The Bangkok New Year's Tournament champion

The guys discuss one of them winning their first Diplomacy tournament and their latest games.

Intro and Diplomacy chat

• The guys start rolling the show early before introducing the episode (after Ken encourages keeping in some pre-show discussion) (0 mins 10 secs)
• They talk about their drinks (4 mins)

The Bangkok New Year's Tournament 2025

• Ken won his first tournament! And also scored two best country trophies (6 mins 45 secs)
• He talks about his game that got him best Russia (12 mins)
• Ken discusses his final game playing as France (14 mins 30 secs)
• Ken talks about Kratom (17 mins 30 secs)
• Gavin talks about catching up with Stuart Barton and Max Roe Banks around his DBNI game (20 mins 10 secs)
• Gavin mentions he's going to the Melbourne Open {Post recording update - this didn't happen due to Tropical Cyclone Alfred closing Brisbane Airport and cancelling all flights} (21 mins)
• He also talks about planning for the Cane Toad Classic in August this year (21 mins 30 secs)
• Ken asks Gavin around his favourite country preferences (26 mins)

Around the grounds

• Gavin discusses a Colonial 1885 game he's in as France before they move onto the challenges of variants where sea territories get stalemated (27 mins 35 secs)
• Ken talks about taking advantage of a player's repeated orders (35 mins)
• They move onto a Europa Renovatio game where there's now only four players left (38 mins 20 secs)
• Ken discusses the Zeus variant he's playing (45 mins)
• The tech starts giving out with Gavin not hearing Ken (48 mins)

Part 2

• The guys are back about a week and a half later. We both went through a cyclone which cancelled Gavin's plans to get to the Melbourne Open - airport closed and flights all cancelled (50 mins)
• Ken provides an update on game he was hoping to solo in (52 mins 30 secs)
• Gavin points out in vDip a winner take all game results in vDip rankings all going backward except for being buying in (no change) with the winner getting all vDip points (58 mins)
• Because of the recording delay, Gavin runs through the Top 3 placed winners at the Melbourne Open - big congrats to Tianyu Sun! (1 hr 1 min)
• Gavin gives his next interstate tournament plans (1 hr 2 min 15 secs)
• They start wrapping up the show and flag they're about to record a Patreon episode

  Venue: At home, Brisbane

  Drinks for the interview:

  Gavin: D'Arenberg The Stump Jump Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre from the Barossa, South Australia

  Ken: Kaner's dark ale home brew

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or buy the guys a drink, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

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