Hi, my name is Mike Topczewski and I’m the 2025 Ring Winner of Acquire at the World Series of Board Gaming (WSBG).  I also won the 2023 Wingspan ring.  WSBG is a great tournament held in Vegas in September where the top prize is $25,000.  In addition to that you have a ton of open gaming, some cheap buy-in side tournaments where you can win ten times your buy-in if you win two games, a Diplomacy tournament that I make sure to get a play in because it really is an amazing game, and other fun events.

Acquire is a game I have played on and off for 15 years.  There’s a guy in my local game group in Arizona who is the sharpest eighty-something-year-old guy I have ever met.  He winters in Phoenix and his favorite game is Acquire, and so I make sure to play a game as a welcome back and a going away present every April and October.  This is about the most practice I get at the game.  He also believes the game should be open knowledge and not a memory game, so I didn’t have any practice at it being a memorization game.

I prefer to play a very friendly game of Acquire.  In both my second round and the final table I made stock buys in a way that allowed the other person in the hotel chain to tie me for the lead.  I didn’t have the merge tile and so two of us looking for it would improve the odds of that early merger allowing me to have liquidity when hopefully the other 2 players were dry.  I even said when I bought the stocks, “I like ties”, so that there was no question about my intent.  It’s better for us both to be tied at 6 with no one else likely to get into the competition than us bleeding each other out to get to the 13-12 final standpoint.  This allows us both to get into other hotel chains instead of just fighting between ourselves.  Some people may not be a fan of this strategy, but to me it’s part of the game.  The other player is less likely to play that merge tile knowing he’s going to be second.  Even if he knows long term it’s going to be a 13-12 loss, he’s going to force the issue.  This just makes that faster.  I have played Diplomacy online for over a decade, so this…let’s do something good for both of us is ingrained in how I play games and I hope that later on, I'll be able to make a deal with someone else.  If I can come out in the top 2 in enough chains with different people, I’m looking pretty good. 

I generally try to get a cheap hotel on the board early.  I want to stay liquid as long as possible.  I also try to control tiles that may become merge tiles.  So when I see where people are trying to get to, I hold tiles that while they currently won’t merge, make their merge easier.  In both my first and second round games I controlled the center of the board’s ability to merge.  They made a small chain and were buying up stock to try and get it to merge into a big chain that I had a small lead in with lots of stock available.  I didn’t want them to be able to trade in for my stock, so I held those tiles until I was able to get other medium chains to merge into the biggest one and I was able to trade two for one to secure my lead in the biggest chains. 

My fiancé joked before the game on the winning strategy…”buy low, sell high & draw better tiles”.  The “strategy” sounds simple, but that was a huge reason for why I made it through the first two rounds and while there is absolutely strategy in what to buy, how to merge, when to merge, the luck of just getting better tiles is also a huge benefit.  If you watch the final table, there were 2 merges made by my opponents that I either got first or second majority in when I had no cash left over.  This allowed me to stay liquid in a moment that I was about to start passing on stock buys.  This had nothing to do with my play really (although they were also broke so they needed to merge also), and just came down to luck.

I also like to talk during the entire game.  I mentioned earlier I didn’t have practice memorizing who all had what stock.  I could relatively keep track of the stocks I was involved in, but I wasn’t able to keep track of the other chains.  I was also playing against some people who even after a couple merges knew exactly how much cash everyone had.  So talking kept me relaxed.  Playing over a silent table is super stressful.  I play games to have fun.  I don’t play games to micro manage every point and min-max every moment.  Also, it increased the odds of them not being able to keep track of everything and maybe get them to make a mistake.  It wasn’t intentionally trying to get them to play poorly, but a constant stream of chatter I figured would benefit me the most since I am always chatting whenever I play games.  It’s also that Diplomacy aspect.  The guy I made the deal with first even said that I turned on him later cause I made a different deal with someone else.  Make a deal with everyone and make sure you get a share of it every time and I can end up on top.  The final table I 100% made the worst move, so that chatter may have backfired.  On my last turn I forgot to buy the last 2 stock of a hotel chain.  I was supposed to win the chain 9-8-8 instead I lost 8-8-7.  But I had already passed my turn so I was done.  Luckily the player after me was out of cash so merged it at 8-8-7 because he couldn’t buy those last 2 stock either.  That play cost me over 10 thousand and I still won by a couple thousand, but in the moment I thought I had lost it all, but if he had the couple hundred bucks, I would have cost myself a ring with one loss of concentration because I was chatting, so even despite hours of pretty good play, one loss of focus almost cost me everything. 

So if you read this and think to yourself, “THIS guy was the best Acquire player at this tournament?  I am better than him,”  I invite you out to play.  I jokingly say to people “Any lucky guy can win once…heck I did it.”  Now I have to say that about winning twice.  But come to Vegas and play.  I look forward to meeting you.