 2nd Qualifiers can kick-off.

They never turned up, so we kicked off with Ryan (last year's champion) and I happily filling the empty slots.

1st Round
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Group A
1st: Foo; 2nd: Paul.

Group B
1st: Daniel; 2nd: Kai.

Group C
1st: Joshua; 2nd: Vincent.

Group D
1st Ryan; 2nd: Edwin.

Semi-Finals
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The friendliness of the 1st round soon gave way to tension and cut-throat play in the semi-finals, as the evenly matched top 8 players truly slogged it out.

Although the 1st semis kicked-off first, it was the 2nd semis that was deicded more quickly and decisively as Joshua emerged the victor and Kai claiming his spot in the finals.

However, it was undoubtedly the 1st semis that provided all the drama. In an extremely close slug fest, with all the development cards purchased, Ryan showed his prowess again as he not only stepped up to claim the 10th VP, but also ended up with the enviable role of Kingmaker for who would claim 2nd spot. Both Paul and Foo were tied on 9 VPs, and I a breadth away with 8.

Not wanting to decide who to deal the fatal blow to on playing his "Monopoly" development card, he let the 2 contenders decide their own faith. Unfortunately, the gods ruled in favor of Paul, and thus the Kingmaker called for all "Wheat" resources, which effectively cut Foo's resources down to pitiance!

With the victor decided, the dice then passed to Paul, who with his hand intact after the last "Monopoly", surprised everyone by not being able to close the game! He revealed that he still needed to roll "4"or "8" to produce some much needed resources.

The dice then passed to Foo, who while needing to rebuild his resources, was in a dilemma as he also needed to roll the same "4" or "8", which would hand some much needed resources to Paul! In the end, he rolled neither and play passed to me. Benefitting from Paul's and Foo's earlier (mis)rolls, I traded the necessary resources with my ports to upgrade one settlement to a city, putting me on 9 VPs with the others.

Paul again failed to roll his "4" or "8", and was left pondering on lost his opportunities. With Foo now in a better position to close the game (after gaining some resources in the last round), tension ran high as everyone waited for his die roll to come to a stop. Alas, it was not to be the elusive "4" or "8"!

I now had to call upon my Vegas luck, to roll anything other than the "4" or "8"... though even I admit that for these numbers not to appear for the 6th time in a row is asking a lot!

But lady Vegas was indeed on my side, as not only did I not roll those numbers, I produced a wheat, which to everybody's total surprise, allowed me to build a new settlement - and grab the 10th VP!!! It was over. Just like that. Stolen from under the carpet.

Finals
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With Ryan having an auto seat into the national finals, and I am going to Essen anyway, we gave our seats to Paul and Foo, who were still in shock after their defeat.

By 6.45pm, the 2nd Qualifiers was done. Kai emerged as the winner, while Joshua grabbed the second spot.

Perhaps, Paul and Foo were not meant to play in the finals after all?

Congratulations to Kai and Joshua, and many thanks to the hosts, Mage Cafe, and to Toybox for lending their set.

See you in 2 weeks (Sunday) at Toybox, 12noon.

hhhmmm......maybe you two shouldn't have advanced to the semi finals....

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.

um.... normally organizers and related parties are not encourage to join the event that they are involve in. It will lead to suspicions and finger pointing.......

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me thinks we both should have played in the finals even - cos if you wanna go to essen, you gotta be better than both of us lah!

macedwin:

me thinks we both should have played in the finals even - cos if you wanna go to essen, you gotta be better than both of us lah!

wah just becoz someone won two qualifiers in a row, kepala sudah mengembang sikit! Mebbe forgotten what happened at last yrs Toybox qualifier, hehe

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CK Au (jack208)
Boardgame Meetup photos at Flickr
Angkor Wat blog

jack208:

macedwin:

me thinks we both should have played in the finals even - cos if you wanna go to essen, you gotta be better than both of us lah!

wah just becoz someone won two qualifiers in a row, kepala sudah mengembang sikit! Mebbe forgotten what happened at last yrs Toybox qualifier, hehe

please enlighten us because I can't find any log of last year's report.

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.

jack208:

macedwin:

me thinks we both should have played in the finals even - cos if you wanna go to essen, you gotta be better than both of us lah!

wah just becoz someone won two qualifiers in a row, kepala sudah mengembang sikit! Mebbe forgotten what happened at last yrs Toybox qualifier, hehe

please enlighten us because I can't find any log of last year's report.

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.

In the interest of having a public log on the catan qualifiers, I have a few questions.

1. Who have played in the qualifers so far? and how many qualifiers has each person entered?

2. Of the people who have qualified for this year's Finals, how many have not played in last year's qualifiers?

3. Of the people who have qualified for this year's Final, how many have played in last year's qualifiers (but did not qualify)?

4. How many of last years finalists have qualified through the normal qualifiers this year?
(I assume that jack208's list is the correct one: Bryan, Andyputra, Triona, Casteo, Ms Yong, Foo Bros, Denise, Ainul, Alan Woon, Justin, Nirmala, Sara Yasmin and Hayzan)

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.

oooooo..... Henry is double posting.... tsk tsk tsk.

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LoStBoYz:

oooooo..... Henry is double posting.... tsk tsk tsk.

Look who's whistling on others now.... LOL.

On the other hand, Henry did double-post; not once but twice (over at the other thread where he added another paragraph to his earlier post instead of editing it).

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CK Au (jack208)
Boardgame Meetup photos at Flickr
Angkor Wat blog

jack208:

Look who's whistling on others now.... LOL.

On the other hand, Henry did double-post; not once but twice (over at the other thread where he added another paragraph to his earlier post instead of editing it).

you reduce Datuk Long from Jedi Knight to Padawan and I will stop double-posting. Deal?

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.

rhyen:

you reduce Datuk Long from Jedi Knight to Padawan and I will stop double-posting. Deal?

okie, the deal is next time you double-post, I deduct 50 from post count. Off-topic -30. Sweet boh?

p/s It's so the good being Sys Admin....

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CK Au (jack208)
Boardgame Meetup photos at Flickr
Angkor Wat blog

jack208:

rhyen:

you reduce Datuk Long from Jedi Knight to Padawan and I will stop double-posting. Deal?

okie, the deal is next time you double-post, I deduct 50 from post count. Off-topic -30. Sweet boh?

p/s It's so the good being Sys Admin....

hey, if you look at my post, they were not consecutive in the same minutes, but 30 minutes apart unlike some people. (not to mention different)

You demote datuk to Padawan right now and I will amend those two post.

BTW, this is getting towards off topic, but not there yet.

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I came, I play, I lost, I return for revenge.