Diplomacy World #103 - Fall 2008 Issue

ensured his solo.
Edi and I called the remaining travelers, who had gone
out for dinner; we had to wait until they returned (late) in
order to start the evening round. We dramatically told
them to sit down and then informed them that David got
the solo and was playing in the tournament. I wasn’t
there, but Don Williams and Steve Cooley and Brian
Shelden and Chris Martin got themselves worked up and
came back in a very bad mood. Steve in particular was
beside himself. He and I walked up and down the
corridor and talked as Steve said he wanted to get in his
car and drive home. I told him we needed him to get two
boards, Dennis Hutchins had gone home and Rick
Desper had arrived, but we still had just 14. Steve had
had it, after being baked under the TV lights and had a
family at home that would be happier if he left. He didn’t
care about the room (which he had already paid for
through the weekend). So he left, and Rick Desper
agreed to play on both boards so that we could go on.
Round 3 might still have been random, though debates
are possible. David Webster was on a board with all
travelers. I was in Russia on the other board with Don
Williams in Turkey. We again attempted to ally and were
much more successful, I topped the board with 11
centers. Meanwhile, Chris Martin was engaged. And he
worked with people on the other board to eliminate
David Webster and claim his own 18 center victory.
So we went into the fourth and final round with Chris
ahead by five points (though results were not published,
I knew precisely where Chris was in the standings, and
presume Chris knew as well). Now, in another really
interesting idea, if not completely well thought out, we
were off to Fort Knox State Park (no, not THAT Fort
Knox) across the Penobscot River from Bucksport
(which is where David Webster actually lives). For
Maine, this isn’t far, but it is about 30-40 miles from
Orono. We split people up among cars and drove down
on Saturday to find the game. We were set up outside
the bathrooms and one of the ranger booths. The fort
itself is a neat tourist site (which I’ve visited a couple of
times), but we really didn’t have time to actually go up
there (we were down to the side of the main fort). It was
a brilliant sunny day, which actually was somewhat
painful (I finally moved the boards into the shade of the
Diplomacy World #103 - Page 28
building after about 1902).
And here was the final straw. I topped the board the
night before, and found myself in Austria, with six of the
other travelers, but Chris Martin and Brian Shelden
(along with Father Mike) were on one of the other two
boards. For the first time, we finally had three boards.
David Webster brought his whole family, plus an exgame
store owner named Tom Constantine, who David
appointed to be Tournament Director for the day (this
didn’t really make anyone feel better when we saw the
full draws). Tom was also playing, to make 21 players,
he played on a board with the rest of David Webster’s
family. While David had his laptop up at UMaine, no one
saw the laptop at Fort Knox and what Tom did as TD
was not clear. Where did our board draw come from? (I
had some mathematical assistance from Math PhD Rick
Desper to Economics PhD Jim-Bob here). If we
postulate that Chris is going to be a player on one board
and do not do anything about country selection (he was,
of course…. Austria), and take out Tom and those other
six local Bangoreans, we had four Bangoreans left
(including David) plus Father Mike. The odds that all
four Bangoreans were on that one board is 6/13 * 5/12 *
4/11 * 3/10. That's a little over 2% at .020979. Now,
one needs to be careful with probabilities since ANY
arrangement of players will itself be very rare. But David
and all three of his friends were on that board, and so
was Chris. Plus Chris was Austria, the designated
country for “leaders”, except for David Webster, who
never played Austria. Our seven player traveler board
played what I would call a regular game until we
watched more of what was happening on the board with
the four Bangoreans, Father Mike, and Chris and Brian.
Chris and Brian were both taken out completely, while
Father Mike topped the board with 14 and David
Webster had 12. That was 7 points more than David
needed to win the tournament. On our board, we had
had enough. We set up a Smyrna to St.Petersburg
convoy using ALL seven players on the board and then
called it with a board topping for Don Williams. So we
ended laughing hysterically. It really was fun in that way
that only such silly orders can be, and it gave us some
internal dignity back. But Chris and Brian were as angry
as I’ve ever seen them.