General view at the end of the 4th round. After the débâcle in Cammin, there is an emptiness of blue pieces in the northern half of the board (the left hand side of the picture) whose most alarming consequence is that nothing can keep Sweden from taking its primary objectives by the 6th round, right when the first card of fate is to be read. It could announce the death of Elisabeth and the end of the game with a Swedish (Richard’s) victory! In East Prussia (left upper corner in the picture) Lehwaldt (P8) is still on the board, in spite of the Russian conquest of all objectives there. In Silesia, Schwerin and Keith (P4 and P5) are sitting on Breslau in the spades sector. In Saxony Prussia still has predominance. In Hanover, Soubise and Chevert (F2 and F3) are on the hunt for Cumberland (H2) while Richelieu (F1) enters Saxony going after the Hanoverian supply train. Seydlitz (P6) keeps a watch on Magdeburg.
RESULTS
In this section we will publish information regarding the development of the championship, statistics, photos and comments on the games.
CAFE'17 CHAMPION
Richard Sivel (GER) playing as Sweden
CAFE'17 finalists
Guy Atkinson (SPA) playing as Prussia
Bjorn von Knorring (SWE) playing as Austria
Maurice de Wijs (NED) playing as France
Prize-giving, (from left to right) Guy Atkinson (Best Classified), Jose Luis Bonilla (Organizer), Richard Sivel (CAFE'17 Champion)
Guy Atkinson sits as Prussia before two players well known to him – Alex Calderón as France and José Manuel as Russia – and before a new player – David Fernández, as Austria – . The mix of old and new is not enough to beat the veteran Prussian player, who seems in full control of the board all throughout the game. Russia doesn’t seem to have enough club cards to fight Dohna out of Kammin, and French losses pile up. What’s up with Austria?. Finding trouble to attack Schwerin and Keith with troop superiority, David has the plan to attack there with the Imperials and their four diamond cards. But José Manuel gets hold of the Empire as this attack is about to be carried out, and the game ends in the next round anyway. After 21 rounds France is the main victim of Prussia’s victory, holding only 4 objectives.
TABLE 1
The presence of Swedish and russian troops in the prussian heartland doesn’t seem to unbalance the veteran Prussian player.
1ST ROUND
Blocked in the diamonds sector in Saxony, Austria (Alex Calderón) lent France (Bjorn) a lot of support through persistent attacks in the hearts sector around Magdeburg, seriously weakening the Prussian defence there. Russia (Rubén) initially suffered due to a lack of clubs and was unlucky as Elisabeth passed away just as the green pieces were coming into action. Mark Luta and his Prussians had to concede victory to France in round 19, having run out of time on the clock.
TABLE 1
Austria (Alex Calderón) and Prussia (Mark Luta) exchange blows in the hearts sector around Magdeburg. This Austrian support for France would contribute to France’s final victory. (Bjorn, in a red shirt).
2ND ROUND
The least experienced player in the tournament, David Fernández, plays as Prussia for the first time in the competition. He fights intensively, keeping Silesia relatively free of enemies. But attrition on the other fronts is enormous and the more veteran players know how to profit from that. In the west Hannover disappears completely from the board. In the east Christian Blattner manages to put himself in a winning position to take Russia's last objective – Küstrin – and win the game. But right then and there (Round 11) the Tsarina dies and David gets a few rounds of relief, which he uses to completely forget about Sweden. Christian makes the most of his opportunity and conquers all Swedish primary objectives by round 13. Meanwhile Andreas Zölitz does the same with France in what is the only double victory in the tournament.
TABLE 1
Situation after Prussia's last move in the game. Nothing can keep Sweden and France from taking their last objectives, while the Empire was two rounds away from getting its last objective.
3th ROUND
Being one of the favourites for this tournament and also one of the best classified players up to this round, Christian Blattner was unfortunate to suffer an early debacle as the Prussians in this game, as a consequence of forgetting to buy back some troops during a critical move. He faced Russia (Guy Atkinson) in hearts and clubs, and held on to East Prussia for many rounds. Before Richard Sivél, who esa playing Austria, he managed for Keith and Schwerin to evacuate Silesia and meet King Frederick in Saxony to concentrate in its defense. In the end, Russia won in the 11th round. Just one more round would have been enough for Christian to reach the final.
TABLE 1
The situation weel into the game. Keith and Schwerin are on their way to Saxony from Silesia. Further up north, Russia helds most of its objectives and has Dohna cornered.
4th ROUND
Sunday afternoon, June the 18th, top qualifier, Guy Atkinson, opts to play as Prussia in the Final.
final(1/2)
final(2/2)
Statistics
The 17 games played during the CAFE'17 are too small a sample to draw definitive conclusions. Nevertheless, results are consistent with the pattern observed in previous World Championships in Berlin. Friedrich leads the score with around 40% of the victories, followed by Maria Theresia with about 30%. Elisabeth and Pompadour are behind with about 15% of the victories each. The only anomaly registered during the CAFE'17 was that all of Elisabeth's victories (3 in total) where achieved with Sweden.
Trying to explain this Prussian predominance, I was told during the CAFE'17 that the participants where better at playing Friedrich than any other role. I prefer to turn this reasoning around and say that during the Spanish Championship many of the participants were quite awful when playing any of the allied roles. The way I saw it during the event, lousy Prussian play got away clean because allied play was on average far more deficient. Having 1 or 2 real good allied players in the game isn't going to help if either Russia or (especially) Austria are miserably led, which allows Prussia to concentrate resources where the real danger lies without any real stress.
Why are the allies played so badly? Since Friedrich was published in 2004 there has been a race of strategies between Prussia and the allies,a race at which Friedrich has the lead and the allies follow him in developing counterstrategies. It is possible that what we see now is a transition period between a balance of strategies and the next one, characterised by a Prussian dominance.
Another explanation I have been given is that the results of the several championships are slanted due to the scoring system, which essentially rewards the allies for conquering objectives even if they lose. This system favours a conservative allied strategy, centered around scoring 8 or 9 points for the tournament, and shying away from any risk to those points achieved even if it would bring a Prussian defeat. In other words, the allies play it safe.
Whatever the reason, the discussion is ongoing, and we may need further data to reach a definitve conclusion.