Hi community,

We will open inscription tomorrow for a new tournament which I will co-moderate with tese (that is to say that I will learn from him how to do this job )

It will have a new and interesting format unlike any of the last 5 or 6 competions and I hope to see as many of you as possible on the battlefields .

Here is the general format of the competion:

We will have detailed description on the website tomorrow but in general players will be in groups of four and will play 6 games per round against the others in the same group; first two will qualify and then the process repeats with half the number of groups:

In the end it will be only four players which will compete for the title on the final map - Crateus...

hi community - we are finally ready to start the tournament... published are the groups and order of players

Stay tuned for some group analysis and comments ... on the light side of things of course - too much seriousness in our community :)

So....

In group 1 we have our top and only medaliated player and his dashing avatar duking it out against 3 eastern opponents on his favourite medium map (I suppose so because he used it in best duelist)... Will he add another medal to his collection or will someone else beat him to it? WE WILL SEE...

Group 2 features two 4000+ players and Rem who is clearly on the up and coming (he will probably beat Rambo on inferno and is neck to neck with me on Wasserland at turn 17 in another game)... clearly becoming a fearsome opponent

Next we have two "yankees", a russian and Canya who is in my oppinion the most underrated active player out there - despite his low rating he can clearly hold his own against anyone as I can personally testify. After his defeat 0-2 at his hands on Inferno I am sure AbiDaffy is eager for this rematch - will watch with interest..

The final 4 players group features yours truly and our only 2 lebanese players... is it destiny or are we dealing with "darker" forces at work here? :D
Anyway DreadReapr is a strong player who already beat me twice on T and NP and I suppose Darkness is even tougher; will not neglect our spanish entry who, with examples like tese and OBM, should make swift progress

Next we have 3 players groups starting with my comoderator in the company of two russian veterans, players with more than 5 years experience... Good luck to all!

Group 6 features again 2 russian veterans and another mediteranean player... weird simmetry -expect lots of sunshine with some storms in these two groups :D

In group 7 I expect some good anglo-russian sparring with fair chances for everyone and finally group 8 will feature two of my latest opponents, careless and RobiRobs - I hope they draw lessons from our games and wish them the best of luck ...

The same to everyone else... GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN, enjoy yourselves playing!

Medium Maps Groups updated on: May, 27

So far, so good... :)

Because we already have 2 groups and for C and D tie-breaks might take a while we decided to start second round for groups A and B towards the end of this week, on Friday, June 2.

As to the results so far for groups 1,8,5 and 4 they were those predicted by rating with the first two qualifying despite some emotions in one or two cases - this leads to two very strong groups with 3 top 20 players in each of them - qualifying in the next round will be tough for all those involved :)

For the next 2 goups, we had two players who abandoned the competion, Iluvatar and GI, and that led to easy qualifying for group 6. In group 3 Canya did very well as predicted (told you so :D) and for the last spot we will have to wait for tie-break.

Group 7 again turned out according to rating and for 8 Rem again did very well and pushed OBM to tie-break.

Well, my friends...

Finally Medium Maps Groups tournament was finished and we have winner:

happygrue !!!

He did a wonderful tournament with 23 victories in 24 games against very good players in some of them. Congrats, champion!! Now, your desired award was associated to your nick!

Canya was the great "surprise" of the tournament. Lord Johnny told about him in this topic before the start of first groups and he was right. A very hard player with low glicko score that could win the tournament!!

Lord had a 2nd and 3rd phase excellent, after a 1st phase where he had serious chances for fall eliminated. In Final group maybe he had not the required time for play his games but I think that the co-moderator enjoyed the tournament.

vetere had too a fantastic tournament although in Final group he failed to win some game that perhaps he deserved after the tournament made.

This has been a little and humble analysis from my point of view.

I hope all the rest of players have enjoyed this tournament and format. I try to work for get it!

In attached image you can see the Final table of the tournament.

See you at the next tournament!

Congratulations to happy for the great results that he had throughout all phases of the tournament and a well deserved first medal - hope others will follow :).

Bravo again to Canya for his double win against me and for standing a chance to win his PL game against happy which would have made him the winner - it was not to be in the end... maybe next time :D

As for myself I analyzed repeatedly this unexpected double loss and could not clearly see how to turn any of the games in a win without knowing the whole position exactly from the begining (impossible of course) - it was not to be this time... still waiting for my first medal :D

I greatly enjoyed the tournament, hope everyone else did and will see you in the next one; THANKS again to tese for being now practically the soul of our beloved game and keeping it alive, we can all help him by playing in tournaments - THE SHOW MUST GO ON :D

Thanks!

I echo that Canya did very well. He was beating me in one of the games in the semi round very hard (I played it very badly, losing several rockets) before he got into time pressure and made a few mistakes to even it out... ultimately a very hilarious and close game.

But it was Lord Johnny's win in the final that prevented a clean 24/24 sweep. Well played. :D

I had some nice setup luck and time to play the matches. Was lots of fun, and I finally beat my frequent second-place finish. ;)

See you next time!