12th Friedrich World Championship, 2017

The Qualification Round



In the qualification round 28 games were played. They can be briefly summarized like this:

Game 1: Rouven Lotze (Prussia) is defeated after 10 rounds. Winner is France (Christian Dickhausen). Also, Alex Calderon (Austria) was only 1 objective away from victory.

Game 2: Alberto Romero performs only slightly better. His Prussians hold out until turn 12, then Martin Höfers French win. And both Austria (Christian Yorck) and Russia (Andreas Buschhaus) were only 1 objective away from victory.

Game 3: Bjorn v. Knorring's Prussians keep Russia (Arnold de Wijs) and France (Johannes Strobel) good at bay, but after 16 turns Klaus Blum wins with Austria.

Game 4: Stephan Jordan's Frederick writes his Poems much too early (turn 6). Thereafter, no stroke of fate wants to happen for turns. It is Lord Bute in turn 14 making the disaster perfect, and so so Christian Blattner wins with Russia in turn 16.

Game 5: For the first time in a FWC, Andreas Zölitz wins with Prussia! Until turn 18, there were only 2 stroke of fate (America in turn 9, Lord Bute in turn 10). But then comes one after the other: Sweden 18, Elisabeth 19, Poems 20, India 22.

Game 6: Richard Sivél wins with Prussia (turn 20). The exit of France (Guy Atkinson) in turn 11 came just right in time. And when Prussia had run out of clubs and a Russian win was more than on the horizon, the Tsarina died in turn 20 (Karsten Kraft), and so the game was over.

Game 7: Anton Telle (Prussia) suffers no subsidy reductions at all. An Austrian stack (Marcus Straßmann) is encircled at Kamenz (loss of 23 troops) and all other attackers are far away from winnning. Anton wins in turn 17.

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Game 4: Stephan Jordan, working on his Saxony defense, watched by John McCullough and Mark Luta.


Game 5: Jose Bonilla Rau moves with Sweden.


Game 6: Jürgen Winter thinking over his next move. Guy Atkinson reflects the Hanover situaion.


Game 8: Anton Telle moves with Russia, watched by Andreas Zölitz and Stephan Jordan.


Game 10: Florian Blum cannot believe what is happening


Game 12: Alex Calderon fighting the Prussians. Johannes Strobel seems a bit sceptical.

Game 8: Karsten Kraft's Prussians are defeated in almost every fight! Only Hildi, Soubise and Saltikov lose once one troop each. And so, the game is over after only 9 turn. Winner is Russia (Anton Telle).

Game 9: Andrew Brown has made a good deal with the fate: His Prussians are victorious afer only 13 turns. Christian Yorck (Russia) manages to earn only 3 points, and Arnold de Wijs (Austria) is better only an inches (4,2 points).

Game 10: Florian Blum, however, cannot make profit from an early death of the Tsarina (turn 6, played by Alberto Romero). Also the exit of France (Rouven Lotze, turn 12) is not a turn of the tide. Bjorn v. Knorring wins with Austria in turn 13.

Game 11: Guy Atkinson wins with Prussia after 20 rounds. Austria (Maurice de Wijs) makes only few conquests (5 P) and Peter Hannappel's Tsarina dies in turn 8. It was simply too much of vodka, Peter's former pseudonym: Nomen est omen!

Game 12: Mark Luta (Prussia) takes too much time for his moves. He is on the stop watch already on turn 15! And, in exactly this turn Johannes Strobel wins with Austria. Johannes could have decided to go for an Imperial-Austrian double win, but this seemed him to risky, because Martin Höfers Russians were already out. Since the Empire could switch players at the very next fate card, Johannes opted for the safe 12 points.

Game 13: Always cut the deck the hard way! Then there won't come any strokes of fate before turn 16! And so, Jürgen Winter's Prussians are defeated after 21 turns. Winner is Christian Blattner (France).

Game 14: Andreas Buschhaus steers his Prussian ship safely to victory in turn 22. Richard Sivél's Russians were low on clubs (this made Kammin safe), and Austria (Christian Dickhausen) attacked much too often with army inferiority (!!). Christian then changed his strategy and tried to win with the Empire. Doing this he experienced a wondrous saving of his Austrian supply train in Saxony: First, Cumberland is prohibited to eliminate him, because he is under the spell of a Danish priest. Second, in the next turn the same Cumberland has to leave the game, because France leaves the game (and the Empire switches players).



