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

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