Interview with Chris Brand about DipCon 2024

The guys interview Chris Brand about the upcoming 2024 DipCon/Cascadia Open in Vancouver. Plus we talk upcoming tournaments and our online games.

Intro

• The guys open the show about Gavin's wife's recent interest in Ticket to Ride and talk about a number of other board games (0 mins 15 secs)
• They discuss their drinks and initial venue which they last visited in episode 2 (4 mins 20 secs)
• Ken's been brewing beer (6 mins 20 secs)

Interview with Chris Brand

• The guys start introducing their interview with Chris Brand, WDC winner and tournament organiser for this year's DipCon/Cascadia Open in Vancouver (10 mins 15 secs)
• Gavin asks about the tournament from 3rd to 4th February 2024 and how it'll be different being run as a DipCon (12 mins 30 secs)
• They talk about the scoring system and player's from different locations' playing style versus the West Coast style (15 mins 30 secs)
• They go onto discuss responsibilities in organising the tournament (20 mins 40 secs)
• Chris talks about the rounds and the impact of online players increasingly attending face to face tournaments (23 mins)
• Gavin asks about Chris' drink (26 mins)
• Ken asks about how did the idea of combining DipCon and Cascadia come about (27 mins 40 secs)
• He then asks about the logistics of getting to the tournament (30 mins 30 secs)
• They talk about the social aspect of the tournament (32 mins 15 secs)
• Gavin asks Chris about whether he'll attend WDC in Milan (34 mins)
• Ken asks about how to register and get advice on getting to the tournament (35 mins 40 secs)
• They start wrapping up the interview before moving onto discussing the interview (38 mins)
• Ken gets up to some maple syrup smuggling (47 mins 30 secs)

Diplomacy chat

• The guys discuss the two upcoming tournaments in Australia: the Melbourne Open hosted by Andrew Goff in the first weekend of March and the Hung Parliament Handicap in Canberra hosted by Jamal Blakkarly on 12-14 April (48 mins 30 secs)
• The guys give their take on Renaissance Italy (57 mins)
• They discuss having a tournament in Brisbane during August called the "Canetoad Classic" and get into the trophy (1 hr 1 min)
• The guys move onto a new venue, moving to Rothwells and discuss their mid-game drinks (1 hr 7 mins)

Around the grounds

• Gavin talks about the last episode where the guys agreed to play the new South of Sahara variant, but Ken then CD'ed and left the game (1 hr 14 mins)
• They move onto Gavin's Europa Renovatio game as Portugal (1 hr 18 mins)
• Ken flags he hasn't got around to any Big Stick Diplomacy variant updates. They then talk about a few games broadly (1 hr 26 mins)
• Ken talks about how to flag in a gunboat how to flag to get on with it and draw (1 hr 29 mins 30 secs)
• The guys start wrapping up the episode (1 hr 32 mins 45 secs)

Venue: The Gresham & Rothwell's, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Ken: Cooper's Sparkling Ale from South Australia and Wilder gluten free pale ale

Gavin: Capa Sigle Tempranillo from Castilla la Mancha in Spain and a 2018 Bordeaux

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Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.