Dip 1161 – Sail Ho!

The final of a Sail Ho! Tournament wherein the winner is the player with the most centres after 7 years. I qualified by winning as West in 1144. Since all the other finalists had won with South, I became South in the final, but ended up a one-centre power in a West victory.

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Players

	Name	Nation	Duration
GM:	Michael Boutot		Spring 01-Fall 07
Players:	Jake Edge	West	Spring 01-Fall 07
	Stephen Worthy	South	Spring 01-Fall 07
	Carleton Harris	North	Spring 01-Fall 07
	Doug Burgoyne	East	Spring 01-Fall 07

Current Map – Fall 1907

Michael’s EOG

Champ is not Worthy ...this game at least. Could have been as Stephen Worthy won his way in as South in this 1 as the only non-South winner in 1st round. The winner in this 1 is

instead Jake Edge as West, the only soloist from round 1. Came down to a guessing game with Doug Burgoyne (East) in F07. Carleton Harris held the lead a while as North but losing a fleet in a bounce retreat ended the dream. Everyone in the game was a winner earlier & in this well-played game. 7 yrs means a lot in Sail Ho unlike Standard. Doug appeared dead early then seemed to have it locked then gone again. Carelton likewise went through 2 or 3 cycles in a mere 14 turns. Doug left a clear trail of commentary ;) but full-out EOGS very welcome.

My EOG

Hi all, South here.

I chose West in 1144 after a quick look at the statistics on Sail Ho - South was the overwhelmingly successful power, followed by West; the other two generally did very badly. I reckoned everyone would want South, making West the best bet as a first choice. I then proceeded to clobber South, my main rival, as early as possible, which allowed me to sneak into the final by the skin of my teeth.

So it was no surprise to me that West (as Jack has already said) did exactly the same thing to me. After a slow start, I never really got going, and it turned out that waiting for West to come under attack from elsewhere was a flawed and far too passive tactic. All that did was mean I had to grapple with East instead.

To be fair, success at Sail Ho seems to require a certain amount of ingenuity and analysis of the long term effects of choosing a less obvious course. I never really got the energy to do that, and so I was a bit part player. The general level of play seemed very high, which was gratifying, so I'm hoping to return to Sail Ho when I have more time, although those statistics do worry me slightly.

Thanks to all, especially Michael, who had obviously waited a long time to use the pun on my name! Have a good Christmas all.

Jake’s EOG

I wanted to thank everybody for great games ... it was a lot of fun!

Much like the earlier game, I got lucky in key spots and that had a lot to do with my victory. Based on the earlier games (and other Sail Ho games that I played), I realized right off that if I wanted to survive, I needed to try and keep South in check, so I went after him right way.

East appears to have had the same idea and we were able to corral South pretty quickly. That left North to run pretty free and once he got to 5 centers, it was clear that he was a big threat ... I helped East into APH because I was worried about a 5 center North. Contrary to Michael's thought that East and I were psychic, it was a pretty easy guess for me as East had tried to go there several turns in a row (and I had thought about supporting it earlier) and it looked like he would do it again ... I was pretty sure that North would try to Retreat to SOW so I did the same, knocking out his fleet when I knew I could build again and he couldn't.

When I jumped from 4 to 6 centers in one turn, I was worried that everyone else would jump on me at once, but it is difficult to trust anyone in Gunboat and East still had the win in his sights, so that never really materialized. All of the sudden it was 1907 and I realized that I had to reduce East by 1 and increase me by 1 or end up in a tie or behind ... I went for APH and got it, worried that North might cut my support by ordering PRO->SOA, it would have been a very gutsy move and kind of hard to see, but it would have given the game to East.

Once again, thanks to all the participants, it was great fun and you were all very worthy opponents ... thanks to Michael for running it so smoothly ...