Euro Quest - Ticket to Ride Combo Tournament
Why has it got to be built? It's a railroad. You've got to build railroads (TTR at EQ VII...6th year)
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Designer: Alan R. Moon
Publisher: AMIGO Spiel
Rio Grande Games
Boardgamegeek Info: Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride USA 1910
Ticket to Ride Europe
Ticket to Ride Märklin
TTR: Spiel des Jahres (German game of the year) 2004
TTR-Europe: 2005 International Gamers Award Winner
(General Strategy, Multi-Player category)
News Flash: 9/22/09 -- Days of Wonder has announced that this year's EuroQuest Ticket to Ride tournament will serve as a regional qualifier for the North American Championship tournament that feeds into the 2010 Ticket to Ride World Championship tournament. To be eligible for advancement, prize winners must sign a certification form to abide by the tournament rules and certify that they are (1) 18 years or older and (2) a citizen of the United States. The winner of this year's tournament will be automatically qualified for advancement to the North American Championship tournament to be held at the Gathering of Friends Convention in Columbus, OH in April 2010. Second and third place finishers will receive prizes and serve as first and second alternates. For more details, see the Days of Wonder website at: http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/world-championship and http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/championship/detail/?id=42

Rules for advancing in the Ticket to Ride competition at EuroQuest will be the standard Euroquest rules, see generally http://euroquest.gamesclubofmd.org/EQ_Formats.aspx. Details and clarifications of these rules as they specifically relate to this year's Ticket to Ride tournament are included below. Rules for other Ticket to Ride qualifying tournaments to the 2010 World Championships will be determined and posted by Days of Wonder. In the event that the top four finishers in the Ticket to Ride tournament at EuroQuest VII do not meet the eligibility criteria set forth by Days of Wonder (i.e. 18 years of age or older, U. S. citizen, agreeing to meet specific terms and conditions), those prizes will then be awarded to the next eligible person on the list. For example, if the person winning the tournament were 16 years or age or a citizen of another country, that person would be eligible to win EuroQuest prizes but not the Days of Wonder prizes. In such case, the winners' prize for the Days of Wonder regional tournament would go to the next eligible person among the top finishers.

GameMaster(s)
GM: Virginia Colin, Ass't GM: Marcy Morelli, Non-Playing Tournament Manager: John Weber

Schedule
Demo 11 AM Saturday
H 1 1:30 PM - 3 PM Saturday
H 2 5 PM - 6:30 PM Saturday
H 3 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Sunday
E 1 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM Sunday
E 2 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Sunday

Please see the full schedule here.

Plaque(s)
The top two players from the Final will receive a plaque.

Event Description
Ticket To Ride is a series of award-winning games of cross-country train adventure. Players collect cards of various colors of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities. Each tries to connect the cities on his or her secret destination tickets. The rules are very easy to teach. Games are often tight, with delightful tension about whether to build now and reveal your intentions or wait until you have everything you need to connect your cities.

Ticket to Ride U.S. (Original)
Alan R. Moon's Ticket to Ride debuted in April 2004 and subsequently won game of the year awards in Germany, France, Spain, Japan and a host of other countries.

Ticket to Ride U.S. - 1910 Mega Game
This version uses the same board but has many more tickets available and gives a 15-point bonus for most tickets completed in addition to the familiar 10-point bonus for longest continuous route.

Ticket to Ride Europe
From the craggy hillsides of Edinburgh to the sunlit docks of Constantinople, from the dusty alleys of Pamplona to a windswept station in Berlin, Ticket to Ride Europe takes you on a new train adventure through the great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe. Will you risk a trip through the dark tunnels of Switzerland? Venture aboard a ferry on the Black Sea? Or erect lavish train stations in the great capitals of the old empires? Your next move might just make you Europe's greatest train magnate!

Ticket to Ride Marklin
From the Bavarian countryside to the great Hanseatic ports of the North, the Ticket to Ride Märklin edition takes you on an unforgettable rail trip across Germany! The board for the Märklin Edition is based on a map of Germany and adds Passengers and Merchandise to the familiar features of the game.

Number of Players
I will try to have as many 4-player games as possible during the heats, resorting to 5-player games only as needed. The default version of the game this year is Ticket to Ride 1910, the Mega game. If enough players wish to play another version (Europe, Märklin, USA original), I will try to accommodate them. Because we are going to play only 4 or 5 player games, the Swiss and Nordic maps will not work. Players will randomly select turn order and seating order at the start of each game since turn order is a tie-breaker (See below). At the start of each game, players must check that they have exactly 45 trains in their color. The number of train cars, train cards and destination tickets a player has is public knowledge.

Elimination Rounds
  1. If fewer than five players have two qualifying round wins, then there will be no semi-final. A final will be held among the top 4 players.
  2. If exactly five players have two qualifying round wins, then there will be no semi-final. A final will be held among the top 5 players.
  3. If six, seven, or eight players have two qualifying round wins, an 8 player semi-final will be held. The top two players from each 4-player table will advance to the final.
  4. If more than eight players have two qualifying round wins, we will have enough four-player games in the semi-final to accommodate all such winners. Remaining seats will be filled by one-game winners ranked in order of their second best finish. If the number of available players for the semi-final does not divide evenly, it is possible that some of the semifinal games will have more or fewer players (five-player games preferred over three-player games), with all two-game winners randomly paired across such games as evenly as possible. Winners of the semi-final games will advance to a four-player final. If needed to fill the table, one or two closest second-place players will also advance to the final. "Closest" is defined by the percentage of the winner's score the player in second place had, not by the difference between the highest score and the second-highest score.

Rules Version
The tournament will use the official Ticket to Ride rules as published by Days of Wonder.

Rules Clarifications/Notes
  1. Make sure each player has the correct number of trains at the start (45 for U.S. or Europe). The game is shipped with extra pieces, and some pieces may have been misplaced over time.
  2. Be sure to replace a drawn face-up Train Card before drawing a second Train Card. If two Locomotives (Wild Cards) are face up, the available cards will be flushed immediately if a third locomotive is turned face up.
  3. After all players have chosen what tickets to keep at the start of the game, the remaining tickets will be shuffled well. After that, there will be no discard deck for tickets. Discarded tickets are placed at the bottom of the pile as they are discarded.
  4. Discarded Train Cards must be reshuffled and put into play as soon as the last card is drawn (not when the next card is required).
  5. Be sure to shuffle the Train cards thoroughly (because they are discarded in sets).

Tie Breakers
The following tiebreakers will be used to determine finish order within a game:
  1. Total Score
  2. Player who has completed the most destination tickets
  3. Player with the Longest Continuous Path Card
  4. Reverse Turn Order

Time Limit Adjucation
Each heat will last 90 minutes. The GM intends to be available to adjudicate unfinished games promptly at the 90-minute mark. Adjudication will be based on likely outcomes, not only on current scores.