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• CLASH 2023 Skud Pai Sho T...
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Hi I'm turtle nice to meet you I hope we can play a game of fire together sometime.

GET READY TO RUMBLE! 

Get ready to take part in the greatest Pai Sho event in the modern Earth Kingdom! Can you fight your way to the top and win the Heavyweight Skud Pai Sho Championship Belt? Enter now to meet new players, learn about the game, and test your skill! 

I, Cannoli, will be joining some of the best and brightest Skud players around the world (hey, that's you!) to compete for the tournament winner title! To keep me accountable in my "power" as tournament host, Prof Petruescu will be my accomplice and general handyman in organizing this tournament. While I will generally be the one to go to for any questions you might have, Petruescu will be helping out behind the scenes and will be responsible for the tasks that I will be giving up as an active participant, such as the creation of games on skudpaisho.com.

General Information

• This will be a classic, double elimination style Skud Pai Sho tournament.
  
• The winner will receive the Tournament Winner role on the official Garden Gate discord server.
  
• All games will be hosted at The Garden Gate website: skudpaisho.com.
  
• An official bracket will be hosted on Toornament.com: https://www.toornament.com/en_US/tournam...nformation
  
• Signups end and the tournament begins on Saturday, April 2nd. To make sure you properly end up in the tournament, please sign up at least 2 full days before the tournament begins!
  
• Update: Signups still end on April 2nd, but the tournament will now begin on Monday, April 5th.
  

How to sign up:

Participants have two main things to do in order to sign up for the tournament.

• First, participants must register for Earth Rumble VII in the tournaments tab of skudpaisho.com.
  
• Second, participants must register for the Toornament.com bracket here: https://www.toornament.com/en_US/tournam...nformation. Participants must provide both their Garden Gate username as well as their Discord handle in order to sign up.
  

Tournament Format and Rules

• Matches will be shown on the Toornament website bracket, and will be created at the start of each round.
  
• Rounds will last 3 days each in both brackets. In the losers bracket, players can request to begin rounds early if they wish, allowing them to better keep up with the winners bracket.
  
• In the event of a tie, if there is at least one full day remaining in the round, players may rematch if they wish. Otherwise, the total move numbers in previous games will serve as tiebreakers (the player with less total moves in the tournament will win).
  
• Unfinished games due to inactivity will be decided by hosts at the end of the round. If only one player is inactive (defined by extensive stalling of gameplay and move making, be it accidental or purposeful), they will automatically forfeit the game. If both players are completely inactive, neither will advance, and the would be opponent of the next round will get a bye. MAKE SURE TO LEAVE AT LEAST A MESSAGE IN THE CHAT BOX IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED COMPLETELY INACTIVE, ESPECIALLY AS GUEST.
  
• The championships will not be based on the Grand Finals system of the last double elimination tournament. More information will be given to the finalists of the winners and losers brackets.
  
• Sandboxing, while strongly discouraged, is still technically allowed.
  
• Undos are allowed. Asking for and granting undos IS encouraged, though it is not technically required.
  
• Cursing and foul language is discouraged, though it is okay if something slips through. Outright bullying and harassment, on the other hand, will lead to immediate disqualification.
  

I look forward to competing with all of you!

Hi everyone, this is Momo. 

I'm hosting a beginner's Skud tournament as you all probably know. There really aren't any requirements to join. You just have to think of yourself as a "beginner." What that means is up to you because I don't really know what defines a beginner either. I would say a rough ballpark estimate is around 30 wins in total or less than a 55 % win rate, but if you have more than that, it's fine as well. Again, the requirements aren't really set in stone. 

Make sure to join the tournament discord https://discord.gg/wvEKRz7R and sign up on the Garden Gate Website if you want to participate. 

As for prizes, this is a chill tournament, aimed at introducing more people into the world of pai sho, so there won't be any actual prizes (I also don't exactly want to invest in prizes sorry about that). Nevertheless, the tournament should still be fun! Winners get the honor of being considered a winner as well as fame, bragging rights, and... and that's about it. 

Tournament matches start Monday, February 8th. It's a double elimination bracket style tournament. Lose twice and you're out.

