Latvian Catan League 2019

The 2019 Catan Championship will take place from March 8 to 24 in Riga.

This year, the Latvian Catan League will be held for the first time. Four rounds are held, in which 64 participants will be able to participate, of which the best 8 will advance. The 32 best will fight for the Latvian Catan champion in the final! Don't delay and apply now!

PRIZE FUND

20€ gift card from Brain Games for the winner of the qualification round;
1st place €100 gift card from Brain Games;
2nd place €50 gift card from Brain Games;
3rd place €35 gift card from Brain Games.

The organizers reserve the opportunity to increase the prize pool with prizes provided by supporters.

When and where?

Type	The date	Place	Registration	Tournament time (3 rounds)
Qualification	March 8 – Friday	LELB – 10 Marstaļu street, Old Riga	17:50 – 18:25	18:30 – 23:30
Qualification	March 10 – Sunday	The Pizza House – 30 Audēju iela, Old Riga	12:00 – 12:50	13:00 – 18:00
Qualification	March 14 – Thursday	LU Nature house – Jelgavas iela 1, Torņkalns	16:50 – 17:25	17:30 – 22:30
Qualification	16th March - On Saturday	Riga Plaza – 71 Mūkusalas Street, Torņkalns	10:00 - 10:50	11:00 – 17:00
The final	March 24 – Sunday	Local Veldze - 40F Kalnciema street, Ågenskalns	10:30 - 11:00	11:00 – 18:00

Don't forget to tag in the Facebook events:

1. qualification

2. qualification

3. qualification

4. qualification

The final

APPLICATION

Each participant may apply for only one qualification tournament . If a participant applies for the tournament, but later finds out that he will not be able to participate, he must inform the organizers about this, as the number of participants in each round is strictly limited.

Each entrant is free to choose which qualifier to participate in, and the organizers are not responsible for the skill and experience of each individual qualifier in the Catan board game.

The list of registered participants will be updated every working day.

Application form: https://ej.uz/Latvijas_Catan_Liga_2019

MEMBERSHIP FEES

The participation fee is 5€ per participant in the qualification tournament.

The participation fee is payable in cash upon arrival at the registration. However, if you want to pay by bank transfer, we can prepare and send an invoice upon individual request. 

PROGRESS OF THE EVENT

The selection tournament for the final is divided into 4 parts. The maximum number of participants in each selection tournament is 64 people, of which the best 8 will go to the final round. If less than 16 participants participate in the selection round, then only 4 will go on.

CATAN CHAMPIONSHIP RULES

COMPOSITION AND EVALUATION OF GAME PARTICIPANTS

Announcing games

Before each round, a list prepared by the computer is published, in which the participants of the championship are ranked by tables. From this list, players can find out the table number at which they will be playing the next game and go find the appropriate table.

Field preparation

All games are played on a changing pitch. The court is prepared by the player who has the fourth starting position, except for the final, where the court is prepared by the organizers of the championship (however, if all participants mutually agree, the court may be laid out by any of them). To avoid speculation about the influence of the layer on the layout of land and ports, the square is laid out in the following way:

1. Separates land and sea fields.
2. Land squares are carefully shuffled face down.
3. The pile of squares is handed over to one of the opponents to move.
4. Sea squares are connected so that adjacent numbers are the same.
5. The created frame is filled with land plots. Take the land plots one by one, turn them face up and place them in the frame. The first square is placed near the frame in the place where the numbers "1" come together, while the others are laid out in a spiral inwards (clockwise).
6. On land, number circles are placed in a clockwise spiral inward, starting from the square that was placed first. If this space is a wasteland, of course, betting starts from the next space.
7. Shuffle the development cards face down carefully.
8. The pile of cards is handed to one of the opponents for transfer.

Qualification tournament order

All participants play three rounds:

First round:

The players are arranged at the tables in a random order determined by the computer. If the number of participants is not divisible by 4, then tables 4-a have 3 players (a - remainder, dividing the number of participants by 4). Players determine the starting order by rolling both dice. The player with the highest number starts. If two or more players have the highest number, they (and only they) must roll the dice again until only one player with the highest number remains. This player will place the first village first, followed by the rest of the players in clockwise order. The last player's duty is to be the banker of the game.