Game 15: After an early Lord Bute (turn 6) Alex Calderon's Prussians are defeated in turn 10. He was victorious in only 1 battle (against Sweden). Winner is Austria (Anton Telle). Russia and France were close to victory as well (Bjorn v. Knorring, Andreas Buschhaus, respectively). Both make 9 points.

Game 16: In Saxony, Christian Blattner (Prussia) lets his lone Friedrich general repeatedly fight against an Austrian stack with enormous army inferiortiy. But Austria (Richard Sivél) is not able to convert this into a decisive advantage: Austria dominates Saxonian diamonds, but Prussia dominates Silesian diamonds. Since Florian Blums French are stopped at Magdeburg, Christian wins with the exit of the Tsarina(Maurice de Wijs) in turn 15.

Game 17: Mark Luta's Russian hordes overrun the Neumark and Kammin, and so Klaus Blum (Prussia) has to rely on his fortress East Prussia! He holds out until turn 14, then Russia conquers its last objective and Mark wins. One turn later Hendrik Möschler Austria would have won as well (Hendrik Möschler). France (Jose Bonilla Rau) suffered the whole game severely under a big lack of spades, and makes onl 7 points.

Game 18: Christian Yorck (Prussia) keeps the Russians well at bay (Johannes Strobel). The same with Austria (Rouven Lotze), and when 18 Austrians are encircled at Ohlau and wiped off the board, Austria is no threat anymore. Karsten Kraft's French are fighting hard to turn the tide, but his ressources are not enough. Prussia wins in turn 20.

Game 19: Marcus Straßmann suffers a subsidy reduction with the first fate card. Two turns later, Russia is history (Guy Atkinson). In the whole game, Guy had 3 chances to win, but Marcus stops him three times. So it is Andrew Brown and Stephan Jordan to pull off a double victory in turn 17 with France and Austria respectively.

Game 20: John McCullough wins with Prussia after 17 turns. Although Russia left the game in turn 6, Christian Dickhausen makes 8 points with the Tsarina. The 2016 world champion, Martin Höfer, makes 9 points with Austria, and so does Arnold de Wijs with France.

Game 21: Peter Hannappel's Prussians control the game from the start till the end (turn 18). Alberto Romero goes for an Imperial win, but fails after the Empire switches to Pompadour in turn 13.


Game 18: Rouven Lotze moves his Austrians, while Karsten Kraft is analyzing the Russian options.


Game 20: John McCullough is checking his supply in Saxony.


Game 21: Andreas Zölitz moves with France.


Game 23: Andrew Brown sorting his cards.


Game 24: Martin Höfer sorting his cards (while Rouven Lotze is working on his Russian-Swedish double victory).


Game 25: Andreas Zölitz sorting his cards? No! Andreas Zölitz making pressure against Christian Dickhausen's Kammin defense.

Game 22: Arnold de Wijs plays Prussia very agressively, attacking everything which isn't up the trees before counting to three! Richard Sivél sets up a trap with his French main army: 16 troops are encircled, in the hope to wipe the Hanoverians off the board. But — Hanover has more spades, and so the French are wiped off the board. The early death of the Tsarina (Alex Calderon, turn 8) give Arnold some relieve, augmented by non-occurring subsidy reductions. However, in turn 15 it is game over. Peter Hannappel wins with Austria after a serious of well-planned, systematic attacks.

Game 23: In this game, there were 3 players with realistic chances to enter the final. One of them was Johannes Strobel, a FWC debutant. As Prussia, he wins after a long struggle of 23 turns against Andrew Brown (Russia) and the two former world champions (Christian Blattner and Alberto Romero). And this, although no nation leaves the game before turn 18, but subsidy reductions coming in turn 11 and 14! — Christian Blattner makes 9.2 points (which gives him the 1st rank in the qualification round). Andrew Brown misses the final by 0.5 points, while Johannes misses it by 1.5 points.

Game 24: Martin Höfer has to give up any hopes for entering the final when Rouven Lotze pulls off a double victory with Russia and Sweden in turn 15! Austria (Guy Atkinson) and France (Anton Telle) were only 1 objective away from victory. But, for Anton this enough to enter the final as 2nd ranked.

Game 25: Christian Dickhausen, the other FWC debutant, makes a big blunder in turn 11 when he moves a Prussian general away from Leipzig and Naumburg, the two last Imperial objectives! Mark Luta moves Hildi and conquers these fortresses easily (which results in his final game participation). But even without that blunder, Prussia would have been defeated very soon.

