In Denver at GenghisCon, the Western US Qualifier was won by Thomas Vilfroy of Greeley, Colorado. 2nd Place went to Jason Gorski of Colorado Springs, while 3rd place went to Cheryl Orosz who traveled from Ypsilanti, Michigan to compete.

And the Pacific Qualifier at OrcCon in Southern California, 1st Place went to Mychael Bueno, Gerald Delker took 2nd and Ephraim Silverman placed 3rd.

Congratulations to all and especially to Erik, Thomas and Mychael! They have each qualified for the North American Championship in Columbus, Ohio in April and will compete for a chance to go to Paris for the Ticket to Ride World Championships.

At EuroQuest, sixty-eight players set an all-time record for a tournament held there. The tournament winner was Josh Githens from Piedmont, South Carolina.  Josh went through the tournament undefeated, winning in both of the first two heats, and continuing his streak through to the final game win.  Second place went to Steve Shambeda, third was Tom Dunning, and James Freeman rounded out the final four.

A very happy Josh Githens (right) receives his winner’s plaque
from Ticket to Ride GM Virginia Colin at EuroQuest

In Dallas at BGG.COM, 50 players competed over 2 days with Michael Vandehey of Wichita Falls, TX emerging as the winner. Remarkably, Michael won both his games during Friday’s preliminary rounds, and then won all 4 games he played in the semi and final rounds on Saturday. Brick Amundsen of Round Rock, TX was the Runner-up in the tournament. Congratulations to both Michael and Brick who qualify for the North American Championships in April. Stephen Smith and Amy Garrett who finished 3rd and 4th will serve as alternates.

Congratulations to the winners and all who competed.

These bonus gifts, worth $50 and €45 respectively, are free with purchase of $50/€50 or more, and only available to owners of registered Days of Wonder games. It’s our thank you for your support throughout the years. Whether you’re looking to add another DOW game to your collection, or thinking of holiday gaming gifts for friends and family, this is a perfect opportunity for you to take advantage of this unique Christmas offer and get a free game.

Not sure what to buy? Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe are perfect to introduce family and friends to great board games… And Small World has become one of the year’s biggest board game hits - Games Magazine just named it their Game of the Year! It’s also a great way to pick up one of the Days of Wonder classics that is missing from your game library… Memoir ‘44 or some of its many expansions; Mystery of the Abbey; or Shadows over Camelot.

To get your free game, click on the “Free Ticket to Ride Märklin Gift” button below if you order from our US webstore or on the “Free Colosseum Gift” button if you order from our Euro webstore. Then order $50/€50 of products or more and your free game will be automatically added to your order.

Only customers who have registered a Days of Wonder game online are eligible and you must be logged into your account when you order. If you don’t have a Days of Wonder Online account, but have an unregistered game, you can create a new account to register the game before placing your order. But act now! We’ve stocked up on games, but this offer is only available from now until midnight Monday, November 23 and only while supplies of Ticket to Ride Märklin and Colosseum last.

Please note, you cannot substitute either of the free games. Web Store Discount Coupons, if you have them, can be applied to your order, but the purchase amount must still be $50 or above. To make sure you get your products in plenty of time for Christmas, we plan to have all orders out the door no later than Dec. 4.

Happy Holidays from your friends at Days of Wonder.

Dominic Blais won the Ticket to Ride Tournament at the Fiesta Ludiq held in Montréal Quebec. 2nd place was Laurent Vincelette, also of Montréal and 3rd place went to Martin Prégent of Gatineau.

Brian Beck of New York City was the winner of the Northeast Qualifier that was held in Edison, NJ at Ubercon. The runner-up was Nicholas Cheung of Boston, MA.

Congrats to all!

The Ticket to Ride World Championship has begun and we already have some tournament winners who have qualified for their respective national championships.

Many other events are coming up, and there is probably one near you. So it’s time to get on board and enter this championship for a chance to win the grand prize: a trip for two on the Orient-Express.

Take a look at the Ticket to Ride World Championship web page. which is updated weekly with new tournaments. For instance, the UK Championship has been updated with 4 tournaments, check UK Championship page for more info and sign up.

In North America, we’ve added 3 additional Tournaments: in Montreal, Quebec, at CalCon in Calgary, Canada and in the Northeast US at Ubercon. Visit the North American Championship page for more info and to sign up.

