Just to make sure everything is on track, are there any games that have not started yet?
Victory at the end of T6 for me via held scoring card; I believe I put @JaneHatke in an impossible position in a vicious game of political back and forthery.
Delighted to face such a worthy opponent, thank you.
Why is Lebanon empty on turn 6??
As another update, @Ids beat halfvoid, so ids and I are on turn 2 in our quarterfinal matchā¦
Yup, I was mercilessly stomped, couldnāt stop the red tide.
Playing as the USSR, I defeated @feederofgoats at the start of Turn 5 on victory points. I headlined Middle East Scoring to earn the 4 points that put me over the top. Good game!
Well played geigerm! I donāt think Iāve ever managed a win as the USā¦
Iām curious how the bidding went in most of these games for any future posters. Especially when you have people saying theyāve never won as the USā¦ 
Both Geigerm and I gave the US a 1 influence head start, and I was randomly assigned the US. I did consider bidding 2 influence but Iām determined to get the hang of playing as the US even if it does involve me repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall!
Iād be interested to hear Geigermās views on the game - it didnāt seem like I got blown out in any region but just died from attrition over time - a few points here, a few points there.
hardco (20) over @Ids (0)
Iām not sure if it was a mistake, but ids bid US+4, so he got the US with no bonus influence. Things were off to a bad start when ids headlined 5 Year Plan to knock Destalinization out of my hand, and my AR1 coup of Italy rolled a 1. After ids dumped his influence into France, I had to score Europe for -1 (My Suez headline denied him a non-bg country). Ids followed up by trying to coup me out of Iraq rather than spreading from Iran, and a good roll on my next AR let me coup him out of Iran, drop DEFCON to 2, and knock him out of the region.
Turn 3 things got locked up when ids headlined Duck and Cover when I headlined DeGaulle.I got to use my AR1 to control France, and he wasnāt able to take advantage by couping a battleground country. I finished Turn 3 at +11 and bided my time until I drew ME scoring to get to 20 on Turn 5. There was almost nothing going on in the mid-war regionsā¦
Good game ids!
Sorry for the slow response ā¦ @feederofgoats, I think your impressions are correct in that I won through slowly whittling you downāI donāt see a single scoring play worth more than 4 points the whole game.
I had the lead in a few regions at the end of the game (Central America +5, Middle East +4, Asia +3), but nothing to write home about. Seemed like a lot of the āwarā cards and most scoring cards went my way. A well-timed play of āWe Will Bury Youā near the start of turn 4 netted me 3 VP, setting things up for the turn 5 finish.
After 9 rounds of struggles against the filthy Russian dogs of @Snotty128, the Russians decided to open round 10 with the Olympic Games. Luckily for me, I had played Tear Down This Wall, which did give me a free coup. As defcon was already at 3, the free coup combined with a boycott of the Games resulted in a defcon suicide of the Russians.
Well played Snotty!
And weāre off!
That was a very tight and exciting game. Im sorry I ended it by making a silly unforced error. Ive got a cardinal rule of not making tournament moves before my first coffeeā¦ and this is the reason Ive got that rule
Epic struggle with @irishdomer08 still in turn 9, thought I would update since we seem to be the last matchup still underway of the first tourney round.
We both bid +1 to play as USSR and I ended up as USA. I was able to put that +1 in Iran and headline ME scoring in turn 1 for 4 VPs. Then, in what seems like the most defining aspect of this game so far, he drew and played the next seven scoring cards over the rest of early and mid-war, and actually drew an eighth scoring card and discarded it with 5yp, before I drew my second scoring card of the game.
He skillfully played these for maximum advantage and was up 12 VP by early turn 4 making me seriously worry about losing on points before even getting to late war, and he also somehow managed to stay ahead in total battlegrounds the entire time until turn 7. Surely I had more chances to play cards for ops while he played all those scoring cards and it started tilting the board toward my favor in the later mid-war, but he made up for some lost ops in turns 6,7,8 with Breshnev, Red Scare, SALTed Red Scare, forcing me to basically play defense with one less ops point every round for three turns in a row.
Currently Iām up 5 VP and dominating more regions, but he is too good a player for me to feel confident until it is overā¦
USA victory over @irishdomer08 on final scoring, with Europe control as a nice bonus. He drew some pretty bad hands in turn 9 and 10. We also went the whole game with him never drawing decolonization or destalinization, which was significantly lucky for me, although I had my moments of bad luck too, especially early on.
Invite sent to @OhBollox for the next roundā¦
Great win @SleepingGiant. Best of luck moving forward!
Looking for some revenge in our friendly rematch though