TS Convention

Information and results regarding the Twilight Struggle Convention.

Winner 2013 (Amsterdam): Jarek Moc (Poland)
Winner 2014 (Amsterdam): Jedrzej Gasiorowski (Poland)
Winner 2015 (Warsaw): Ziemowit Pazderski (Poland)
Winner 2016 (Thessaloniki): Tomas Tvaroh (Czech Republic)
Winner 2017 (Amsterdam) : Thanos Bahtsevanis (Greece)
Winner 2018 (Warsaw) : Wojciech Pietrzak (Poland)
Winner 2019 (Thessaloniki) : Ziemowit Pazderski (Poland)

The 8th International Twilight Struggle Tournament goes to London this year, and promises both strong games and great experiences for the participants.

This year, the Tournament will take place on the weekend of May 30th and 31th .

The participation fee is 25£ and includes the participation, Tournament T-Shirt and Promo Card.

Anyone can take part in the Tournament regardless of experience, level or knowledge of the game. Every participant will play 8 games.

For more info and participation declarations, please contact Tasos Manolopoulos (mob. number: +306977208288, email: manolopoulos@yahoo.com or Simon O’Brien (mob. Number: +447525053574 email sj_obrien@hotmail.com )

Venue : Brady Arts & Community Centre

192-196 Hanbury St, Whitechapel, London E1 5HU

 

• PARTICIPATIONS

1. Tasos Manolopoulos (Greece)
2. Yahia Abaza (Egypt)
3. Simon O’Brien (England)
4. David Lancashire (Canada)
5. Ioan Mitiu (Romania)
6. Niko Ovenden (England)
7. Joseph Mustard (England)
8. Adrian Ziarko (Poland)
9. Michael Panettieri (USA)
10. Shezan Hirjee (England)
11. Kaiyan Fan (China)
12. Jonathan Adlam (England)
13. Sean Williams (England)
14. Luke Evison (England)
15. Ziemowit Pazderski (Poland)
16. Nick Barker (England)
17. Nikhil Thapar (England)
18. Thanos Bahtsevanis (Greece)
19. Makis Bahtsevanis (Greece)
20. Jaros Mankos (Slovakia)
21. Karl Johan Nordensten (Sweden)
22. James Beattie (England)

Both days the tournament will start at 9am (local time) and end late in the evening. We will play 4 rounds a day, using chess clocks to track players’ thinking time (1 hour per player per match and half an hour for simultaneous actions). All players should be able to play with the English version of the game.

We will use the Swiss tournament system (initial rankings decided by the AREA ratings per May 29, 2020). Side assigments will be done by bidding (lower ranked player first).

At the end of the tournament I will award prizes to the first 3 players of the overall ranking. The winner of a match receives 1 point, a draw awards both players 0.5 point. In case of a tie in the overall ranking during the tournament, I will first look at Berger (resistance) points, then at initial rankings (standings before the first round). In case of a tie in the final rankings, I will first look at the results between the appropriate players, then I take Berger and initial rankings into account.

Schedule:

May 30:

Round 1: 9am – 11:30am
Round 2: 12pm – 2:30pm
Round 3: 3pm – 5:30 pm
Round 4: 6:30pm – 9pm

May 31:

Round 5: 9am – 11:30am
Round 6: 12pm – 2:30pm
Round 7: 3pm – 5:30 pm
Round 8: 6:30pm – 9pm
Prize ceremony: 9pm

If you like to join or require more information, please mail me (see Contact page).

Thessaloniki 2019

• Round 1

Mandelenakis Giannis vs Pazderski Ziemowit  0:1
Pietrzak Wojciech vs Mustard Joe 1:0
Ovenden Niko vs Manolopoulos Tasos 0:1
Abaza Yahia vs Ziarko Adrian 1:0
O’Brien Simon vs Boucharelis Alexandros 1:0
Konstantinidis Stefanos vs Mankos Jaros 0:1
Mitiu Ioan vs Lancashire David 1:0

• Round 2

Pazderski Ziemowit vs Abaza Yahia  1:0
Mankos Jaros vs Pietrzak Wojciech 0:1
Manolopoulos Tasos vs O’Brien Simon 0:1
Boucharelis Alexandros vs Mitiu Ioan 0:1
Mustard Joe vs Konstantinidis Stefanos 1:0
Lancashire David vs Ovenden Niko 1:0
Ziarko Adrian vs Mandelenakis Giannis 1:0

• Round 3

O’Brien Simon vs Pazderski Ziemowit 0:1
Pietrzak Wojciech vs Mitiu Ioan 0:1
Mustard Joe vs Manolopoulos Tasos 1:0
Abaza Yahia vs Mankos Jaros 1:0
Ziarko Adrian vs Lancashire David 0:1
Mandelenakis Giannis vs Boucharelis Alexandros 0:1
Konstantinidis Stefanos vs Ovenden Niko 0:1

