16th Friedrich World Championship, 2021
The Qualification Round
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In the qualification round, 16 games were played. They can be summarized as follows:
Game 1: Christian Yorck (Prussia) goes very early in the −1-retreat modus. While Christian Dickhausen (Austria) feels not strong enough in spades and moves into Silesia very cautiously,
Richard Sivél's Russians push Dohna systematically towards the Baltic coast. Running out of manoeuver space, Dohna gets encircled at Massow and is wiped off the board. This is the Russian win in turn 11. Bernd Preiß (France) makes 9 points.
Game 2: Christian Blattner's Prussian suffer an early Lord Bute (turn 6). Nevertheless, he withstands the attacks from Russia (Anreas Zölitz), Austria (Bjorn von Konorring) and France (Loughlin Deegan), hoping for a pro-Prussian card of fate. However, this is not showing up. And in turn 15 Poems make his situation even worse! One turn later, Christian's defense is crushed on all fronts: Russia, France and Austria pull off a triple victory! Game 3: John McCullough (Prussia) manages to eliminate a 24-troops stack of Austrians (Klaus Blum) twice, and a solid Russian stack (Jon Brede Smith) once. Similarly, France (Marcus Straßmann) has to reorganize his troops after a heavy −6-retreat anew. The subsidy reductions in turn 10 and 11 can be handled by John. Turn 15 and 17 bring the drop-out of France and Swden, but against Russia the situation becomes hot. After some bloody battles, like the one at Wangerin where 5 reservers are played, Jon's Russians win in turn 21. At the end of this turn, the Tsarina would have died. It was really close! Game 4: Manni Wichmann (Prussia) has to play the full 23-turns. All strokes of fate come late in this game: India (11), Sweden (16), Poems (18), Lord Bute (19), America (22) and Elisabeth (23). Manni can hold back Andrew Brown's Russians, Mark Luta's Austrians and Jürgen Winters French only by inches. All miss only 1 objective at the end of the game. (On a sidenote: Andrew makes 9 points with Sweden, but only 7 with Russia.) It is 5 minutes before 12, when the game finally ends 5 minutes before midnight. Manni is totally exhausted, but a happy winner. |
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 Game 1: Christian Dickhausen and Christian Yorck in a diamonds battle in Saxony.  Game 4: Klaus Blum and Marcus Straßmann thinking. |
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 Game 5: Christian Blattner  Game 8: Andreas Zölitz, Marcus Straßmann and Christian Yorck. |
Game 5: Richard Sivél defends against Russia in East Prussian spades. However, the standard defense in Kammin clubs would have been the better choice, since Russia was really weak in clubs. Due to a horrible mistake of Richard, John's Swedish are able to conquer Stettin and Greifenhagen by ca. turn 7. Two turns later, Sweden controls all 1st order objectives. Although Prussia can reconquer Malchin, this is of no value, because due to another horrible mistake it gets lost again. Meanwhile Manni Wichmann's French have conquered all their Hanoverian objectices, but get repulsed at Magdeburg. Christian Blattner's Austrians have taken Silesia, but see no ground in Saxony due to their weakness in diamonds. Therefore, Christian is raiding north of Berlin, sending 2 Prussian generals back home in ca. turn 11. This leaves Richard only with the hope that Sweden leaves the game before Russia. But, this won't be the case: In turn 13 the Tsarina dies, and Sweden (John McCulloughs) wins. Game 6: Bjorn von Knorring (Prussia) keeps Jon Brede Smith (Russia) and Jürgen Winter (France) at bay. Both make only 6 points. Bernd Preiß' Austrians are the only ones who comes close to victory. Poems come too late (turn 20) to turn the tide. One turn later France drops out, and Bjorn wins! Game 7: Christian Dickhausen is a mobile Prussian, fighting in all suits. Lord Bute in turn 9 is of no help of course, and so Klaus Blum wins with Russia in turn 14. Loughlin Deegan (Austria) and Mark Luta earn 7.5 and 9 points, respectively. Game 8: Int the first 4 turns, Andreas Zölitz's Prussians receive TC's with a felt average of 4 points. Despite this and despite a Lord Bute in turn 11, he manages to hold back the attackers. In turn 8 Sweden drops out, followed by France in turn 14 (Andrew Brown). Christian Yorck's Austrians have a hard time in Silesia fighting for fight for every inch. So, it is Russia (Marcus Straßmann) who finally eins in turn 18. |
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Game 9: Prussia (Klaus Blum) suffers a Lord Bute in turn 6. But Bernd Preiß cannot take advantage of it: With Sweden and Russia he makes only 2 and 4 points, respecticely. Maybe this is caused by his Russian raiders sent to Saxony where they fight the Prussians fiercely, only to get encircled at Senftenberg and being wiped off the board? Bernd then takes over the Imperial army in turn 12, with no hope on winning. Similarly, Andreas Zölitz makes only 4 points with France. The winner is Manni Wichmann with Austria in turn 13. Game 10: Jon Brede Smith plays a Silesian diamonds defencse against Austria (Andrew Brown). Austria starts with the conquest of Saxony and moves to Silesia afterwards. In turn 15, he breaks Jons defense there as well and wins. Christian Blattner makes 9 points with Russia, and Christian Dickhausen 8 points with France. Game 11: Mark Luta's Prussians defeat the Austrians (John McCullough) in turn 2 by −7. This makes the South safe for some turns. However, Lord Bute in turn 6 