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SA National Diplomacy Championships
SA DipCon I - 3 & 4 May, 2003

Edi Birsan
Edi Birsan - SA National Champion 2003
The Championships in this, the innaugural year, were held at the Technikon Witwatersrand in Bunting Avenue, Johannesburg, over two days. The attendance was somewhat erratic, and so, in the end three standard games and two Escalation variant games were staged. This may have skewed the points totals somewhat, but the organizers felt that Escalation games should count for full points. These games were played Gunboat, and used to teach the rules.

We were honoured to have the legendary Edi Birsan in attendance. He had flown over to South Africa at his own expense, to help us promote the hobby. He did considerably more than we asked of him and took it upon himself to teach the many newbies who attended the rules, and to GM most of the games. We South Africans are indebted to him for what he did over the weekend. I wonder how many newbies will one day boast that they were taught the rules by Edi?

Edi went on to win the tournament with ease. Well, we South Africans are very polite hosts, and we could hardly let him go home without a medal, could we now! :-)

The standard of play was patchy, but from the promotional aspect, the tournament wvas a great success, and we can look forward to building upon these foundations. Particularly pleasing was the number of youngsters who played. Devin Gouws and Dominic Aphane are only twelve years old, and yet Dominic in particular, went on to show what he was made of, with some very respectable Dot Counts.

Position Player Club Game 1
Escalation		 Game 2 Game 3
Escalation		 Game 4 Game 5 Total Medals
1. Edi Birsan USA 52 53 - 50 - 105 Gold
2. Fanele Ndzoko Sandringham High School - - 54 - 4 58 Silver
3. Kevin Hoyle Old Edwardians - - - 3 50 53 Bronze
4. Dominic Aphane St Enda's Eagles 25 24 - 1 2 49 1st High Schools
5. Nicole McDonald Technikon Witwatersrand 15 14 - 7 23 38 1st Under 24
6. Scott Sutherland Old Edwardians - - - 18½ 14 32½
7. Fefe Thabeng Sandringham High School - - 24 - 1 25 2nd High Schools
8. Dorian Love St Enda's Eagles 5 - - 18½ - 23½
9. Louis Weidemann Independent Wargames Team - - 14 - - 14 3rd High Schools
10. Devin Gouws Peninsular Wargames - 1 - 2 6 8 1st Primary Schools
11. Reino Muhl Pretoria Boys High School - 4 - - - 4
12. Rhonnie Manana Technikon Witwatersrand - 2 - - - 2
12. Moses Nkadimeng St Enda's Eagles - 2 - - - 2


The top two points counted. Games one and three were Escalation Games.

Rules

  1. First turn 30 minutes. Thereafter each turn is 10 minutes including order writing. Retreats are written down immediately and resolved. Build turns are two minutes including order writing.
  2. Each Game is played to 3½ hours. At the twenty minutes to go mark, moves are resolved by being shortened or lengthened to end in the Fall of the current year being played.
  3. The Rules used are 4th Edition 2000.
  4. Any ambiguous orders are treated as hold orders.
  5. No orders may be removed from the orders box. Anyone who does so will be warned and handed NMR for that move.
  6. No-one may move the pieces on the board. All discussions should use the maps provided. Anyone who does so will be handed down a warning and NMR received for that move.
  7. Anyone on a warning who repeats an offence will be handed down a Civil Disorder order for the remainder of the game.
  8. Any mistakes, if not spotted before the resoltution of the next turn, are therefater ignored.
  9. The GM's and Umpires decisions are final.
  10. In the first game, power allocation is by random selection. In subsequent round(s) no player may play the same power a second time.
  11. Players may take part in a minimum of two rounds play, or a maximum of four rounds, dropping their two worst scores.
  12. The winner is the player with the most points after four rounds, with the best two rounds counting. Any ties are resolved by count-back to points after the previous round, or failing this, by coin toss.
  13. Scoring System: C-Diplo