17th Friedrich World Championship, 2022
The Qualification Round
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In the qualification round, 24 games were played. They can be summarized as follows:
Game 1: Stephan Jordan loses with Prussia after 15 turns. Especially Christian Blattner's Swedes are a major pain! IN the whole game Ehrensvärd, running havoc at Berlin, wipes off the board 3 Prussian generals and 1 supply train. Only Seydlitz manages to retreat with heavy losses after meeting Ehrensvärd. The winner, however, is Arnold de Wijs with Austria.
Game 2: Ramon Rubio, giving his FWC debut, suffers the exit of France and takes over the Imperial Army, and is immmediately declared the winner (due to eased victory conditions)!! Ramon cannot believe his luck! More to report: There were 2 big encirclement battle. One at Kamenz – where Klaus Blum (Prussia) eliminates 24 Austrians; the other at Kreuzburg in Silesia – where Maurice de Wijs (Austria) planned to take revenge, but failed. Due to this, Maurice scores only 5.83 points. Game 3: Bjorn von Knorring (Prussia) defends cleverly. Against Russia (Mark Luta) he defends with a combination of hearts and clubs. Against Austria (Richard Sivél) he relies on a pure diamonds defense in Saxony, supported by the Hanoverian Ferdinand. But when the Austrians cut his supply lines, Bjorn tries to save the situation with a spades-diamonds battle. This is crucial. Austria wins in turn 18. Game 4: Steffen Schröder's (Prussia) receives almost no diamonds in the first turns. But still he manages to survive for 20 turns, and win eventually. Guy Atkinson (Russia), Loughlin Deegan (Austria) and Jon Brede Smith (France) hardly have a chance against Steffen's defense. Game 5: Bernd Preiß wins with Prussia as well. And this despite an early Lord Bute (turn 7). Against Russia (Marcus Straßmann) Bernd is stubbornly defending in East Prussia hearts. When Elisabeth dies in turn 13, the Russian main army just arrived at the Neumark. Also, Bernd was able to derail Loughlin Deegan's plan to cut the Prussian supply lines in Saxony. And France (John McCullough) found no tool against the Prussian-Hanoverian spades defense. Bernd wins after 17 turns. Game 6: Few minutes past midnight, Peter Hannappel makes perfect the third Prussian win. He had to fight hard due to a turn 10 subsidy reduction. But when the Tsarina (Thorsten Hennig) died after turn 16, he was able to reach the goal line and win. Jose Bonilla Rau (Austria) and Christian Yorck (France) score 9.17 and 9 Points, respectively. Thorsten score with Sweden 8 points. |
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 Game 4: Steffen Schröder, Guy Atkinson and Loghlin Deegan.  Game 6: Jose Bonilla Rau moves his Austrians. Russia (Thorsten Hennig) is still in the game. |
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 Game 7: Mark Luta thinking about hist defense against France (Stephan Jordan).  Game 8: Christian Blattner trying to find the optimum move for his French. |
Game 7: Mark Luta (Prussia) makes a big blunder! He does not realize that he leaves Kammin unprotected when Dohna attacks the Russiansat Wangerin. The problem is that Kammin is the last objective needed by Sweden for a major win. Then, when the battle starts, Klaus Blum (Russia) does not immediately realize that if Russia wins this battle with +1, the retreat would have to end on a city from which Kammin is protected again. Klaus responds by playing a TC. Now, it is Mark's turn again. He should retreat, but Mark still does not understand what's going on and plays to a positive battle score... Now, Klaus happily accepts the elimination of his Russians, and makes the winning move with Sweden some minutes later (turn 10). Steffen Schröder makes 9 points with Austria and Stephan Jordan 6 points with France.
