20th Friedrich World Championship, 2025

The Qualification Round



In the qualification round, 20 Games were played. They can be summarized as follows:

Game 1: Jürgen Winter's Prussia collapses in turn 14. Winner is Guy Atkinson with Russia. Jon Brede Smith (Maria T.) and Andrew Brown (Pompadour) make 9.17 and 9 points (respectively).

Game 2: Mark Luta manages the first (and only) Prussian win of the evening: When America shows up in turn 15, the game is over! The attackers (Christian Blattner, Tobias Kriener and Arnold de WIjs) all score solid 8+ points.

Game 3: Alex Schröder's defense with Prussia is quite stable. However, in turn 19 Sweden succeeds in holding all first order objectices for the first time. The next turn, Prussia would re-conquer Malchin. But this does not help Alex, since it is exactly this turn 19, when the Tsarina dies. Sweden wins!

Game 4: Klaus Blum wins with the Imperial Army (turn 16), and even his Austrians are only 1 objective short of victory. And imagine what?!? Arvid Breitenbach could have won as well, if he had realized that the last Russian objective was protected by 2 Prussians, and not by 1! Of course the early Prussian subsidy reductions (turn 8 and 10) were of no help for Maurice de Wijs.

Game 5: Peter Hannappel is hit by Lord Bute in turn 6. He cannot stop Richard Shako from winning with Russia. This is the third Elisabeth-win of the evening! Richard took good advantage from Bernd Preiß's Austrian spades-attack at Schwedt. The Austrians were missing only 1 objective, and the French (Bjorn von Knorring) missed only Magdeburg.

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Game 1: Jürgen Winter and Guy Atkinson.


Game 5: Peter Hannappel checking the Prussian cuzpply lines.


Game 8: Anton Telle thinking about how to win with the Imperial Army.


Game 10: Maurice de Wijs.

Game 6: Igor Mróz loses in turn 10 against Arvid Breitenbach's Austria. Andrew Brown could have won with Russia as well, if he had attacked Küstrin (hearts); instead he opted to start a spades battle, which was the decisive support for Arvid. Christian Blattner makes 8 points with France.

Game 7: Guy Atkinson suffers a Lord Bute in turn 6. The first major attacking nation drops out late, at turn 14 (France, Klaus Blum). After poems in turn 16, Guy has to struggle 6 more turns. When the Tsarina (Bjorn von Knorring) finally dies in turn 22, Guy is rewarded with a very well deserved win!

Game 8: Steffen Schröder cannot stop the Imperial Army (Anton Telle). Hildi wins in turn 12! Jon Brede Smith and Mark Luta score 8 points with Russia and 9 points with France, respectively.

Game 9: Anton Telle was playing two parallel games on this morning. And in his 2nd game he manages to duplicate the first: Another win with the Imperial Army. But this time in turn 11! In addition Tobias Kriener (Prussia) cannot hold Magdeburg, and so Bernd Preiß French wins together with the Empire. Loughlin Deegan's Tsarina dies in turn 10; he scores 8 points with Russia.

Game 10: Richard Sivél's Prussia is hit by subsidy reductions in turn 9 and 10. His defense against France (Maurice de Wijs) is stable, against the Russians (Jürgen Wiunter) he is under pressure; Silesia is totally safe. But he has no good plan against the Empire. And so Peter Hannappel pulls off the third win of the Imperial Army (led by Maria Theresia) of this morning!

Game 11: After subsidy reductions in turn 7 and 10, Prussia (Bernd Preiß) is defeated in turn 18 by Austria (Christian Blattner). Fun fact: If Bernd would have hold out one more turn, he would have won, since France (Guy Atkinson) would have left the game in turn 18, and Sweden (Steffen Schröder) in turn 19. – All non-winners score exactly 9 points.

Game 12: Andrew Brown almost won with Prussia! It is turn 20, when both Austria Maurice de Wijs) and the Imperial Army (Richard Shako) manage to conquer their last objective. And exactly in this turn 20, the Tsarina (Thorsten Hennig) would have died , thus ending the game. (France dropped out in turn 19.)

Game 13: After 23 long turns of struggle, the Tsarina dies and so Prussia is victorious (Bjorn von Knorring). Tobias Kriener reaches 8 points with Russia, Jügen Winter 9.18 points with Austria and Arvid Breitenbach 8 points with France.

Game 14: Jon Brede Smith wins with Prussia as well: In turn 19, France (Richard Sivél) dropped out; Sweden exited in turn 7 and Russia in turn 12.

Game 15: Klaus Blum's Prussia is another Imperial victim! After the Tsarina's death in turn 16, Igor Igor Mróz takes over the Imperial Army and wins in turn 17. Mark Luta scores 8.33 points with Austria, Peter Hannappel 9 points with France.


