The Ticket to Ride North American Championship was held this past weekend at Alan Moon’s annual Gathering of Friends event in Columbus Ohio. 16 players who qualified in previous events in both the US and Canada were there to battle for the championship and a chance to win the trip to Paris to compete in the World Championship in June.
Friday’s qualifying round was made up of three, 4-player games of Ticket to Ride. The first game was Ticket to Ride Europe, followed by Ticket to Ride US map, and finally the 1910 variant. The top 8 players were ranked based on their overall performance in those qualifying games and seeded 1 through 8 for the next day’s quarterfinal matches.
Moving on to Saturday were:
#1 David Belew (won all three games)
#2 Thomas Vilfroy (also won all three games)
#3 Kyle Greenwood
#4 Erik Miller
#5 Duncan McGregor
#6 Charles Rucker
#7 Linda Lait
#8 Jay Fox
The next day these 8 players were matched up in 2-player, best 2 out of 3 matches on the standard Ticket to Ride US map. Immediately there were big upsets as both the #8 seed, Jay Fox and #7 seed, Linda Lait took out the two top ranked players. Kyle Greenwood and Erik Miller also moved onto the semi’s. As befitting a North American Championship, the semi finals featured two Canadians, Eric Miller from Vancouver and Linda Lait from Lethbridge, Alberta; while Jay Fox from Philadelphia was matched against Kyle Greenwood from Las Vegas. The cards were not with Kyle this day, as Jay defeated him in two straight games to move onto the finals. The all-Canadian match went the distance however, with Eric triumphing over Linda in the decisive third game.
With both finalists now guaranteed a trip to the World Championships in Paris, the finals match was for bragging rights, the Championship trophy and a set of 45 Gold trains; while the runner-up would get a set of Silver trains and the 2nd place trophy. While the matches were closer than the scores indicate, Erik Miller was triumphant, taking the Championship,in two games by scores of 136-114 and 124 to 111.
In the consolation match for third place, Kyle Greenwood defeated Linda Lait and took home the Bronze train set and third place trophy.
Congratulations to the North American Ticket to Ride Champion, Erik Miller!
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Great write-up, whoever did that. It’s great to hear about the World Tournament and congratulations to all the contestants! Are there any pictures or video footage of the games that we could see?
Congratulations, Erik Miller and Jay Fox on the trip to the finals in Paris!
Jesse, I’m gathering Mark wrote up that article since he was there. I don’t think there were any pictures or videos taken though! 🙁
Darn those Canadians..they beat us at hockey and now Ticket to Ride!!
It’s my fault Thomas. After I made the finals, I was too blinded by Paris to defend American honor. I promise better at the World Championship.
Congrats to Erik. Great guy and a great champion!
Jay Fox
Congrats to you too, Jay! Perhaps we’ll face each other again in Paris and you’ll be able to reclaim your national pride.
I don’t think there was any video taken, but there are definitely some pictures floating around, like the one on the TtR Facebook page.
Erik Miller
Congrats! Sounds like a great competition. 🙂