Game 8: Despite early subsidy reductions (turn 9) Richard Sivél wins with Prussia. (The early exits Sweden (turn 10) and Russia (turn 11) were a good help of course.) Noteworthing is that due to a crucial mistake at Magdeburg, Prussia would have lost almost the game to France (Christian Blattner) at ca. turn 9. The Prussian Saxony army (Friedrich & Winterfeldt) arrived in the last minute to protect Halberstadt. Later, when Hanover was able to reconquer Hameln, the situation was safe in the West. Guy Atkinson went for an Imperial win and sent Austrian generals to the Madgeburg area right from the start, which resulted in a lot of Prussian trouble. But when Maurice took over the Imperial Army, Guy's plan became a failure. Guy scored 5 points, Christian and Maurice 8 points each. Game 9:In turn 16, Loughlin Deegan (Prussia) is defeated by France (Jose Bonilla Rau). Against Russia (Arnold de Wijs) Loughlin defended in diamonds (!), but had to switch to spades later in the game; against Austria (John McCullough) Loughlin set up the defense in clubs. Note that Arnold sent one Russian general deep into Silesia, where he reached Oppeln (Southeast-Silesia!) in turn 16. Game 10: Andrew Brown pulls off a turn-16-victory with Prussia. Ramon Rubio scores 9 points with Russia, Bernd Preiß 9.17 points with Austria, and Peter Hannappel 9 points with France. Fate was on Andrew's side: The first subsidy reduction came at turn 16, while the France and Russia left the game after turn 10 and 14, respectively. Game 11: Jon Brede Smith (Prussia) manages to eliminate both Russian supply trains (Daniel Zarazaga) in ca. turn 3 which leads to the starvation of 2 Russian generals. (Later in the game, one more Russian general will starve.) When France (Alexander Schröder) exits in turn 13, the Austrian offense of Christian Yorck is halted, too. Jon wins after 20 turns. Daniel and Christian make 6 points each, and Alexander 8 points. Game 12: Jürgen Winter is defending against Austria (Marcus Straßmann) in Saxony exclusively. And this seems to work, at least for a long time. But suddenly, a heavy diamonds battle erupts in which 7 reserve cards are played (4 by Jürgen, 3 by Marcus). But Jürgen prevails! Sweden exits after turn 7, followed by Lord Bute (turn 12) and the exits of France (Anton Telle, turn 18) and Russia (Bjorn von Knorring, turn 19). And so Jürgen is victorious! |
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Game 13: After 16 turns, Arnold de Wijs is defeated. The winner is Klaus Blum with Austria. The very special thing is: At the end of this turn 16, Russia (Christian Yorck) would exit, and one turn later France (Guy Atkinson) as well, thus ending the game. And, special as well: In the Berlin area, Russia, Austria, France and the Imperial Army were slaughtering everything of dark blue colour.
Game 14: Schröder vs. Schröder, and both are losing. Or, differently put: Alexander Schröder sees the same course of the game as Arnold: His Prussia loses after 16 turns as well, and in the same turn Russia (Steffen Schröder) was to drop out as well, and one turn later France (Jürgen Winter) would follow and the game would end. And the winner is again Austria (Peter Hannappel). Furthermore, Alexander learns: Prussian generals can starve in Saxony. Game 15: Christian Blattner's Prussia is lacking clubs, and so he defends against Russia (John McCullough) in hearts. This works pretty well, and so John scores only 5 points. Against Austria, Christian is holding central Silesia in spades; Thorsten Hennig makes 4.17 points. Only Mark Luta's France scores high (9 points). Game 16: Jose Bonilla Rau's Silesian army suffers a −10-retreat in turn 5. Nevertheless he is able to consolidate. He is strong in all suits except spades. But at the end, Austria (Bjorn von Knorring) prevails. Russia and France (Jon Brede Smith & Bernd Preiß) score 8 pouints. Game 17: Maurice, one of the two de-Wijs brothers, wins with Prussia after 21 turns. In a game with late stroke of fates (India in turn 15 is the first one!) Stephan Jordan is the only attacker being close to victory: 9.17 points for Austria. Russia and France score 6 and 8 points, respectively (Andrew Brown and Loughlin Deegan). Game 18: Ramon Rubio, one of the two FWC debutants defeats the n Friedrich-Designer Richard "Elisabeth" Sivél, den othern debütant Daniel "Maria" Zarazaga und the veteran player "Madame" Marcus Pompadour-Straßmann. Against Russia, Ramon's East Prussian clubs defense is stable until game end. Austria acts too cautios. And have you ever seen France to turn the tide on its own? — Due to this victory, Ramon takes the leading position in the ranking, followed by Peter Hannappel. |
 Game 14: Alexander Schröder contemplating as Prussia, Steffen Schröder contemplating as Russia.  Game 13: Klaus Blum moving his Austrians. |
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 Game 24: Jon Brede Smith defending against John McCulloughs offensive option.  Game 24: But only few turns later the Prussians are deep in Austria. |
Game 19: Christian Yorck uses his Prussian hearts against too many opponents. And so France (Richard Sivél) can pull off victory in turn 15, after having eliminated Cumberland close to Kassel in ca. turn 10. Russia (Loughlin Deegan) left the game in turn 12, and 2 turns later Loughlin took over the Imperial Army. That meant the end to Jürgen Winter's plan to win with the empire.