Here is the list of qualifiers so far:
- Steffen Markert, winner of Leipzig, tournament qualifies for the German Championship.
- Dennis Linke, winner of Berlin tournament, qualifies for the German Championship.
- Damien Da Encarnacao, winner of Vauréal tournament, qualifies for the French Championship.
- Mateusz Magulski, winner of Gdynia tournament, qualifies for the Polish Championship.
- Kyle Greenwood, winner of WBC tournament, qualifies for the North American Championship.
- Jay Fox, runner-up of WBC tournament, qualifies for the North American Championship.
- David Belew, winner of the GenCon tournament, qualifies for the North American Championship.
- Charles Rucker, runner-up of the GenCon tournament, qualifies for the North American Championship.

Congratulations to the qualifiers so far. Will your name be next on the list?!

From September 29th through October 13th we’re giving away 1 Free Board Game a Day! All you need to do is post a story about your game play on your Facebook page.

Back in our development lab, the Days of Wonder tech guys have been having a little too much fun lately - they built this cool little Facebook application that connects your DOW Online account to your Facebook page. When you add the Days of Wonder Online Facebook app to your Facebook page it automatically:

• connects all your Ticket to Ride or Gang of Four Online game play history to your Facebook Wall;
• displays your scores and rank, which is really nice when you are ranked higher than one of your Facebook friends;
• lets you invite your Facebook friends to play online;
• displays the DOW news and Facebook Game pages;
• and lets you easily (automatically if you want) post a DOW Game story on your Wall, so you can gloat when you win… or moan when you lose.

And telling the story of your online game battles - or for that matter any interesting story about Days of Wonder games - is pretty much all you need to do to enter the drawing for the free Days of Wonder game. Each day of the contest, we’ll draw a name at random from all of the people who posted a story using the DOW Online Facebook application on their wall, with the winner getting to pick the game of their choice from our own web store.

So here are the 3 easy steps to enter the contest:

1. Make sure your Facebook Account and DOW Online account are linked together and add the DOW Online Application to your Facebook page. To do so, follow the instructions on the “Using Days of Wonder Online inside Facebook” page. Note that if you are still living in 2007 and don’t yet have a Facebook account, you can Create a New Facebook Account.
2. Go beat someone (or lose heroically) at Ticket to Ride or Gang of Four Online.
3. Come back to the Days of Wonder Online Facebook page and use the DOW Online App to post a DOW story. You can use the pre-written posts that are in the app, or create your own.

For every day you post a DOW story, you are eligible for that day’s drawing for a new Board Game. It’s that simple.

Rules - the small print…

• Stories posted using the DOW Facebook Application between 12:00 Midnight and 11:59PM (Eastern standard time) will be eligible to participate in that day’s drawing for the free Days of Wonder game of their choice if it is currently available. (Yes we’ll pay the shipping to your house, even if you live in Antarctica.)
• Anyone registered with Days of Wonder Online is eligible to participate (except those who live in jurisdictions where this type of drawing is prohibited, and anyone who is an employee, family member or otherwise affiliated with Days of Wonder).
• An individual may only win once during the duration of the contest (let someone else have a chance!)
• The daily winner will be announced on the Days of Wonder Facebook page. At the end of the contest, the complete list of winners will be published on the Days of Wonder news blog.
• The previous day’s winner will be announced the next day, except possibly on weekends, when we all sleep in and you have to wait until Monday.
• You agree to keep your DOW Story on your page until the contest ends and that it’s okay for us to post your story online (and if your post is offensive, we can remove it and throw it in the trash where it belongs).
• Note that the number of DOW Stories available each day may be limited. It depends on your on-line gaming activity, the on-line games that you activated on your account, etc. To be sure to have at least one DOW Story available every day, it is recommended that you play at least one online game each day with another Facebook user or friend.

So what are you waiting for? Get playing and post a story. You just might win a Days of Wonder game tomorrow!

The Facebook Team at Days of Wonder

It’s Ticket to Ride’s 5th anniversary, and to celebrate Days of Wonder is throwing a year long party and you are invited! Announcing the Ticket to Ride World Championship - a series of tournaments to find out who is the best Ticket to Ride player and crown the first World Champion!

