The European Champions of 2002 The Uninspired, United Kingdom

 

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 Overthehill.com, 2nd place	 France-Ouest, 3rd place

 

Tournament

The early hours...

As the preparations on Friday evening were not completed, it was time to get up early today and have the playing area ready for some serious gaming actions.

There is always some tension and natural nervousness before the start of a big tournament. After all it has taken months of preparation and it always a question if everything will go smoothely. This year was in the sign of Murphy: what could go wrong, went wrong...

11:00

Let the games begin! All the teams arrived on time, no drop-outs on the last moment (the terror for each organisator), as well as the trophee. The latter was ordered on-time, but due to technical problems it was delivered just before the start of the tournament. This year teams from France and the Czech Repuplic joined the tournament for the first time!!!

Emerald

Emerald was an excellent starter to warm up the sleepy brain cells. Of course there are always exceptions. And the European champions of 2001 "Die Emlandske Speelfroende" were one of the exceptions. They did not manage to score well at the first game played and this has certainly cost them a place at the top 3.
 

Mexica

Mexica is the last game of a triology by the authors Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling. Though Mexica has the looks of the other 2 games, Tikal and Java, the game has its own unique gaming elements.

For the tournament the rules, with the support of Wolfgang Kramer, have been altered for the last scoring round. The value of an unfounded area has been restricted to a maximum of 20 points. The reason for this rule change is a tactic displayed at the Dutch national championships. This tactic makes usage of the limited amount of canal tiles within the game and the possibility to score points equal to the size of an unfounded area. It was a well thought tactic and a very successfull one, but  unfortunately it ruines the game completely.

Halfway the tournament the teams "The Uninspired" from the UK and "Die Spielende Hobbits" from Germany take the lead together. Closely followed by "Overthehill.com" from Holland with only 3.5 points of difference. 
 

Medina

As said before it was Murphy time. The Medina's for the tournament were lost and nowhere to be found!!! A small crisis and stress for the organisation.

Only half an hour before the scheduled start time of Medina we managed, together with a big help from the convention organisation, to collect enough copies to continu playing. As result there were no copies left for sale anywhere at the convention and visitors had to be patient for a while as also all demo games were occupied by us .

Looking it at the bright side, it was very crowded at the tournament playing area as many visitors wanted to see Medina played in action. And there was enough action. Palaces erupted on the gameboards, merchants were linking up in strange lines and challenging games were played, where the lead changed during the play all the time.
    

Titicaca

Already the last game to be played. The aspirines were put on the table and consumed heavily to stop the upcoming headaches. After a long day of intensive playing the grey mass tends to run a little bit warm...as well as the tournament area.

Titicaca was a decisive game as almost half of the participating teams had still a reasonable chance to end in the top 3. Team France-Ouest for example scored 16 points (of max. 20 points) and jumped up high in the overall ranking.

And the winner is...

To all good things comes an end, including the 2002 edition of EuropeMasters. This year it was a "close" victory for "The Unispired" from the UK. They have taken the lead right from the start with Emerald, but were constantly under pressure of the other teams. Just one wrong move. After winning the first edition of EuropeMasters (and also high qualifications at the Intergame tournament) the regained the title this year.  
 
Second place was for the Dutch national champions "Overthehill.com". A big step forward compared to their ranking last year. So next year looks very promising! Third place is for a new-comer from France "France-Ouest". Team "Foll Fon Forne Forstrasse" was ranked 4th place due to the fact that France-Ouest scored less 4th places during the tournament.

 Results of the Teams

1	UK		The Uninspired	57,3
2	HOL		Overthehill.com	53,5
3	FRA		France-Ouest	52
Â	GER		FollFon Forne Forstrasse	52
4	GER		Doe Emlandske Spielfroende	50,3
5	GER		Die Spielende Hobbits	50
6	GER		Eiswürfel	48,5
7	GER		Berliner Bären	46,3
8	BEL		Tumblin Dice	45
9	CZE		Paluba	44,5
10	GER		Die grauen Eminenzen	43,5
11	HOL		Fathers of the Game	42
12	GER		Die Ostze-Zocker	41,5
13	UK		No Dice	41
Â	UK		The Reservoir Dobbers	41
14	UK		Ten Famous Belgians	40,5
15	UK		To Win Just Once	39,5
Â	FRA		Lille Old Squad	39,5
16	GER		Sgt. Pepper Berlin	34
Â	HOL		Team Kouros Eindhoven	34
17	HOL		Spelmagazijn.nl	28

 

Best individual player is Ralf Schneiderwind, team Eiswürfel, with a total of 20 points! This is the maximum points possible for an individual player can score. Unfortunately no picture is available from Ralf as Murphy messed up the photo. But I guess that Ralf would disagree and would like to thank Murphy.

 

Suprise!

As surprise Cwali, sponsor of Titicaca, has given each team one of the latest published games called "Streetsoccer".

Customs

The last action of Murphy was to stop team France-Ouest at the Belgian-France border and have all the games loaded out. For all those customs people out there: Games can be very addictive, but they are NO drugs!!! But it is hard to explain that in the middle of te night with a truckload of games in your trunk and coming from coffee-shop country. Maybe this sroy could lead to a new gaming idea!

EuropeMasters 2003

The preparations for EuropeMasters 2003 edition is already ongoing. The organisation would like to thank the sponsors for making this tournament possible, the teams for their sportmanship and everybody else involved in the organisation.

See you in 2003!!!

 

Games Played

 

• Emerald
• Medina
• Mexica
• Titicaca

Click Here to see more about the games

 

Sponsors

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