Game 26: Maurice de Wijs suffers the first subsidy reduction in turn 6. But still he is able to win after 23 turns of hard struggle. His opponents try everything, but cannot reach a breakthrough. It are: Klaus Blu, Russia, exit in turn 10; Karsten Kraft, Austria; Marcus Straßmann, France, India in 18, America in 23.

Game 27: Another Prussian sovereign win: Jose Bonilla Rau wins after 22 turns. Here, the fate was balanced well.

Game 28: Hendrik Möschler, however, is targeted by early Poems, but struggles hard to hold out for 21 long turns. He is able to stop John McCulloughs Russians. But the campaigns of Austria and the Imperial Army are victorious in the end. It is another double win by the Empire (Jürgen Winter) and Austria (Andreas Buschhaus). Andreas is the last player to enter the final.

Ranking after the qualification round:

Player Friedr. Elis. M.Ther. Pomp. Total TB1
1 Christian Blattner 12.0 12.0 9.2 12.0 45.2
2 Anton Telle 12.0 12.0 12.0 9.0 45.0
3 Andreas Buschhaus 12.0 9.0 11.5 9.0 41.5
4 Mark Luta 7.5 12.0 12.0 9.0 40.5
5 Andrew Brown 12.0 9.0 7.5 11.5 40.0
6 Johannes Strobel 12.0 7.0 12.0 8.0 39.0
7 John McCullough 12. 9.4 9.0 8.0 38.4 13.0
8 Andreas Zölitz 12.0 9.0 9.4 8.0 38.4 9.0
9 Peter Hannappel 12.0 6.0 12.0 8.0 38.0
10 Martin Höfer 7.5 9.0 9.2 12.0 37.7
11 Guy Atkinson 12.0 8.0 9.4 8.0 37.4
12 Bjorn v. Knorring 8.0 9.0 12.0 8.0 37.0
13 Jürgen Winter 10.5 6.0 7.5 11.5 35.5
14 Stephan Jordan 7.5 8.0 11.5 8.0 35.0
15 Jose Bonilla Rau 12.0 8.0 7.5 7.0 34.5
16 Hendrik Möschler 10.5 8.0 8.8 7.0 34.3
17 Klaus Blum 7.0 6.0 12.0 9.0 34.0
18 Christian Yorck 12.0 3.0 9.4 9.0 33.4
19 Marcus Straßmann 8.5 8.0 9.2 7.0 32.7
20 Maurice de Wijs 12.0 7.0 5.0 8.0 32.0
ooC Richard Sivél 12.0 6.0 7.5 6.0 31.5
21 Alex Calderon 5.0 9.0 9.4 8.0 31.4
22 Rouven Lotze 5.0 13.0 5.0 8.0 31.0
23 Christian Dickhausen 5.5 8.0 5.0 12.0 30.5
24 Karsten Kraft 4.5 8.0 8.3 8.0 28.8
25 Arnold de Wijs 7.5 7.0 4.2 9.0 27.7
26 Florian Blum 6.5 6.0 5.0 9.0 26.5
27 Alberto Romero 6.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 24.0
TB1 = Tiebreaker No.1
 ooC = out of competition


Unknown game: An Austrian-Imperial-French polonaise in Saxony.


Game 6: Jürgen Winter conducting his orchestra of troops.



The four finalists: Christian Blattner, Andreas Buschhaus, Anton Telle and Mark Luta.


The four highest ranked players enter the final:
Christian Blattner, Anton Telle, Andreas Buschhaus and Mark Luta.

The final started with a delay at 5:45 p.m.

Christian Blattner as best ranked player had the first choice of his role, Anton Telle had the second choice, and so on. For Andreas Buschhaus it was the first final. For Anton the 7th, for Christian the 4th and for Mark the 2nd.

The Fair Ehrensvärd was awarded to Maurice and Arnold de Wijs:
Maurice deserved it for his overall gentleman-like behaviour as a player. A true sportsman! — And Arnold was always attentive in summarizing the latest actions when a player had to leave the table for other duties. A true "referee-player"!



Maurice and Arnold de Wijs, the "Fair Ehrensvärds" of the FWC 2017.
Alberto Romero is the 2nd former world champion to receive the Golden Hildi, the award for the last ranked player.