At this party, we’re the ones bringing all the gifts. In total over $50,000 worth of prizes will be awarded, including… the World Championship Grand Prize - an unforgettable trip for two on the legendary Orient-Express luxury train from London to Venice.

Through early 2010, regional Qualifying tournaments are being held in participating countries to determine the top Ticket to Ride players. Those tournament winners will earn a coveted, Gold-plated Ticket to Ride Scoring Marker and be invited to play in their National Championship events in North America (both US and Canada), France, Germany, UK, Spain, Benelux countries and Poland. Qualifiers who attend the National Championship will be reimbursed a portion of their travel costs.

Win your National Championship and your prizes include:

• Travel and hotel accommodations for your trip to Paris in June of 2010 to compete for the World Championship.
• A boxed set of 45 Gold-plated Ticket to Ride Trains (only available for National Champions!)
• An impressive National Championship Trophy

Once in Paris, you’ll compete against 7 other champions for the right to wear the crown of Ticket to Ride World Champion, to proudly show off your World Championship Trophy and take that amazing Grand Prize trip on the Orient-Express!

To enter, you must reside in, or be a citizen of, the country where the qualifying tournament is being held. (Unfortunately we are unable to hold Championships in every country or region. We hope to add addition countries to the Championships in future years.) You must also be registered with Days of Wonder Online. You can visit the New Player Signup Page to create a new account if you don’t already have one.

Take the first step on your way to Ticket to Ride fame and the chance to win the trip of a lifetime. Sign-up now for a local Qualifying Tournament. Visit the Ticket to Ride World Championship Page to learn more. Click on the National Championship link for your country or region to view the tournament listings that you may want to enter and read a description of the tournament format. We will continue to post additional Qualifying tournament over the next weeks and months, so if there is currently not a tournament near  you, check back frequently to see if one has been added.

For the official Championship rules and a complete listing of the prizes, download the Official Ticket to Ride World Championship Rules.

The Grand Prize and Secondary Prize winners will be released in 3 different Small World mini-expansions this year.

The first two expansions will debut at Essen.

The Grand Dames of Small World will feature Priestesses, White Ladies, and Gypsies, along with Historian and Peace-loving Special Powers.

Cursed! introduces the Kobolds and Goblin races along with 5 Special Powers: Cursed, Hordes of, Marauding, Ransacking, and Were-.

Both of these Small World mini-expansions will be available for sale at Essen and shortly thereafter from the Days of Wonder webstore and in game stores around the world for the MSRP of $10/€8.

One of the Secondary Prize winners, Leaders of Small World, is a special game play option that players can choose when picking a new Race/Special Action Combo.

The Leaders expansion will be sent free of charge, as a thank you to all those who submitted an entry in the Small World Design Contest. Small World fans worldwide who did not enter the contest will also be able to get a copy exclusively from BoardGameGeek.com in November for a small shipping and handling fee.

The Special Prize winning entry - Tales & Legends of Small World - will be published as a separate expansion in 2010.

Without further ado, we present the winners of the Small World Design Contest…

Special Prize Winner:

• Laurent Verrier of France - Tales & Legends of Small World

This unique design was so impressive that we’re publishing it in 2010 as a separate expansion.

3 Grand Prize Winners:

• Jörg Krismann of Germany - White Ladies & Kobolds
• Paolo Mori of Italy - Cursed
• Jason Oman of Australia  - Priestesses

Each Grand Prize Winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to Essen Germany for the debut of the new Small World Expansions that their designs appear in.

9 Secondary Prize Winners:

• Gustav Åkerfelt of Finland (Goblins)
• Philip Harding of Australia (Were-)
• Leif Steiestol of Canada (Hordes of)
• Daniel Zielinski of USA (Marauding)
• Travis Lauro of USA (Ransacking)
• Clay Blankenship of USA (Gypsies)
• Blaise Hanczar of France (Peace-Loving)
• Mike Haverty of USA (Historian)
• Michael Ormesher of UK (Leaders)

Each Secondary Prize winner will receive complete published sets of their work and €100 or $150 in cash.

You’ll find additional details on the upcoming Small World Mini-expansions that these winning entries will be a part of in a separate blog entry.

All of us at Days of Wonder offer our congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to all the Small World fans who took the time to create and submit their designs.