Second round:

Players are sorted by rank. Then they are arranged at the tables: 1st to 4th place - at the first table, 5th to 8th place - at the second table, etc. If the number of participants is not divisible by 4 without a remainder, then the lowest ranked participants go to the tables where 3 players must sit. Players determine the starting order by rolling both dice. The player with the highest number starts. If two or more players have the highest number, they (and only they) must roll the dice again until only one player with the highest number remains. This player will place the first village first, followed by the rest of the players in clockwise order. The player with the lowest rank is the banker.

Third round:

Players choose their starting positions and determine the banker following the same principle as in the first two rounds. The only difference is that for the third round, the ranking is made taking into account the results of the first and second rounds.

ATTENTION!

Due to the very tight schedule of the championship, the time of each round is strictly limited to 1:30 h. When 1 hour has already been played, a turn time limit of 1 minute will be introduced into the game. If the game lasts already 1:30 h, the table is given another five minutes to complete the game. As soon as 1:35 h has been played, the game is stopped, allowing the current turn to be completed. There is no winner in this game. It is understandable that such an outcome is not desirable for most of the people, as the ranking is primarily based on the number of victories and only then on points, so please do not delay unnecessarily when making moves, and do not be shy to encourage your playing partners to pass the move on if the game is dangerously long.

Important!
It should be remembered that all three rounds of the main tournament are of equal importance. The fact that there is theoretically free time to finish the game after the third round (because there is no other round waiting in the "queue") is not a reason to extend this round - the third round games will also be stopped after 1:35 h.

At the end of the first day, a ranking is compiled, where the results of all three rounds are taken into account. The top eight players from each qualifying tournament will participate in the Final (March 24).

Final agenda (24.03.)

It is very important to have exactly 32 participants on the second day to determine the results. Therefore, if one of the top 32 participants of the first day knows (or learns as time goes by) that he will not be able to participate on the set date at the time of the announcement of the results, he is obliged to warn about it immediately. In that case, the winner of the 9th place from the relevant qualifying tournament will be on the list of winners (if several participants refuse, then the 10th, 11th, etc. respectively). As the set date approaches, the participants will be contacted again (initially the first 32, but in the case of a participant's withdrawal, also the winners of the next places).

Final (playoffs):

Before the finals, the ranking of all participants is determined, taking into account all previous games (the participant comes to the finals with the total number of victories and victory points obtained in the qualifying rounds). There will be four games in total. After each game, half of the participants end the tournament. The winner of each match automatically qualifies for the next round (Aware that each qualifying round may have a different number of participants, which may affect the number of wins and victory points obtained). The rest of the places are filled by people who had more wins, points scored and points ratio.

After the third game, only 4 players will be left to compete for the title of Latvian Catan champion. Number 1 of the rank chooses first, the color and who will place their first village in turn. The number 2 of the rank chooses his color from the rest and who will place his village in turn. According to the same principle, the third member of the ranking does the same. The fourth game with what is left. The winner of the last game, regardless of rank, is the Catan Champion of Latvia! The other places are divided according to the places obtained in the last game, in case of equal points, the highest position is decided by the rank.

In the final game, the pitch is prepared and the banker functions are performed by the organizers of the championship.
The winner of the final table goes to represent Latvia at the world championship in 2019.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

A banker

The banker is the issuer and receiver of raw material and development cards. Only he is given the used resource and development cards and only he issues the resource and development cards from the bank. He must verbally describe his actions when dealing cards to himself or when depositing his resource cards in the bank. If the player who has to perform the duties of the banker is not sure that he can handle it accurately and skillfully, the players may agree on another banker from among themselves.

Player ranking

The ranking of players is determined by three criteria (in order of importance):

• Total number of wins (for example, a player with 3 wins is always ahead of a player who managed to win 2 times).
• Total number of UPs (if the players have the same number of wins, then the player with the higher total number of UPs is in the highest ranking place).
• The total percentage UP (%UP) number (in a situation where both the number of wins and the total number of UPs match, the %UP amount determines the place in the ranking). A player's %UP for a given game is determined by dividing the amount of UP earned in that game by the amount of UP earned by all players at the table. To calculate %UP for three-player games, the amount of UP for the game is multiplied by the average score of that game. If such an adjustment were not made, participation in three-player games would give an advantage. In the rare event that the %UP is also the same (which can mostly happen after the first round), the head judge will draw which of the players will occupy a higher position in the ranking.