• Round 4

Mitiu Ioan vs Pazderski Ziemowit 1:0
Lancashire David vs Pietrzak Wojciech 1:0
Abaza Yahia vs Mustard Joe 0:1
Ovenden Niko vs O’Brien Simon 0:1
Manolopoulos Tasos vs Ziarko Adrian 0:1
Mankos Jaros vs Mandelenakis Giannis 1:0

• Round 5

Mustard Joe vs Mitiu Ioan 1:0
O’Brien Simon vs Lancashire David 0:1
Pazderski Ziemowit vs Mankos Jaros 1:0
Pietrzak Wojciech vs Abaza Yahia 0:1
Ziarko Adrian vs Ovenden Niko 0:1
Mandelenakis Giannis vs Manolopoulos Tasos 1:0

• Round 6

Pazderski Ziemowit vs Mustard Joe 1:0
Lancashire David vs Abaza Yahia 0:1
Mitiu Ioan vs O’Brien Simon 0:1
Mankos Jaros vs Ziarko Adrian 1:0
Manolopoulos Tasos vs Pietrzak Wojciech 0:1
Ovenden Niko vs Mandelenakis Giannis 1:0

• Round 7

Lancashire David vs Pazderski Ziemowit 1:0
Abaza Yahia vs Mitiu Ioan 1:0
Mustard Joe vs Ovenden Niko 0:1
O’Brien Simon vs Ziarko Adrian 0:1
Pietrzak Wojciech vs Mandelenakis Giannis 1:0
Manolopoulos Tasos vs Mankos Jaros 1:0

• Round 8

Pazderski Ziemowit vs Pietrzak Wojciech 1:0
Ovenden Niko vs Abaza Yahia 1:0
Mankos Jaros vs Lancashire David 1:0
Ziarko Adrian vs Mustard Joe 0:1
Mitiu Ioan vs Manolopoulos Tasos 0:1
Mandelenakis Giannis vs O’Brien Simon 0:1

• Standing Table

1. Pazderski Ziemowit          6:0   (24.0)
2. Lancashire David              5:0   (23.0)
   
3. Abaza Yahia                        5:0   (20.0)
   
4. Mustard Joe                        5:0   (15.0)
   
5. O’Brien Simon                    5:0   (14.0)
   
6. Ovenden Niko                     5:0   (14.0)
   
7. Mitiu Ioan                            4:0   (16.0)
8. Pietrzak Wojciech              4:0   (13.0)
9. Mankos Jaros                      4:0    (9.0)
10. Ziarko Adrian                     3:0    (9.0)
11. Manolopoulos Tasos         3:0   (13.0)
12. Mandelenakis Giannis      1:0    (3.0)
13. Boucharelis Alexandros   1:0    (1.0)
14. Konstantinidis Stefanos    0:0    (0.0)

Tournament rules

• We play DeLuxe with optional cards. This means that there will be 2 US IP in Canada at the start and we use Aldrich Ames Remix instead of the old Aldrich Ames.
• Please note that some versions of the game has got misprints of the optional cards. The most important issue is the OP value of Our Man in Teheran. This should be 2 (instead of 3).

Chess clock

• If you play an opponent’s event, press the chess clock while he’s performing his action. When he finished he presses the check clock to announce that you can do your stuff. Don’t stop the clock completely when performing counting of a score card. This should go so fast that it can’t cost too much time. If you do, you will delay the tournament (which happened in Warsaw).
• At the end of the last action round of the turn, stop the clock and perform end of turn administration and headline phase simultaneously (use the sandtimer to make sure that this doesn’t take longer than 3 minutes). After flipping the headlines, press the chess clock again.

General rules

• If DEFCON moves to 1, the player whose Action Round it is or the player who played the card triggering the sequence in the Headline Phase loses by Nuclear War!
• Adjacent superpowers give +1 while realigning or using Brush War.
• A free coup means that the player doesn’t get military operations for it. All other rules apply!
• A player doing realignments can lose influence himself.