Game 20: In the 4-A game (Anton, Alexander, Andrew, Arnold) Anton Telle's Prussia seems invincible, and this despite a turn-7 Lord Bute. Against Russia and Sweden (Alexander Schröder) Anton fights with spades. Alexander took over the Empire after turn 11. Andrew Brown scored only 5 points with Austria, while Arnold de Wijs succeeds in earning 9 points with France. But this is not enough for him to enter the final. (Even a win would not have been enough). Anton wins in turn 20. Game 21: Marcus Straßmann's Prussia is defeated in turn 15. Russia (Jose Bonilla Rau) misses victory by 1 objective &ndahs; Königsberg (!), while Christian Blattner eliminates a triple stack in Saxony due to lack of supply. This is the decisive action for the Austrian win, but nevertheless Christian missed the final due to his low Russian score on friday evening. Steffen Schröder misses the final with his 8 points for France as well. Only Jose becomes a finalist, by a narrow 0.17 point lead to rank 5. Game 22: Guy Atkinson (Prussia) fends off Ramon Rubio's Austria cleverly. The same is true for Stephan Jordan's Russia (making 6 points), but at least Sweden conquers 8 out of 10 objectives. But France turns out to be huge problem, and so Bjorn von Knorring wins in turn 14, thus entering the final as third best player of the qualification round. On the contrary, Ramon drops back from rank 1 to rank 11 due to his meager 4 points with the Empire. (Austria achieved only 2.5 points!) Game 23: Daniel Zarazaga's Prussians are chasing Hildi right from the start. In this campaign the Prussian double stack travels via Eger and Prag to Lauban where it eventually starves. On the other fronts Daniels positions are collapsing quite fast as well. The Prussian house is in flames at turn 7 and so the game ends with a triple win of Russia (Bernd Preiß), Austria (Mark Luta) and France (Maurice de Wijs) in turn 9. For Bernd the win is not enough to enter the final. He misses rank 4 by 0.17 points! Game 24: The defending champion John McCullough, with no win in the qualification round so far, tries a Prussian offensive option, but with no big success. (He conquers ca. 50% of the objective cities.) Jon Brede Smith plays a smart Austrian defense and is even close to win by offense, being short by only 1 objective. The winner is Peter Hannappel with Russia in turn 14. This is Peter's third win, enough to be the highest ranked player of the qualification round. Similarly, Klaus Blum's French score of 9 points are enough to be 2nd ranked. |
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Scores of the qualification round:
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 Game 20: The spontaneous helper Anton Telle as Prussia.  Game 16: Jose Bonilla Rau is defending the Kammin area with 4 generals.
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 The Golden Hildi (a special reserve card with a value of 1000) is awarded to Daniel Zarazaga  And Steffen Schröder is the new Fair Ehrensvärd!
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With his three wins and a high score with France, Peter Hannappel is the highest ranked player of the qualification round, followed by Klaus Blum, Bjorn von Knorring and Jose Bonilla Rau. The final started 5:15 pm. Peter Hannappel had the first choice of his role, Klaus Blum the second choice, and so on. For Peter Hannappel it is the 6th final, for Klaus Blum the third, and for Jose Bonilla Rau and Bjorn von Knorring the second. The FWC debütant Daniel Zarazaga receives the Golden Hildi: A special reserve card with a value of 1000. The Fair Ehrensvärd is awarded to Steffen Schröder: He played extremely fair in all of his games, for instance he repeatedly reminded to make a forgotten supply check of his generals, and this to his very disadvantage. |