Rules are like all other tournament rules: 3 days for each game, sandboxing is slightly frowned upon, no collaborating with other people about your match while your game is ongoing. 

Gambling / Betting will be allowed, but only for the spectators. In other words, tournament participants cannot bet. There will be a best better award for the person with the most fake coins at the end. 

Think that's it. Let me know if you have any questions! And last but not least, good luck and have fun! 

Signing off, 
theRealMomo

The Jolly Jamboree is finally here!! The event officially starts.... now!

The Adevăr Jolly Jamboree is an open event for anyone to participate in at any time. It's not quite a tournament, where there's a single winner. Participants gain points for every game they play, and you get different prizes for reaching different point thresholds. This event is very casual, and is not something to stress over.

There are different Tiers to achieve, each one having its own prize. The first Tier is at 15 points; the second Tier is at 25 points; the third Tier is at 45 points. The first tier prize is a special role in the Adevăr server! The other two prizes are secret ?. The person with the most points will get an additional secret ? prize.

Both players must submit a link; Host submitting the link does not count for Guest's points.

The event is happening over in the official Adevăr server, you can join it here: https://discord.gg/bjUVuZR, where you'll find a channel dedicated for submitting games. There will be a pinned message in that channel outlining how to submit games. Games submitted in the TGG server will not count. Note that Adevăr Lite games will not count.

The event will end on January 6th.

With the start of the Jolly Jamboree, the Adevăr Festive tiles are now available on the site!

Special thanks to Sir Stotes for programming the custom bot used for the Jolly Jamboree.

alright my dudes, here's the lowdown on our totally righteous party we'll be hostin in the northern water tribe:
-the tourney's gonna be Skud Pai Sho rules.
-Players will join the tourney in teams of 2, like me and my bro Chan. Teams will decide who will be the "A" player and who will be the "B" player at the start of the tourney. This cannot change once the tourney has started. (you cheat and your just a big loser like those 4 idiots who wrecked the last party). 
-There's gonna be like four rounds. In these rounds, the "A" player of one team will play the "A" player of another team. Same goes for "B" players. The winner of the "A" match scores 5 points and the winner of the "B" matches scores 3 points for their team. These team matches will be chosen at random except that no double matches are gonna happen.
-The top two teams with the most points will move to the Finals. In the event of a tie the team with the least amount of losses proceeds, if still tied then most team wins, if still tied then single player with most wins. If there is still a tie then the team with the player who won his/her games in the least amount of moves proceeds.
-In the finals the "A" players face each other and the "B" players face each other. The two winners "A" and "B" whether they are teammates or not, proceed to the Grand Finals where a single Champion is crowned.
Registration closes Dec 19. and the tournament will begin December 26. If interested find yourself a teammate and message one of the tournament hosts over discord your team name and who will be player A and player B. You can message me or Chan for this, we're co-hosting the tournament. discord usernames are Pronetowander#8622 and dall(i)n#4951 . After you've messaged one of us, both teammates need to head over to skudpaisho.com and both sign up for the Chan and Ruon-Jian's Holiday Party under tournaments. 
PRIZE
The winner of the tourney will receive the rights to the official title of Hahn on the Garden Gate discord community as well as the role of Tournament Winner. There's also a mystery prize from Mimicmakings Pai sho shop. We want the prize to remain a secret so this tourney is as chill as possible. No stress, no high-stakes. Just playing pai sho!
Hahn is letting us use his house, so try to act cool.
-Ruon-Jian, out

To submit a set of tile designs to The Garden Gate, send me your tile designs in an email to SkudPaiSho [at] gmail [dot] com, be sure they follow these rules:

* Named correctly: For Skud Pai Sho tiles, they need to be named like these files: https://github.com/thejambi/SkudPaiSho/t.../tgggyatso. For Vagabond tiles, they need to be named like these files: https://github.com/thejambi/SkudPaiSho/t...ond/delion
* .png file format with transparent backgrounds, image dimensions no larger than the example image files

Making a cheap Pai Sho board

Homemade Pai Sho boards are fun and unique. Making your own will give you a special board to play on that you’ll always be proud of and it will be a great conversation piece.

