HHC 1 - mielu 3 in the quarter-finals
HHC and I finally managed to meet on MSN today, and we decided we should play our game right there and then, to avoid any further delays. This meant we had no time to notify our most eager potential spectator - sorry about that khamski, I've sent you an email but it was on a very short notice. However, Frosty was around in AG and watched the whole game.
From start to finish, the whole game took more than two hours and a half, but this included two network interruptions (HHC had a few connection problems) and all the time spent restarting the game and waiting for each other, so I guess the effective playing time was only slightly more than two hours.
I suggested we alternate between cave and island maps, and start with a cave, to minimize the advantage of the player who gets to be first in round I. HHC agreed, so this is how it went:
mielu first, cave, HHC 0 - mielu 1
Really close round, it went all the way to suden death, and HHC attempted a daring move involving a mine, but was caught by the blast.
HHC first, island, network interruption
Things were pretty well balanced when the interruption occurred, can't say which way this round could have gone.
After restarting, I suggested we should maintain the player order, so, even though the computer set me first, I skipped and let HHC start the round. I believe this is a fair enough thing to do after a disconnection, and I think we should have an official rule for it. Anyway...
HHC first, island, HHC 0 - mielu 2
Ended up two worms of mine vs one of his, 35 + 25 vs. 50 hp I think. I had one rope left, he teleported to safety, I followed from a distance with one of the worms. He decided to teleport again near that one, but I was able to reach them with my other worm using the rope and killed both, so I ended up with 25 hp left - really close again.
mielu first, cave, aborted round...
Yeah, we've had one of those as well. What actually happened was that, since I had skipped my first turn the round before, HHC had to do the same this time. Unfortunately, concentrated on the game, he forgot about it, and got all the way to killing one of my worms on his first turn before reading the stream of chat messages coming his way
. He let me decide what to do next, and I indicated we should restart the round.
mielu first, cave, HHC 1 - mielu 2
This was a disastrous round for me, made a lot of mistakes and wasted most of the good stuff; HHC won with two worms left I think, after a beautiful grenade + suicide shot.
HHC first, island, network interruption
This one occurred fairly early in the round, I had a slightly worse position, but countered it partially with two good shotgun hits that gathered some worms together, so, again, no way of knowing who would have won.
HHC first, island, HHC 1 - mielu 2; yes, a draw
I made a strategical mistake in the end, when I had one 45 hp worm vs. two 11 + 2 hp of his (or something like that...). I didn't pay enough attention and wasted my last rope, only killing one worm of his, and HHC managed a perfect kamikaze kill that took 50 hp.
We had a little debate before the following round. I thought I should have gone first, since he had been first the round before, but HHC's opinion was that the previous round didn't count, since it had been a draw, so he thought he had to be first. Luckily, we discussed all this prior to starting... I guess a rule would be in order to avoid confusion in such situations as well. Eventually, I decided I would feel better if HHC went first, to be sure I didn't benefit from any unfair advantage, so, even though the computer set me to start, I skipped the first turn.
HHC first, cave, HHC 1 - mielu 3
HHC started off with a slightly worse position, as he had three worms relatively close to each other, and one far above them on a girder near a couple of mines; he decided not to use switches to move any of them to safety. After detonating the mines near the top worm, it ended up near the others, and a sheep blown off on top of the pack inflicted enough damage to tilt the balance in my favour.
And that's about it. I'm not very good at writing match reviews, but I felt this could be interesting because of all the special situations that occurred; maybe they will help improve the rules for next year.
For anybody who hasn't fallen asleep while reading this post, you can see this was a really close game. For me, it was a great pleasure to play against such a powerful opponent as HHC; thanks for a beautiful game, mate.