Catan World Championship 2016

This time the World Championship was held in Durango (Colorado, USA), a small town in Colorado. About 17,000 people live in the city. The city is surrounded by mountains, which attract many tourists. The locomotive that used to transport gold and silver from Silverstone to Durango is still in operation here. Now this trip offers tourists to enjoy beautiful natural scenery. The main street of the city has many small, beautiful shops. We stayed in a historic hotel - Strater Hotel, which was built in 1887 and definitely claims the title of the most beautiful building in the city.

This time, 60 participants from 34 countries took part in the championship. For several participants, this was already the second or third world championship. Lebanon was represented for the first time. Many representatives from Europe, however, the number of participants includes such "exotic" countries as - Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, etc. Average age around 30 years. The oldest participant is 63 years old, the youngest is 21. Mostly male participants, however, 7 women were also among the participants. In general, the participants are very friendly and interesting personalities, I can safely say that I could meet several of them someday.

Regarding the order of play - 4 games in the qualification, the best 16 qualify for the semi-finals. Next, the 4 semi-final winners take part in the final. The table layout is the same for all tables, which is created on the spot by the game organizers. In each of the 4 games, the participant has a different turn number (which determines in which turn you place the starting village).

First day – all qualifying matches take place on one day. It must be said that my "style of play" includes a lot of communication - both offering different substitutions, dissuading the substitutions of other players, loudly analyzing the game's situation, potential, threats, so a huge amount of energy was consumed during the 4 games.

The first match is against participants from Slovakia, England and Germany. I had number one. The raffle featured a handy five-player, build-first card. The battle was similar, but with a Monopoly card and a well-chosen plan to use the port, it was possible to win this game.

The second game – against participants from Krevia, Austria, Belgium. I had number two. The card is very useful for the first player from Belgium, which he also uses and gets a big advantage early in the game. We limit him with joint forces, but not enough. The Belgian wins, but I am satisfied with the 9 points I got.

The third game – against participants from Thailand, Finland and Estonia (2014 world champion). Map layout with a desert in the middle which makes the game a bit more difficult. With number three I got good starting points and using the planned strategy I got the victory. With two wins, you could already think about the semi-finals (as it turned out later - 1 player made it to the semi-finals even with 1 win).

The fourth game – against participants from Switzerland, Romania and Norway. It must be said that a couple of substitutions by the Norwegian and the Swiss put the Romanian player in a great position and the Romanian took advantage of this to win the game. It must be said that the Swiss player's plan was to score as many points as possible, not to win (because he had already won 2), which spoiled the game, but unfortunately, it was impossible to argue with this elderly gentleman (63 years old).

Second day – semi-finals. The organizers have created a very interesting and balanced map. Opponents – Australia, Hong Kong, USA. It worked out to be a great start, good shifts and the first city in mine. In the course of the game I was forced to take the longest route (to protect an important port), but there was no potential to save it. Unfortunately, some players didn't realize this and probably moved the knight in my direction a couple of times when it should have been done to someone else. A total of 2.5 hours of gameplay. Our game was at the very beginning when all the other 3 games were already over. Lots of tension, lots of spectators and even a move limit was introduced to speed up the game. In the end, the US player made good use of his strategy, which was based on development cards, and deservedly won. It must be said that he used the same strategy in the final and became the world champion.

Summary – a high 9th place overall. Of course, I believed that I could make it to the finals, but a couple of bad numbers, an unconvinced exchange and 2 Monpole cards that took away a lot of my resources, as well as the good play of my opponents prevented me from making it to the finals this time. However, gained experience, met many fantastic people from all over the world, had a very good time. In general, I can say that, in my opinion, the level of the Latvian game is higher and winning in Latvia is even more difficult than it would be in the World. It was a pleasure to represent Latvia!

Renard.