Here's my DIY board:


Here’s my suggestions on how to make a Pai Sho board cheaply without the need for any tools.


Here’s what I bought to use. I will list recommendations for cheaper options later.

Sample size paint - red $3.48
Sample size paint - white $3.48
Paint pen - black $3.98
24” Pine round $11.25
Yardstick $1
Paint brush $5

Tip: Look for a set of kids paints instead to reduce the cost. Since you don't need much paint, you might find something that has enough paint and also a brush or two to use already. But by getting the sample size paints I was able to choose my colors more closely.

For finishing:
Spray Shellac: $7.98
Super fine sanding sponge: $7.38

Any kind of lacquer or fine sandpaper will work, but I had these items already.

Things I assume you have:
- Pencils
- Scrap cardboard
- Scissors or a knife

You could also use an 18” pine round, which will cost about $4 less.

When using a Pine Round for making a board, I recommend going into the store so you can choose one that looks good and lays flat. Some warp more than others or have slight cracks or nicks in the surface or edges, or simply aren’t as good looking due to knots in the wood.


# Step 1 - Find the center of the board

I was surprised when I sat down to mark the center of the board that I had no idea how to find it! Here is one way - https://www.manmadediy.com/m/how-to-find-center-circle - and I will describe another way, which is what I did.

Using paper to find the center:
I figured my pine round was not going to be a perfect circle. Here’s how I used paper to find the center of my board:

- Tape some regular paper together to have a big sheet of paper that can cover the board. You could use newspaper, scrap paper, etc. Put it over the board and mark the edges so you could line it up on there again after taking it off.
- Take off paper and fold it in half, matching up the marks of opposite sides of the board. Unfold, fold in half matching up the other corners.
- Poke a hole in the paper at the intersection of the creases from your folds. This is the center of the board.
- Put the paper back onto the board, and make a mark on the board through the hole in the center.


# Step 2 - Measure and mark the important points of the board

You’ll want to either lightly draw the grid lines now in pencil, or simply mark the important points on the board. Start with the important points.

Remember that a Pai Sho board is an 18x18 square grid that’s cut into a circle. The edge of the base grid marks the outermost edge of the board, so most of that outer edge of the grid is cut off. After being cut to a circle, all the intersections visible inside the circle are playable. See SkudPaiSho.com to take a look at the playable points that are close to the edges to see which are playable. Note that on a coordinate plane with the center of the board being (0,0), the Gates are at (0,8), (8,0), etc. being 8 points away from the center. The diagonal Garden Lines of the board go through the points just before the Gate points, (0,7), (7,0), etc. Note there is a point that is 4 points to either side of a Gate point that is just barely inside the circle, and it is a playable point. You can draw the circle of your board slightly bigger to make those points more visible.

The numbers here will be for a large size board, with 1.25” squares. For a small size board, the math is easier since the squares are 1”.

- Use a straight edge to mark the leftmost and rightmost points of the board. Mark the points that are 8.75” (7 points away) and 10” (8 points away, the Gate points) away from the center. Lightly draw a line through all of these points, through the center of the board.
- Use something that’s a right angle to draw a perpendicular line across the board from top to bottom.
- Mark the points the same distances away from the center on the new line so you have marked all four corners of the board.
- Mark the 1.25” intervals along the center lines you’ve drawn.
- Draw the diagonal Garden Lines by drawing lines through the the points 7 away from the center.
- Lightly draw the main grid lines, note that they should intersect each other and the diagonal Garden Lines at the same time, so you can use that to make your lines even.

I also marked 9 spaces from the center after marking the Gate points, which is the edge of the board. I poked a hole in a scrap piece of cardboard and measured and poked another hole 9 spaces length away (11.25"). I held one of the holes on the center of the board in order to draw a circle around the edge of the playing field.

# Step 3 - Paint!

Now tape off the areas for painting - red in the Red Gardens and Gates and then white for the White Gardens. Just wait for things to dry between painting sections or colors, depending on how you tape things off.