Cards

• Five Year Plan: if USSR draws a US event as a result of FYP, it counts as played by USSR (for example: Defectors would still give 1 VP, unless drawn in the Headline Phase). If US plays this in the headline and draws Defectors, the USSR headline is only cancelled if it has an OP value of 3 or lower.
• China Card: you are never obliged to play this, even if you have spare rounds left.
• Vietnam Revolts: If USSR plays a 4 OP card or the China Card while Vietnam Revolts is in effect, he can use respectively 5 OP or 6 OP if he uses them all in SE Asia.
• Truman doctrine: only works in uncontrolled countries (by neither side).
• Red Scare/Purge: in combination with Brezhnev Doctrine and Containment the advantage and disadvantage nullify eachother (so a 1 OP stays 1 OP, a 4 OP stays 4 OP).
• Formosan Resolution: works in Final Scoring.
• Cuban Missile Crisis: a player is allowed to cancel the Crisis at anytime, but not during a roll or the announcement of an action or performing it. Example: US announces a realignment in Cuba. USSR is not allowed to take 2 IP out of Cuba at this moment to cancel the Crisis. However, after the first roll (and before the US announces his next target) he is allowed  to remove 2 IP. Note: it’s a good habit to give the player who played CMC sufficient time to decide about this.
• Bear Trap: if you are not able to discard anymore cards, you immediately start playing scoring cards, 1 per round (if you have them). You can’t lose by Nuclear War by holding scoring cards because of this, so at the moment you have exactly as many rounds to go as you have scoring cards, you start playing your scoring cards. You proceed discarding cards from the first Action Round in the next turn.
• Quagmire: cancels Norad (but doesn’t prevent it if not active yet). If you are not able to discard anymore cards, you immediately start playing scoring cards, 1 per round (if you have them). You can’t lose by Nuclear War by holding scoring cards because of this, so at the moment you have exactly as many rounds to go as you have scoring cards, you start playing your scoring cards. You proceed discarding cards from the first Action Round in the next turn.
• How I Learned: the player receives the 5 MOP immediately (and can therefore use them for Arms Race).
• Kitchen debates: if the condition is not fulfilled, the card is discarded (and not removed from the game).
• Missile Envy: if US plays this in the headline and he gets Defectors, the USSR headline is only cancelled if it has an OP value of 2 or lower. If a player is under Bear Trap/Quagmire and Missile Envy is played on him, he needs to discard Missile Envy in his next turn. If a player is not able to play Missile Envy in his next turn (BearTrap/Quagmire/Red Scare/Purge combination or he’s obliged to play a scoring card), he has to play Missile Envy as soon as he’s able to (not in the headline though). A player receiving UN Intervention (very rare) in exchange for Missile Envy, he has to use it to discard an opponent’s event and use the OP (if he hasn’t got an opponent’s event, nothing happens). If a player is able to get rid of Missile Envy before actually playing it he may do so (for example: Space Race (discarding a held card), or USSR plays AR7 Missile Envy, USA responds with the Scoring Card, then USA headlines “Ask Not…” in the next turn). If USA receives Missile Envy again, he’s still obliged to play it as if it would have been continuously in his hands.
• South African Unrest: USSR is allowed to put 1 in South Africa, 1 in Botswana and 1 in Angola.
• Flower Power: after Camp David Accords cancels A-I War, Flower Power doesn’t give 2 VPs when US play A-I War.
• Shuttle Diplomacy: put it back in the discard pile after resolving. Not valid in Final Scoring.
• Iron Lady: if USSR plays this card, he may not use the just placed USSR IP in Argentina to expand from (it should be seen as NOT there at the start of his turn).
• Star Wars: if the condition is not fulfilled, the card is discarded (and not removed from the game).
• North Sea Oil: US is not obliged to use his 8^th
• Tear Down This Wall: although US is allowed to coup in Europe, DEFCON still lowers when performing a coup versus a battleground.
• Wargames: if the condition is not fulfilled, the card is discarded (and not removed from the game). It’s allowed to use this event to NOT ending the game (in that case you remove the card from the game).
• Cambridge Five: can’t be used as an event in Late War!
• Norad: is used by US at the end of any Action Round (it doesn’t matter if it’s the US or USSR Action Round) in which DEFCON moves to 2. US then places 1 IP in one country of his choice where he has got IP already. Cancelled by Quagmire.
  Clarification of conditions:
  – DEFCON must move to 2 at any moment of the Action Round (for example: if DEFCON is at 3, USA player plays Glasnost and coups before triggering the event, this condition is met although DEFCON is at 3 at the end of the Action Round).
  – Canada must be US-controlled at the end of the Action Round but not necessarily at the moment the DEFCON remains at 2 (example: with DEFCON at 3 and Canada non-US controlled USSR plays Star Wars and performs a
  battleground coup first dropping DEFCON to 2 with Canada uncontrolled, then US triggers the event, reclaims ABM Treaty, plays it, changes DEFCON to 3 and puts Ops in Canada enough to control; the condition for NORAD is met).
• Che: can’t be used to coup battlegrounds!
• Our Man in Teheran: if the condition is not fulfilled, the card is discarded (and not removed from the game).

Space race track

• If you are allowed to discard a held card, this may NOT be a scoring card!
• If you are allowed to play an 8^th round, you are not obliged to.

Detailed results:

TS Convention 2013 results total
TS Convention 2013 resultaten
TS Convention 2014 results
TS Convention 2014 Results Total
Final standings TS Convention 2015
ts-convention-2015-results-total
final-standings-ts-convention-2016
ts-convention-2016-results-total