is a heavy blow. Bjorn von Knorring's French conquer all objectices except Magdeburg when France exits the game in turn 17. Christian Yorck's Russians are close to victory as well. However, after the initial defeat the Austrians are able to reorganize. In ca. turn 10, Mark's Prussians defenders of Silesia are eliminated at Neisse. John then turns westwards and engages the Prussians in Saxony in the first heavy diamonds battle. This is won by Prussia. But some turns later, the balance starts to tip, and so John wins with Austria in turn 19. Game 12: Marcus Straßmann's Prussian seem to be safe for a long time. One of the reasons is the Russian strategy (Loughlin Deegan): Russia moves all her generals to East Prussia to encircle and eliminate Lehwaldt by turn 4. But after that they need 5 turns to move to the Neumark. A long time with no battles in the East! When Saltikow and his comrades arrive at the Oder, Loughlin is able to push the Prussians into the diamonds sector. But this is too late: In turn 16 Elisabeth dies! Game over for Russia! And Jürgen Winter comes up with new tactics: When his 24-troops stack of Austrians gets encircled at Ohlau, Jürgen decides not to play all spades he got, but to accept the complete elimination with ca. 30 points of spades and 2 reserves on his hand. Jürgen was sure to lose that battle anyway and preferred to deceive Marcus about his strength in spades. However, he was wrong! When his stack was sent off the board, Prussia only had few points of spades left. So, Jürgen could have emptied Silesia completely of its defenders when playing 2 or 3 more cards, winning the game out of a sudden! But now Jürgen decides to play on an Imperial win. Beginning with turn 17, there is wild action in the Halle hearts sector. France (Richard Sivél makes best use of this as well, and so the Empire and France win jointly in turn 19. |
 Game 11: Christian Yorck, John McCullough and Bjorn von Knorring planning their moves.  Game 12: Marcus Straßmann, Loughlin Deegan and Jürgen Winter watched by Manni Wichmann. |
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 Game 15: Loughlin Deegan: Everything's alright in East Prussia?  Game 14: The Imperial Army (Klaus Blum) is moving watched by Andrew Brown and Bjorn von Knorring. |
Game 13: Jürgen Winter's Prussian hold Christians Dickhausen's Russians at bay. Andreas Zölitz is hunting the Prussians with great success, but in the end he misses 2 objectives. John McCullough pulls off his third victory with France, clearing his way through to the final! Game 14: Andrew Brown plays a very successful mix of −1-retreats and defiant battles whenever needed. When Richard Sivél, understands this in ca. turn 8, he moves his Austrian forces -- short of spades -- from Silesia to Saxony, playing on an Imperial win from now on. Neither India (turn 8) nor Elisabeth (turn 10) change his mind. In turn 11 France drops out, and the Empire is now played by Klaus Blum. Andrew's defense is not very stable, and he wins in turn 15, making it to the final as well. Scoring 8 points with Sweden, Bjorn von Knorring is another finalist. Game 15: Loughlin Deegan wins with Prussia after 23 rounds, despite an early Lord Bute (turn 6). Manni Wichmann's Tsarina dies in turn 11, and Sweden exits in turn 13. With the Imperial Army, Manni manages to score 8 points – which is enough for the final. Jon Brede Smith fights with all power for his last Austrian objective, but in vain. And Christian Yorck sends his French into 10 mighty attacks at Magdeburg; in the end it is a very close thing: Loughlin has only 4 points of hearts left in his hand when he is declared the winner. Game 16: Bernd Preiß is the third victorious Prussian player of this sunday morning. But Mark Luta had very good chances to win in turn 15, if Russia had dropped out instead of Sweden. (Sweden had all 1st order objectives at that moment!) Christian Blattner's French score 7 points. In the final round (turn 20) Mark's Russian try everything: In 3 battles, 3 generals go off-board, although only 1 TC was played! |
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Ranking after the qualification round:
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 Game 12: Long shadows on saturday late afternoon.  Game 26: Polonaise in Saxony. Hildi will be eliminated in a second.
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 The Finalists are John McCullough, Andrew Brown, Manni Wichmann and Bjorn von Knorring.
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With 3 wins and 1 almost-win with Prussia, the defending champion John McCullough is the clear winner of the qualification round, followed by Andrew Brown, Manni Wichmann and Bjorn von Knorring. The final started at 5:15 p.m. John McCullough had the first choice of the role, followed by Andrew, etc. For Manni Wichmann it was the 6th final, for John McCullough the 2nd, while Andrew Brown and Bjorn von Knorring it was their debut. The Fair Ehrensvärd was awarded to Loughlin Deegan: He had forgotten to move Tottleben; the other players allowed him to catch up on this and conquer with one objective. But Loughlin declined, stating that he had already looked at the new Swedish TC, and therefore the Russian action stage was definitely over.
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 The Goldene Hildi (a special wild card with the value of 1000) went to Christian Dickhausen!
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 The Fair Ehrensvärd was awarded to Loughlin Deegan!
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