After painting the Gardens, I could see the faint grid lines, at least in the unpainted Neutral Garden areas. Now you need to paint over those grid lines. I used a paint pen and a scrap piece of cardboard as a straight edge, but you could paint the lines with black paint and a thin paintbrush as well.

# Step DONE!

Afterwards, I used some shellac to put a nice finish on my board, but you can be done right there and you've got yourself a board

Hello and good evening, one and all, to the All Hallow's Eve Team Tournament!

Quite the lengthy name isn't it?

Now it's a bit early for Halloween perhaps, but it lines up close enough that I am quite tickled that I get to run with it, as the tournament will start in a month's time for October 1st.

This will be a ranked 3-man team swiss tournament, where each team play matches of 3 individual games to decide which team continues on. There will not be any elimination, instead with teams playing against those with similar win numbers, and by the end you will play roughly half the teams. Teams are organised internally as well by skill. The best player plays the first board, worth 4 points, the middle player the second board, worth 3 points, and the final payer on the third board worth 2 points (Points being split for a tie). To win the team match, you need at least 5 points, which means you don't have to win all of your games to win the team game. First board win with any tie is a team win (4 + 1.5/1) Second board and a tie for first or third win is a win (3 + 2) or a third board win and two ties will net you a win (2 + 1.5 + 2). This way, the teams can have all of their members participate and be able to relax knowing that even if they aren't successful their team mates can pull through, or that even if they draw they still are getting important points for the team.

The ranked part of the tournament comes in that every individual game will be counted towards my unofficial ranking list to compare and better understand where everyone is in the community skill wise. The only thing I need to add people to the list is your garden gate name and your discord name, so it'll be as easy as pie, then everything about that is pinned in the vagabond channel in the discord.


For finding and practicing with teams, I have created a discord for it which can be found here: https://discord.gg/RYPr8dN . You can use it to organize into teams, search out people looking for teams, and so on. To register a team for the tournament, it will need a name, a colour, and at least 2 members (A team with 2 members automatically forfeits their third board). Please spend all the time up until the tournament starts to practice with your team mates, discuss your games, and polish (or learn) skills in preparation.


The requirements to register. To register for the tournament, you will have to be in the discord, register to the tournament on the skudpaisho.com website, and make a post here including your garden gate name and what team you are part of. After all the registration is done, I will see to setting up the toornament page, as well as estimating time the tournament will take.

Particular rules for the tournament include 3 days for each round, A ban on collusion or watching streams of your own game during your game, and a serious frowning on sandboxing. If a game goes over the time limit of 3 days then it will be counted as a tie, outside of an inactive player in which case it is the loss of the inactive player.

The team who comes away from the tournament with the most wins will receive a specialized prize, a trophy of specially engraved element cards (One of each element for display, not an elemental tiles deck).

Thank you all for you interest and participation going forward, this has been Aba, and I wish you all a good night.

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Goodnight players and fans, rest up and be ready for more extreme summer fun as the tournament continues!

