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

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.