Notes:

• The player's UP is determined by also taking into account the unplayed victory point cards.
• The maximum amount of UP a player can earn is 10. So even if the winner manages to "accumulate" 11 or more UP during the game (without playing UP progress cards and/or getting the longest path or largest army card when he has 9 points ), as a result only 10 will be counted.

Game questionnaire

In all rounds, each table is given a game questionnaire before the start of the game, where the round number, table number, names of the game participants and the score table are written. The players show each other their championship membership card, thereby confirming that they are who they appear on the questionnaire. After recording the scores at the end of the game, all players confirm that they agree with the results by signing the game questionnaire.

Player's choice of colors

In each game, players must choose the color of their pieces. If two or more players claim a suit, it is awarded to the higher ranked player. Before the first round, when the rank does not yet exist, priority in conflicts is determined by the starting position.

WHAT TO NOTE

• Don't drag on! Respect the time of other players too! If no one responds to your invitation to trade, it most likely means "no". In this championship, the length of the rounds is strictly limited, so the organizers of the championship may be forced to impose a time limit on the move or even stop the game without determining a winner.
• When you finish the game, record the results in the questionnaire and declare the game over! Break up the playing field by arranging the land squares and number circles into separate piles, and collecting together the pieces you each use. Don't mess up the sea tiles as they stay the same layout every game. It is the responsibility of the winner to bring the questionnaire to the judges' table!
• Dice must roll on the table - so that they are not simply "placed". If even one of the dice has fallen to the ground or comes to rest sideways, both dice must be rolled.
• The participants of the game are themselves responsible for mutual control of compliance with the rules. If new actions have been initiated after an error has been made, the error can no longer be corrected. For example, if a "7" came up, but forgot (and no one reminded) to move the robber, but trade and construction have already started, the robber may no longer be moved (however, it should be remembered if the player for some reason does not want to move the robber and immediately tries to start the exchange or construction in order to to avoid this, he must take into account the reminder of other players to move the robber). Similarly, if the corresponding raw materials were placed in the bank, but the corresponding figure was forgotten, then after passing the move to the next player, the figure may no longer be placed on the field.
• Verbal statements are not binding and the final action may be changed depending on the player's wishes. For example, if a player says he will rob from player A, but then for some reason changes his mind and wants to rob from player B, he is allowed to do so. Or if a player deposits clay and wood in the bank, saying that he will build a road, but does not build it yet, he may, for example, pay more for crops and a sheep and build a village at the end.
• A piece is considered placed on the field when it is placed in a legal place and the player has released it. As long as the player has not released the piece, he can also move it to another place. However, if the piece is dismissed, its position may not be changed again.
• Agreements outside the rules of the game (such as a promise to give lemonade if you don't make a mugger) are not binding on either party and can be broken without consequence. Another thing is that the partner of the agreement can take it badly. The same applies to short-term alliances - they are not forbidden, but can fall apart at any moment.
• Influencing opponents' decisions with words is not prohibited - we assume that each participant is capable of making a decision independently. If you want to "punish" a player who you think is manipulating others, you can, for example, not trade with him or play against him with his own weapons.
• Physically influencing opponents before, after or during the game is, of course, completely unacceptable and will mean disqualification of the participant.
• If you have come to sympathize or are a participant of the championship who has already finished his game, then it is forbidden to make audible comments and give advice to the players while watching the game of another table. Interference in the game from the outside (even with a seemingly harmless retort) can affect the outcome of the game and is therefore not allowed! Depending on the "degree of harm", the participant who performs such an intervention may receive from a warning to disqualification (head judge's decision).
• All games are played with the Baltic version of the base game Catan. Communication during the game takes place in Latvian, but all game participants can also agree on another language.

THE ORGANIZERS ARE ALWAYS READY TO SOLVE OTHER QUESTIONS THAT ARISE DURING THE GAME. IF AN UNCLEAR SITUATION HAPPENS, DO NOT DELAY TO ASK FOR HELP!