Carcassonne-Forum

Almost all Carcassonne tournaments and championships is played only with a base game so I always wanted to organize a tournament that will be played with expansions. And as a result this March I hosted my first Carcassonne mini-tournament that I organized in cooperation with local Carcassonne distributor. He [distributor] provided me with a place (their board games shop), necessary game sets and prizes - Carcassonne Big Box 3 for the first place and a $10 gift card for the second place.
Tournament scheme was "double elimination brackets", there were 15 players +1 player from organizers side (because we were missing one player). In every round we used different expansion from Carcassonne Minis set. In the final game (8th round) we repeated "Ferries" as an expansion with less influence of luck and more - strategy. Final game was won by player from the L-bracket so we played one more game to achieve "full double elimination". In second game he have won once again and became a winner of the tournament! The most interesting thing that two players, who played in finals, have met before in this tournament and even with the same expansion "Ferries", but that time future tournament winner was relegated to L-bracket. So it was a good return match!
You can check out a photo-report at my website. It's in Latvian, but the main idea I have already said here, so this is just for looking at the pictures. The links at the beginning are tournament's W- and L-brackets with the results of every game.
Because everybody, including the distributor, liked the idea of such kind of mini-tournament, now it will become an annual event. This time, I think, Minis will be replaced by 8 official big expansions or something like that.

MrNumbers posted at CarcC the information for his next Mini-tournament:

Carcassonne mini-tournament 2014

On my website I have announced Carcassonne mini-tournament 2014, which I organize in cooperation with local distributor. Last year it was a tournament with Carcassonne Minis, short report can be found on the forum.
This year I wanted it to be different and I decided that this tournament can be with 8 major expansions. It is still "double elimination" with 16 participants, accordingly 8 tables, that perfectly matches the number of expansions
I have only 1 copy of each expansion, that is why every table will be equipped with one different expansion, but players will change the table after each game: the format implies that and I will try to follow that every player doesn't play with the same expansion twice (however, it is possible under special circumstances).
The final game will be played with 2 randomly selected expansions.
After the event (23.02.2014) I will definitely post a report.

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Letztes Jahr wurde mit den 6 neuen Minis gespielt.
Dieses Jahr sind die 8 großen Haupterweiterungen geplant.
Jeweils zum Grundspiel eine andere Haupterweiterung.
In dem Endspiel wird das Grundspiel mit zwei Haupterweiterungen gespielt.
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MrNumbers,
that sounds very interesting.
I am happy to "hear" your report about the tournament in some weeks.
I hope, you are making again photos.

MrNumbers posted at CarcC the information for his next Mini-tournament:

Carcassonne mini-tournament 2014

On my website I have announced Carcassonne mini-tournament 2014, which I organize in cooperation with local distributor. Last year it was a tournament with Carcassonne Minis, short report can be found on the forum.
This year I wanted it to be different and I decided that this tournament can be with 8 major expansions. It is still "double elimination" with 16 participants, accordingly 8 tables, that perfectly matches the number of expansions
I have only 1 copy of each expansion, that is why every table will be equipped with one different expansion, but players will change the table after each game: the format implies that and I will try to follow that every player doesn't play with the same expansion twice (however, it is possible under special circumstances).
The final game will be played with 2 randomly selected expansions.
After the event (23.02.2014) I will definitely post a report.

-----------------------------------------------
Letztes Jahr wurde mit den 6 neuen Minis gespielt.
Dieses Jahr sind die 8 großen Haupterweiterungen geplant.
Jeweils zum Grundspiel eine andere Haupterweiterung.
In dem Endspiel wird das Grundspiel mit zwei Haupterweiterungen gespielt.
------------------------------------------------
MrNumbers,
that sounds very interesting.
I am happy to "hear" your report about the tournament in some weeks.
I hope, you are making again photos.

So, this Sunday I had hosted my second Carcassonne mini-tournament.
Photo-report you can see at my website. Text is in Latvian, but I will post here the main part.
It was 16 spots in this tournament format, 20 people had applied, but the day before event 7 of them dropped out. Because of odd number of participants I also decided to take part in the tournament. Because the lack of participants we had some auto-wins (3) throughout of the tournament. As I wanted before I was able to achieve that every player played with the same expansion only once (excluding final game), using only one set of expansions.
On third round I was relegated to "Losers Bracket" by player with nickname Zone2. After some hard struggle I was able to win Losers Bracket and enter the Final, where I met the same guy, Zone2! He has one game in reserve (he could lost one game without being eliminated). For the first final game we randomly selected P&D and Catapult. I was luckier in Catapult targeting and won with score 198-194.
That was a time for the second and the very last final game. This time we chose A&M and BC&B. The fight was really hard and in the end we came to a .... DRAW! 138-138! And according to rules of the tournament the winner is a player who spend less time for the game. Zone2 spent only 3 seconds less than me, and became the winner of the mini-tournament! What a dramatic final!
I think it is better that I didn't win. It would be strange if I would give a prize to myself
By the way, the prize, sponsored by local distributor, was 2 Carcassonne expansions. Zone2 has almost all expansions so he chose BC&B (didn't have it yet) and will wait till the moment then in local game store will appear 9th expansion "Sheep and Hills". From me (e.g. Carcassonne Latvia) Zone2 received a copy of Wind Roses.
It was a great event and now it definitely will be annual. One thing I should think about is to change the format. Double elimination has some benefits, but has some disadvantages too: 1) in losers bracket players should play more games to reach the final (up to 7 games vs. 3 games in winners bracket); 2) some players have to wait till they have an opponent to play with (for example, Zone2 had to wait 3 games till I came to the finals). Maybe I can try to implement something similar to Ice Hockey World Championship format.