Game 1: Jon Brede Smith analyzing his defense against France.


Game 15: Igor Mróz as Russia, before taking over the Imperial Army for his victory.


Game 6: A spade battle in Silesia is just finished.


Game 13: Tobias Kriener and Jürgen Winter.

Game 16: Arnold de Wijs (Prussia) encircled the Austrians (Igor Mróz) in turn 5 at Ohlau, but he has not enough spades! Things look dark in Silesia! But the Prussians manage to stabilize the situation, but only by draining the other theatres. And so it is Russia (Bernd Preiß) which wins in turn 9. Igor was only 1 objective short, and Jürgen Winter' French were close to winning, too.

Game 17: Thorsten Hennig's Prussia lacks clubs, and so he defends against Russia (Klaus Blum) in diamonds. But since the Tsarina is loaded with diamonds as well, a heavy battle is fought, and due to this, Austria (Richard Sivél) – with only 15 points of diamonds (and no reserves) on her hand – is able to dominate the Saxon and Silesian diamonds sector from turn 5 onwards. The white and green hordes keep on pushing, and it is Austria which wins in turn 10.

Game 18: Loughlin Deegan wins with Prussia in turn 20. France (Steffen Schröder) dropped out in turn 19, and Russia (Peter Hannappel) in turn 20.

Game 19: Arvid Breitenbach's defense against France (Richard Shako) is not flexible enough, and so the French can attack the lone Magdeburg defender again and again with a 16-troops stack. In turn 18, Prussia eventually runs out of hearts. And against the Austrian's their defense also crumbles. Both France and Austria win. Russia (Mark Luta) makes 8 points.

Game 20: Sometimes it are the minor fate events that hurt: The re-positioning of Laudon by 1 city, denies the Prussians (Christian Blattner) their re-access into the diamonds sector, and so Christian has to switch to a spades defense against Austria. Russia (Maurice de Wijs) takes profit and wins in turn 21.

Ranking after the qualification round:

Player Friedr. Elis. M.Ther. Pomp. Total TB1
1 Guy Atkinson 12.0 12.0 11.5 9.0 44.5
2 Bernd Preiß 9.0 12.0 8.8 11.5 41.3
3 Maurice de Wijs 8.0 12.0 11.5 9.0 40.5 11.0
ooc* Hennig/Shako/Telle 5.0 12.0 12.0 11.5 40.5 4.9
ooc* Richard Sivél 8.0 12.0 12.0 8.0 40.0
4 Christian Blattner 10.5 8.0 12.0 8.0 38.5 8.0
ooc* A. Schröder/Hennig/Telle/Shako 9.5 6.0 11.5 11.5 38.5 7.1
5 Bjorn von Knorring 12.0 8.0 9.4 9.0 38.4
6 Arvid Breitenbach 9.0 9.0 12.0 8.0 38.0
7 Jon Brede Smith 12.0 8.0 8.8 9.0 37.8
8 Klaus Blum 8.5 9.0 12.0 8.0 37.5
9 Mark Luta 12.0 8.0 8.3 9.0 37.3
10 Andrew Brown 10.0 9.0 9.2 9.0 37.2
11 Peter Hannappel 8.0 8.0 12.0 9.0 37.0
12 Loughlin Deegan 12.0 8.0 7.5 8.0 35.5
13 Igor Mróz 5.0 12.0 9.4 8.0 34.4
14 Jürgen Winter 7.0 7.0 9.2 8.0 31.2
15 Tobias Kriener 5.5 8.0 9.2 8.0 30.7
16 Steffen Schröder 6.0 9.0 6.9 8.0 29.9
17 Arnold de Wijs 4.5 6.0 9.2 9.0 28.7
TB1 = Tiebreaker Nr.1
 ooc = out of competition



Game 3: Steffen Schröder is moving his Austrians.


Mark Luta is awarded the Fair Ehrensvärd.

The Junge Fritz goes to Igor Mróz,
and the Golden Hildi to Arnold de Wijs.
(Both without a picture, unfortunately.)



With 3 wins Guy Atkinson is the qualification round winner. He will enter the final, followed by Bernd Preiß, Maurice de Wijs (2 wins each) and Christian Blattner (1 win).

The final started at 17:00.

Guy had the first pick for his role, followed by Bernd, etc.

For Christian it is the 7th final to play, for Guy and Bernd the 4th, and Maurice will give his debut as finalist.

The Junge Fritz, the award for the best FWC-debutant, went to Igor Mróz.

Arnold de Wijs received the Golden Hildi: A special reserve card with a value of 1000.

And Mark Luta was awarded the Fair Ehrensvärd : Throughout the tournament he kept a keen eye that the game rules were not violated (e.g. no supply checks to be forgotten), and with his calm and patient style was a very pleasant player to game with.