---

It is the end of Day 2 and Chan and Ruon-Jian's Ember Island House Party Pai Sho Tournament is blazing on as the sun burns beyond the horizon. There were matches so furious today I could have sworn more than once I saw pixelated petals falling off their tiles as the flowers danced around the boards. Plenty of time could be spent replaying each match, but to keep you informed here are the highlights from the matches completed today.
TotallyPorff the brash Brit hashed out a clean win against bercuse with a balanced ring of roses and jades. It seems bercuse was attempting a flashy strategy having planted five flowers all of different kinds. Hopefully we will get a chance to see that play out in the L-bracket.
c0n0li0 defeated CarolBarra with a bright constelation of harmonies. Early on in the game c0n0li0 harmonized 3 flowers, but CarolBarra held a flower in the top gate preventing a premature loss. C0n0li0's responded by spamming out flowers at the bottom gate and shaking up CarolBarras hard won harmonies with his orchid. Finally CarolBarra was forced to bloom from the top gate and C0n0li0 siezed on the opportunity creating a ring that was double thick at the bottom. C0n0li0's response to the gate guarding seemed unorthodox, but it was effective and I would expect to see it tried again as more players review this match, and I encourage you all to do just that.
ZxTinyJ and ajsm had a lightning fast match, if you were distracted by the volleyball games down the beach for even a moment you would have missed it! Both players quickly deployed and harmonized their flowers, but ZxTinyJ took the win with a very well placed rock which left asjm defenseless to prevent ZxTinyJ from winning the very next turn with a short move and a wheel.
TheSchlunz and Urno1 completed a match today that could only be described as crazy. Like breathing blue fire and floppin like a fish crazy. Crazy! Both players exhausted their accent and special flower tiles and made their way well into their supply of basic flowers. Frankly it was hard to tell just what was going on for much pf the game, but as flowes bloomed moved, captured and wilted, TheSchlunz built up a robust pattern of harmonies. Whether by a grave mistake or as a sign of submission, Urno ended the game by moving a flower from between two of TheSchlunz's pieces thus completing the winning ring. Let me stress that in either case, TheSchlunz worked hard for that win!
LaoShagua defeated Sambrews in 8 turns, a swift and decisive game. Not much more can be said about it, except that at the end LaoShaga felt the odd sensation one gets after clubbing a baby seal. Heres wishing Sambrews better luck in the L-bracket.
payam took a win against mshires1124, by guarding the lower and left gates. mshires1124 failed to get the momentum necessary to prevent payam from making a fast ring of jades and roses.
Perhaps the most notable match today, Yagalo defeated Majora by the rare condition of owning more harmonies after being drained of flowers. My initial reaction to this game was to consider using explitives in my review. One look at the gameboard tells you something went wrong. To be fair both players did for a long time attempt to have a normal match, but play after play things got so out of hand that Yagalo had to sieze the opportunity to dump all their tiles in rapid order as there was no clear path to a harmony ring. A great game to spectate if you happen to be a masochist. Doing so infact caused dall(i)n to lose his mind for quite a while, triggering other players to join him in speaking in many various tongues, which I in German deemed a form of divine judgment against our hubris.
Parts of the world are coming awake now, but from my beach house it looks like I still have a few hours to catch a snooze. With only one day left and many matches left to be completed in this first round, we should expect day 3 to hold some fabulous surprises.

---

Its the end of Day 3 of Chan and Ruon-Jian's Ember Island House Party Pai Sho Tournament, any unfinished games will be closed tomorrow 8/4/2020 at noon US Eastern time, so if you are one of those lolligaggers GET TO THE BOARD! We want to see more matches like we had today, and as a bonus we are keeping the seats empty at the Ember Island Players current act! Here are the highlights from todays completed matches.
Halon_Keiser and parsa's match began with conventional patterns, Halon_Keiser taking an early lead while parsa set up for a left/right 2 gate strategy. At the last moment parsa disrupted with a boat, and by maintaining the pressure on managed to keep Halon_Keiser scattered. parsa took the win by pulling the last flower out of the gate and using a wheel to complete a ring.
Dr_Archadus began his match against joblsshomlssboy in a verr offensive posture, planting his orchid on his first harmony. By holding a flower in the center of the board, both players were left to slowly reconfigure their arrangements until finally by moving the orchid out of the way Dr_Archadus completed a ring and won the match. The good Dr was quoted as saying "i just thought of things on the fly, i had no idea what i was doing". It goes to show that even in the absence of strategic training a strong mind can find success in Skud Pai Sho.
geebung02 defeated Lightheart in a close match, both players began forming rings pretty quickly but geebung02 hung back a bit and used an early orchid to disable Lightheart's tactic. A decisive final move blooming a rose and shifting tiles with a wheel secured the win.
LifeSizeTriangle was moved to the L-bracket by Burce after a tense match including a vigorous orchid battle. When the Orchids locked together Burce had a clear advantage at making a winning ring. LifeSizeTriangle was left scrambling for a defense after Burce captured his orchid and in a few short moves Burce had the win by employing the wheel tile.
Tomorrow opens up round 2 of the tournament, and I know you are all excited to play again and follow your favorites as we edge closer to to the finals. Remember we will begin to see players eliminated from the tournament in this second round, so give it your all! Until then rest up, grab some tea and watch the tides change hour by hour as you contemplate your place in the universe.

