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.

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?!

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.

Ticket to Ride Europa 1912 is the newest expansion in the Ticket to Ride series. It includes 101 Destination Tickets - the 46 original tickets, plus 55 new ones that enable 3 new variants to the Ticket to Ride Europe map: Europe Expanded, which adds 19 new routes to the original 46; Big Cities of Europe, with tickets to 9 major European cities; and Mega Europe, which uses all the new routes as well as the 46 original Destination Tickets.

Europa 1912 also introduces Warehouses and Depots - two new game elements that bring an exciting new layer of strategy to all versions of Ticket to Ride. Each player begins with a Warehouse and 5 wooden Depots - 1 which is placed in any city at the start of the game. Any time train cards are drawn, the top card of the draw pile is first placed in one of the players’ warehouses. As the game continues, and warehouses fill with train cards, they become almost irresistible. But whenever a player claims a route to a depot city, he gets to add all of the train cards from that player’s warehouse into his hand!

An original copy of any complete game in the Ticket to Ride series is needed to play with Warehouses & Depots. New Destination Tickets are for use only with Ticket to Ride Europe.

Ticket to Ride Europa 1912 is now available for pre-order at the Days of Wonder Web Store. It is expected to ship and be in stock at your local game store in Europe on October 22 and in the US on October 28. Order yours today!

- Thousands flocked to Sweden for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics…

- French aviator Henri Seimet made the first non-stop flight from Paris to London…

- Explorer Roald Amundsen announced to the world that his team, via skis and dog sled, had successfully reached the South Pole…

- and tragically, over 1,500 were lost when the Titanic struck ice on it’s maiden sea voyage…

Far-off travel and heroic adventure sparked the imaginations of countless Europeans who dreamed of “seeing the world”. While exotic travel could be attempted only by a few, the great rail lines of Europe more than fulfilled the romantic travel dreams of the rest - the Flying Scotsman from Edinburgh to London; the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée; and the legendary Orient Express from London to Istanbul.

To relive this classic era of European train travel Days of Wonder introduces Ticket to Ride Europa 1912 - a new expansion for this award-winning train game series.

This expansion delivers 55 new Destination Tickets (plus the originals) and 3 new ways to play Ticket to Ride Europe; and introduces Warehouses & Depots - new game rules and pieces that can be played with ANY of the Ticket to Ride maps.

Learn all about it by visiting the Ticket to Ride Europa 1912 webpage. The expansion will be available worldwide in October and while we highly recommend scheduling a train trip to Essen, Germany to pick up a copy, you will also find it at your favorite game store!

An especially big event this year as 24 teams (representing at least 16 countries) took part.

Congratulations to this year Champion Unity Express Germany and to the Austrian Troublemakers, their runner-up (For your reference, this team was the ‘07 Champion)! Captains of those teams will shortly be contacted by PM so that we can organize the prizes collection.

Special thanks to the Tournament Director and all the people who helped this event to be possible once more…

All the results can be found on Tickipedia’s Nations Cup page.

The Dice expansion should begin shipping to customers who pre-ordered from our web store around November 19 and they will be available in retail stores at the same time. We apologize for the delay.

In this expansion, players still attempt to complete their Destination Tickets and claim routes and block each other on the map. But rather than draw and collect Train cards, they roll five custom Train dice each turn. Depending on the outcome they can reroll some or all, then use the dice to claim routes on the board; grab Route Tokens for future use; or draw more Destination Tickets. For board maps that feature Tunnel routes, such as Ticket to Ride Europe, 3 Tunnel dice are also included.

Ticket to Ride - The Dice Expansion includes: 5 custom Train dice, 3 Tunnel dice, 1 Ticket to Ride dice cup, Route tokens and Rules booklet and comes in a small cube shaped box.

It requires trains, Destination Tickets and a board map from any of the Ticket to Ride series.

The Dice Game Expansion is multi-lingual with rules in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

It will be available in October 2008 in both the US and Europe and will debut at the Essen Trade Fair in Germany. You can preorder your copy now from the Days of Wonder Web Store.