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Topic: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/results (Read 3895 times) |
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IdahoEv
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Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/results
« on: Sep 4th, 2007, 1:00am » |
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The Strategicon Arimaa event was held yesterday, September 2nd, at the Gateway 2007 gaming convention in Los Angeles. Eight people competed, six of whom had never seen the game before this weekend.
It was lots of fun watching a live tournament and seeing all those Arimaa boards out and getting used all at once. All my hard work rewarded! I also handed out dozens of pamphlets with info about the game on one side and an explanation of the rules (with diagrams) on the other. Hopefully that will result in at least a little surge of new membership.
As a prize, I gave away the handmade set pictured below. The pieces are glass and the board is a rollable sheet of vinyl similar to a pente board or inexpensive go board:
The results were:
1st place: Ben Tobin (New player!). Ben won the handmade set and $20 "dealer dollars" usable at the convention's vendors. Ben is a chess player who applied himself to Arimaa with diligence and discipline; he was clearly working and thinking very hard with every move.
2nd place: Judson Lester, won $10 in dealer dollars. Judson and his partner Stacey are friends of mine who had been briefly introduced to Arimaa before the tournament but had not actively studied.
3rd place: Stacey Alexander. ('Mirran' on Arimaa.com). Stacey was also a great help before the tournament with making boards and pieces and helping with my attempts to evangelize the game at the convention and pull in interest.
4th place: Erich Sforza. Erich became interested in Arimaa when I was showing it at a table next to the Khet tournament, and was both a friendly and able competitor. He came back today and joined Arimaa.com as "fuzzy_ferrets".
The final match was very exciting, with Ben gaining an early material lead plus a camel hostage but Judson mixing things up with a very well-timed attack from a weak position. Using only EDCR, he nearly pushing a goal through a thick defense and in fact had a subtle 1-turn goal option at one point. Ben came back to barricade Judson's phant, and won at the end of an exciting back-and-forth endgame. Definitely very impressive for a pair of new players.
Here's a picture of three games being played at the beginning of the first round:
I have a gallery of several more pictures of the tournament online:
http://web.mac.com/idahoev/iWeb/Site/Arimaa%20at%20Gateway2007.html
Many thanks to Omar for inventing the game and allowing the tournament under his license, and particularly for contributing funds for a cash prize. As it turned out, the presence of the cash prize helped a good deal in drawing people in to the game.
As a little nudge to Omar about marketing, about half of the people that I taught the game to said that they really weren't interested in playing online, because they prefer the personal and visceral experience of playing a game on a physical board. At least three different guys said they would be more likely to get into the game if they could buy a physical copy. In part I'm sure that's the audience ... a game convention where people play in person ... but it is worth keeping in mind anyway. I'd certainly love to see Omar making money off of his creation!
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| « Last Edit: Sep 4th, 2007, 1:03am by IdahoEv » |
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chessandgo
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #1 on: Sep 4th, 2007, 5:34am » |
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great ! Congrats for organizing the biggest live arimaa event to this date (or at least I guess it is), IdahoEv ! I'm sure I'm not the only one desesperate to have missed the fun  Hoping to see such an event with my own eyes one day or another ...
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Janzert
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #2 on: Sep 4th, 2007, 8:04am » |
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Woot, looks like it was a great event. Good way to introduce Arimaa to new people. Thanks for the effort in putting the whole thing together.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #3 on: Sep 4th, 2007, 4:15pm » |
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What a smashing success! Thanks for the detailed report and all the images. Are you going to post the informational pamphlet as well? There is a well-attended local boardgame club where I could distribute it.
Just in case Omar isn't reading the Forum this week (or month), I will harangue him further about the importance of physical sets. But it won't do any good: everything else is on hold until he completes a new game client.
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IdahoEv
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Arimaa player #1753
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #4 on: Sep 4th, 2007, 6:22pm » |
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on Sep 4th, 2007, 4:15pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Are you going to post the informational pamphlet as well? |
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Yes, you can get it as a PDF on my Arimaa projects page. Scroll down to "assorted files for download".
Most of the text on the info page is pulled straight from the website; Omar, if you're concerned about that I'll happily take it down or modify it as necessary.
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omar
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #5 on: Sep 5th, 2007, 11:20pm » |
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Awsome sets you made there IdahoEv. Especially that wooden one. Im tempted to play in the next tournament just to try and win one  Looks like the first ever Arimaa OTB tournament was a great success. Thanks for organizing this event.
It's interesting to know some people would perfer to play Arimaa using a real set rather than online. I would have never guessed, but it supports Fritzlein's argument for creating physical Arimaa sets. If I need a physical set I get by using a chess set, but Fritzlein finds it annoying. OK someday we'll try to make real sets.
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IdahoEv
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Re: Live Tournament at Gateway 2007 - report/resul
« Reply #6 on: Sep 6th, 2007, 3:40am » |
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on Sep 5th, 2007, 11:20pm, omar wrote:| It's interesting to know some people would perfer to play Arimaa using a real set rather than online. |
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I think that to some, playing online is merely what gamers do "when they can't play the real thing". Those who have this attitude will feel that way about any game.
Quote:| Awsome sets you made there IdahoEv. Especially that wooden one. |
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Many thanks for the compliments. I actually have even greater plans for the next hardwood board. I'm trying to learn the basics of woodworking as a hobby, and arimaa boards seem as good a learner project as any. Much easier than furniture.
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