---

Day 1 of Round 2 was a busy day here on Ember island, we saw an incredible number of matches completed. Before we get into today’s excitement, lets look over the incomplete matches from round 1.
Berserker2Fist was awarded a victory due to complete inactivity form Jrm4.
DragonOfTheNW was awarded victory due to complete inactivity form PaiHoe.
1GreatAdventurer beat Nobys_Nutz by having more harmonies with equal accent tiles when time ran out.
An_introvert_apparently beat 5up3r after 5up3r went afk and did not return.

Now that we are caught up on the last round, let’s dive right in to today’s matches!

Ohreaganoe made quick work of TheShlunz, both players having advanced to the second round by merit. TheShlunz was quick to get flowes out and even managed to threaten Oreaganoe with a clashing flower, but in the end Oreaganoe got the right flowers out of the right gates at the right times and steered himself into the 3rd round with a wheel.

Yagalo appeared to have an early advantage against TotallyPorff, making some quick harmonies while Porffy’s flowers scooted about the board. With victory withing reach for Yagalo, TotallyPorff launched his last flower into the gardens and used a boat to snap in his winning ring. You really have to see the match from the end to know what Porffy was up to, I could see how Yagalo may have been lulled into a false security.

Parsa soundly defeated Cabage_Peddler who must have not realized their sheer peril. Parsa managed to cause Cabbage_Peddler to concentrate their tiles at the top gate, and while he was trying to catch up Parsa’s white lotus bloomed and was launched into place by a well used boat.

C0n0li0 showed another very strong performance against payam, both players going for a quick 2 gate pattern, but mutually blocking one another. C0n0li0 deployed his orchid and gained an advantage by blocking and then capturing several flowers. Once the board was under control, C0n0li0 made a ring using payam’s lotus and a boat to complete the pattern.

Dall(i)n got his first match in the tournament today, facing off against ZxTinyJ and what a match! Both players were clearly operating at another level, both spamming out loads of flowers and working out complex patterns. ZxTinyJ deployed his orchid without a blooming lotus prompting Dall(i)n to get his out, but fully operational. Dall(i)n deftly navigate the whole board with his orchid, capturing, blocking and dodging from point to point. ZxTinyJ used his orchid to block one of Dall(i)n’s harmonies, but crated a catch 22 because moving his orchid at all would allow Dall(i)n to win on his turn. Dall(i)n captured ZxTinyJ’s orchid and from that point on he was completely focused on defense and unable to make a move toward creating a winning ring. In a flurry of disharmony captures and accent tiles Dall(i)n’s flowers drifted into a solid ring and with that he sent ZxTinyJ to the L-Bracket. If you are concerned with facing either of these excellent players in the future, this match is one that you must review in full.

TurtleGamin, our gracious organizer, may he live forever, had a quick match with geebung02. As the flowers began blooming geebung lost his momentum by sending out his orchid. He sent it right after TurtleGamin's red herring... Or red 4...? Regardless TurtleGamin had another waiting in the wings and bloomed it and wheeled a rose into position to make a ring.
samurai took on Berserker2fist with one win under his belt, and although both players are rather new to the game they put on quite a show! Both players got 3 flowers each harmonized in short order, but then samurai launched out with his orchid, full steam with a blooming lotus. Berserker2fist planted his orchid as well but kept his focus on building up a winning arrangement. Both players pulled of some great blocking with accent tiles and made a few captures with clashing flowers, but in the end samurai’s choice of doubling up on boats paid off as he lined up his tiles and removed a boat with his last boat forming the winning ring. Quoth samurai “it was a close one with missed wins on both sides but in the end i won”.

