The European Continentals 2009 Fantasy Team Contest

by Johannes Klarhauser, Staff Writer

16th August 2009

2009 was an exciting tournament season for the European STCCG scene. We had a series of very fun Regionals, including a British invasion to Germany and a German invasion to the Netherlands, a number of great national championships, and even a change at the position of Head Honcho of European Trek. With so many things going on, somehow it is no surprise that nobody thought of running the traditional Fantasy Team Contest this year.

However, the Organized Play team realized this oversight just in time on the day of the Continental Championship in Potsdam and, ever masters of improvisation, made an on-the-spot announcement after the first round of Day 1. Not surprisingly, the turnout was overwhelming – the 27 participants this year topped everything we have had in previous years – probably because this time players simply had to write down four names on the back of their scorecard, instead of going through the long and tedious process of sending an e-mail to some dodgy guy who will only forget about sending the prizes anyway...

The format of the contest was the same as always:
Pick a fantasy team consisting of the four players that you think will perform best over the weekend. There’s a catch, though: To determine a player’s value for the contest, the point total a player earns (for Continentals Day 2: 2,500 points for 1st place, 1,000 for 2nd, 500 for 3rd/4th, 250 for 5th-8th; 125 for 9th-16th; for the Chairman’s Challenge: 1000 for 1st place, 400 for 2nd, 200 for 3rd/4th, 100 for 5th-8th; 50 for 9th-16th) is divided by the number of participants who picked that player. So if for example player Fred DeBruter earns 125 points for finishing 10th in Day 2, then goes on to win the Chairman’s Challenge on Sunday for 1,000 points, he will have earned a total of 1,125 points. Let’s say Fred was picked by ten participants, then he will effectively be worth 113 points to each of them.

The players who were picked the most were:

Sebastian Kirstein (on no less than 11 out of 27 fantasy teams!)
Johannes Klarhauser (9)
Stepan Kadlec (8)
Tony Gammell, Will Hoskin, Vladimir Vrbata, Jirka Paska (all 7)

Seven participants decided to be the masters of their own destiny and picked themselves.

The players who earned the highest point totals were:

Vladmir Vrbata (2,500; European Continentals Champion)
Jens Beilstein (1,000; European Continentals Runner-up)
Will Hoskin (1,000; Chairman’s Challenge Champion)
Johannes Klarhauser (550)
Peter van der Helm (525)

The players with the biggest value were:

Peter van der Helm (525)
Vladimir Vrbata (357)
Jens Beilstein (200)
Tobias Meyer (175)
Will Hoskin (143)

In the end, these four participants nominated the fantasy teams that did best over the weekend:

1st place: Tony Gammell (781 points)
Team: Peter van der Helm, Thomas Schneider, Tony Gammell, Will Hoskin

2nd place: Jens Petritzki (646 points)
Team: Jens Beilstein, Johannes Klarhauser, Sebastian Kirstein, Vladimir Vrbata

Tied for 3rd place: Sebastian Kirstein (595 points)
Team: Jirka Paska, Tobias Rausmann, Vladimir Vrbata, Will Hoskin

Tied for 3rd place: Peter Møller (595 points)
Team: Jirka Paska, Peter Møller, Søren Ramme Nielsen, Vladimir Vrbata

Congratulations to the winners! Of course, we have a little prize packet for each of you; please contact European Continentals Coordinator Thomas Schneider (“thsch” on the TrekCC message boards) for details.

Thanks again for participating! We hope you all enjoyed it, and we would love to so see you all join the contest again next year!

-djl-

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