Well, I am at last reporting on the results of the finals match that Brent and I played Monday evening (USA EDT.) My house was essentially non-functional yesterday due to moving everything around so the carpet cleaners would have full reign to do their thing. After letting the carpet dry, I can access my computer again.
To relieve the suspense, I won - barely, by the thinnest of margins, after playing two of the most exciting games it has ever been my pleasure to participate in (well, since the semi-finals, anyway) against an opponent who is every inch a champion himself. We played for 4 1/2 hours, and my brain was pretty foggy afterwards, but I wrote down what I could remember of the games.
I played Brent Steeves (CCA.net ID BrentS) in the final of the 2015 Open Tournament. He won game 1 as the Macedonians, 8-7 – I lost 33 blocks, he lost 29. A wild and woolly fight all over the board – left, right, center and around again. We each lost a leader in the fighting. I don't recall making any egregious mistakes - he just outplayed me. I think we both had good enough cards - I certainly had no complaints - and while the luck of the dice fluctuated as you might expect, I don't think either of us experienced any particular run of good or bad rolling, in either game.
I won the second game as the Macedonians, 8-6, and this was another knock-em-down, drag-em-out fight, all over the board. Brent's Romans lost Scipio very early in the fight, but I pushed my two Macedonian MC and Perseus into bad positions that killed the Roman HC, but lost both of the MC AND Perseus. Continued fighting saw the Macedonians down 5-6, but the end came when a Roman attack WITH A LEADER against a tight triangle of 2 Macedonian Phalanxes and a MI without a leader resulted in some fortunate battle-backs that saw the Romans lose a MI and Misagenes. A final play of a Double Time allowed those three Macedonian units to surround and kill a Roman MC for banner number 8.
These were two very hard-fought, very close (and FUN!) games (we each lost 30 blocks in game 2) and my hat goes off to Brent as a marvelous opponent. He was one of the very first to welcome me when I first joined this Ancients group almost exactly 5 years ago, and he showed me some of the ropes that made the site function and played me in a couple of games, too. It was a privilege to play him in these finals.
I have attached the log files below - those who did not get to watch the match, or want more detail than I can remember, might find these interesting.
Cheers, everyone, and thanks to all those who ran and participated in this tournament!
Mike Stanley (scipio1zama)