Pronetowander pulled a fast one on whitmore12 in their match today, pulling off a win by leaping from a single harmony to a full ring in one move. The match started with both players forming similar arrangements, but whitmore12 sent a ship to scuttle his opponent’s pattern. That move proved fatal and showed a distinct switch from a focus on winning to a focus on just not losing for whitmore12. Pronetowander sealed his fate by dropping a rock on the horizontal center line, dashing whitmore12’s hope of forging harmonies with his flowers planted at the gates on both sides. whitmore12 in an attempt to further stave off the inevitable botched the use of his second boat, lining Pronetowander up to end the match on his next turn. As someone who practices with Pronetowander I offer this advice to his future opponents. No. Sudden. Moves.
I, BaronAlbatross, the immutable, the humble did face off against the honorable Dr_Archadus. I went for a rapid pattern such as the one employed by Huu in day 1 of the first round. The persistent and flexible strategy paid off, unfortunately for Dr_Archadus he elected to block with a basic flower instead of deploying his planted orchid, allowing me to form my ring by rolling it out with my wheel. I attribute my victory to the super rad DragonForce music video I had playing on the TV nearby.
A bittersweet victory was achieved by LaoShagua after an intense match. Tree, encouraged by the good faith of his mother, burst out with a panoply of flowers, quickly moving toward a winning arrangement. LaoShagua realizing peace was never an option launched an effective reign of terror by way of the orchid. Tree made fantastic moves toward making a ring despite losing many of his tiles, but in the end LaoShagua formed a winning ring using tree’s own lotus. The frank and stark reality is that tree was about to win, until Lao Shagua whipped out an Orchid (Flower Muncher). The Orchid munched on every single one of Tree’s flowers that were in peace. Lao Shagua won the game. Tree was left feeling sad...alone...and sad.

Huu defeated resu532 in what was likely the longest and most perplexing match, which got a great deal of attention on the livestream today. The panel of commentators were perpetually 2 steps behind the players trying to discern their 3d chess level strategies. Both players pushed out a slew of flowers complicating the situation with disharmonies, Huu exhausted his accent tiles, but left himself in a strong position, rearranging flowers until finally resu532, distracted by capturing Huu’s orchid, allowed him to make a ring with no accent tiles. This was a very technical match, and worth reviewing either on the website or via the livestream recording.

parsa used the 5 flower arrangement to overturn Cabbage_Peddler’s cart. Cabbage_Peddler made a good effort to disrupt the pattern, but either intentionally or incidentally parsa held the gate he needed to make a ring until it was too late. A boat carried parsa’s lotus into position completing the winning harmony ring.

BattleKing00 came into round 2 with fury and a swinging hammer against TwoTheSecond. BattleKing00 used his first harmony bonus to disrupt TwoTheSecond’s only harmony with a knotweed, then using his second to roll TwoTheSecond’s flower out of range for further harmonies. Two the second pressed on, fighting back with an orchid and coming within a move of victory before BattleKing00 bashed him off to the other bracket.

Majora and berceuse faced off in the L-bracket and showed us that a loss is not enough to quench the spirit of hardcore Pai Sho players. Majora came out hot forming a solid arrangement, but berceuse responded with some harsh moves. Both players shifted and regrouped, well placed rocks prolonged the match a bit until Majora was able to complete his winning ring with a boat.

Thanks again to TotallyPorff for facilitating a fantastic livestream and for everyone who joined in on chat and live by audio. I would like to note that the revelry today was shadowed by a horrible explosion in Lebanon, our prayers are for the people. With that said let’s keep our heads up and be grateful for what we have and play every match like it’s the last.

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Well folks we had a knock out first day of round 2 yesterday, and today is what I call in shorthand R2D2, like that beepy dude from the space movies. Wrong saga. We had a handfull of matches completed and we can look forward to quite a few more tomorrow. Much of the W- bracket was completed yesterday but we were not without action there today! The L-Bracket was off the chain today with several noteworthy matches. Let’s check it out!
On the W-Bracket ShepherdL defeated Morbius15… OF COURSE HE DID HE ALWAYS WINS… >:| Sorry. The match went rather quickly, however Morbius15 did make a good effort to block. He seemed to be a bit confused as to what he should do about ShepherdL’s knotweed and never really got his momentum back after it was placed.
On the L-bracket, Fatzo106 stepped up to CatholicChris in the first match completed today. It was a quick match, but cleanly played. Both players moved for a 7 turn win. CatholicChris used an extra harmony bonus to leave a rock in Fatzo106's path, forcing him to try to block with a flower tile which CatholicChris deftly swatted away with a wheel once his pieces were in place.
CarolBarra did not meet anywhere near the level of resistance against mshires1124 as in the match against c0n0li0, and executed a rapid 2 gate formation from the top and bottom gates, completely omitting the other two. Now when CarolBarra had 3 of the 4 flowers in position mshires1124 cut them off with a boat, moving the topleft most flower up a space. Carolbarra bloomed the 4th flower and dropped a knotweed on mshires1124 eliminating their harmonies. Carolbarra then repositioned their top right flower and used the harmony bonus to remove the boat. Now, I’m not telling you how to do your job CarolBarra, but you might have achieved victory a turn earlier by using a wheel next to your top left flower, putting it back in place and rotating the boat out of the way to win 1 turn earlier. Again, you do you, just thought you would like to know.
Well that’s it for today, I can hear the tide coming in on my sandcastles and although I was proud of them, I can always make better ones tomorrow. Have a great night and be ready for more action tomorrow!

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Today was the final day of the second round of Chan and Ruon-Jian's Ember Island House Party Pai Sho Tournament, and what we lacked in volume of games we made up for in quality! Now players do have until 12PM US Eastern tomorrow to finish up their matches, and I am hoping to be able to review a few more games that are still ongoing. Since we don’t have a lot to go over tonight I would like to address a recent change to the official rules that may affect play in rare cases.
From ShinxKruez:
“Note this rule change for end-of-game in Skud Pai Sho in the case of a game not ending in a Harmony Ring...
...The game also will end when a player plays his or her last Basic Flower Tile. When this happens, the player with more remaining Accent Tiles wins. If players have the same amount of Accent Tiles, then the player with the most midline-crossing Harmonies on the board when the game ends wins (the tiles in midline-crossing Harmonies are in different quadrants of the board).”
There was some discussion of making the original rules available as an alternative, but I think we are done talking about the technical junk and the what-ifs. Lets have a look at what you read for, one of the most epic matches of the tournament so far!
Burce and 1GreatAdventurer gave us an excellent treat, their match ending with a 6-flower irregular shaped harmony ring. We saw a strong performance from Burce in the first round, but going in I was not sure what to expect from 1GreatAdventurer as their match was incomplete at the end of the round. This exciting match progressed quickly at first and 1GreatAdventurer took on an early advantage, very nearly making a winning ring before Burce pushed one of his flowers diagonally with a boat. Both players sent out their orchids without either having a blooming lotus. After a short scuffle and attempts to reconfigure the blooming flowers Burce did get his lotus out and immediately began capturing flowers. 1GreatAdventurer did an excellent job of pushing out more flowers in a defensive formation to slow the carnage. Burce balanced his rampage with his focus on victory and continued to move his flowers into position to make a wide ring of harmonies. At the very brink of defeat 1GreatAdventurer captured Burce’s orchid with nothing but a white jade blocking what would otherwise be a winning ring. Clearly 1GreatAdventurer was at a disadvantage as far as making a ring for himself although he did have the flowers on the board necessary to win. Only a few turns later though Burce came straight out with a spinning back hook kick, pushing his resources to the limit and forging an upside down L shaped chain of harmonies around the center of the board including 1GreatAdventurer’s own lotus for mega style points. Watch out L-Bracket players, 1GreatAdventurer has entered your arena and he has the chops to clean up the bracket. Congratulations to Burce for advancing again in the W-Bracket and earning the privilege of facing LaoShagua the Lumberjack in round 3 tomorrow.
Once again players, we have a few hours left to wrap up any unfinished games and we will begin round 3 matches tomorrow at 12PM Eastern time. In the meantime, find a new way to serve your neighbors and loved ones. The endorphins will give you an edge in the upcoming matches!

You can create a Pai Sho board design to submit to be added to The Garden Gate.

If you'd like to create a board design to be used on The Garden Gate, you'll just need to post it on Discord in the #board-designs channel, making sure the lines all match up with this image: https://github.com/thejambi/SkudPaiSho/b..._remix.png

You can use these files to base your design on if you'd like to use them to get started:
* Original board svg: https://github.com/thejambi/SkudPaiSho/b...htmode.svg
* Remix board svg: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/3...dRemix.svg