I am fully supportive of this undertaking. The mods and I will do what we can to support abge's effort here. This is something I would love to see happen. We should record all the games and post them online. Babak's 1906 solo as Austria was one of the most impressive feats I've ever seen.

I will also encourage the mods to attend and I will try my best as well. If you ever wanted to punch jmo's face in real life, this might be your chance. :)
*NB: You might get banned immediately as the punch takes place, so consider the risk and reward here.*

This sounds awesome!
I am especially happy it will take place an hour or so from my house.

This sounds like a great idea.

I live in the Boston area now so I will be happy to help coordinate and plan the event.

If you can more specific as time goes by on the dates , I am in boston twice over the summer

So, there are two main things we need to decide on soon so that people can plan if they're coming from far away: Location and Dates.

I would suggest May-August so that the weather is good a kids are out of school in case anyone wants to make a family trip of it.

Location will either be Boston or Marlboro. For those unfamiliar, Boston is the Capital and a major US city. There is lots for tourists to do and it has major significance to the Revolo War, if you're into that. Marlboro is a small city in Central Mass about 40 minutes from Boston. It's named after a rock.

Boston Pros: Easy to fly to, lots to do.
Boston Cons: No clear venue atm and likely won't be free, so entry fee will be much higher.

Marlboro Pros: Hotels, food, etc will all be much cheaper. I have access to a nice free venue that will work perfexo.
Marlboro Cons: 40 min from airport. Less ideal location for tourists.

Thoughts?

Personally, if most people are local or will be coming only for the tournent, I think Marlboro would work excellently. If however people plan on stating longer or many far away people would be more inclined to come if it was in a major tourist location, Boston makes more sense.

Marlboro is only 40 miles from Boston - Thus for cheaper lodging, etc, if family wants to come and then visit Boston or other regional attractions, shouldn’t be a big deal. Marlboro.

My only problem is it will get awfully hot wearing that paper bag Over my head all weekend – plus the reduced peripheral vision may make it difficult to pick up on the nuanced facial expressions during negotiations.

Excellent point, krellin.

Agreed, stockings can better suited for hiding your face during summer.

2nd has agreed to coordinate this event with me. He will be looking into Boston venues if we decide that's where we want to hold the tournament.

There will be more things to help with that I'll discuss as we get closer.

For now, though, o need to start getting a feel for if people are interested and when they'll be free.

I'm interested. Either location works for me, and I'm happy with whatever makes this more likely and easier to happen.

I can bring a couple of boards.

It's too early to give a firm yes but I've been itching to give FtF a shot and this seems like as good a time as any.

Finding a venue in Boston will be the difficult part, especially if we have three full boards, which is our goal. I'm new to the Boston area but I have a few connections so I'll see what I can find out.

abge mentioned a few pros and cons of Boston vs. Marlborough, but I would also like to mention that Boston also has rail connections to NYC/Philadelphia/DC as well as Albany/Buffalo as well as an extensive public transportation system which would likely eliminate the need for a rental car. Marlborough doesn't appear to be easy to travel to via public transportation so the cheaper hotels would come at the tradeoff of having to find transportation from Boston.

You can take the T from Logan to Framingham. It's only a 15min ride to Marlboro from there. I can probably arrange a shuttle for people.

Feel free to host in my dorm in Chicago.

Perhaps Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge could be a suitable Boston-area venue. I believe they typically host the Boston Massacre dip tournament. They have gaming tables downstairs.

Note: Cambridge is right across the river from Boston and actually closer to downtown than most of the rest of Boston. The bookstore is not very far from the Cambridge location that hosted the WebDip FTF in 2011.

We contacted them last time. Not only were they uninterested, they were actually a bit rude to Crazy.

Its honestly not the best place. It's just a gross basement and there isn't very much room to spread out and negotiate.

Yeah, it's not that great.

It'll be hard to top that penthouse venue with the river view and balcony that we had last time.

I'd love to come, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it. So leave me out when you're scheduling and stuff, and then I'll come if it works out, and more likely I won't.

As far as Boston v. Marlborough, Marl sounds better to me. Only I just said you should leave me out of the planning, so ignore that.

This is what the Marlboro venue looks like:

http://medialibrarycdn.propertysolutions.com/websites_media/applebriarapartments.com/cached_thumbs/640x480/4f3d45cd1e292561.jpg

http://medialibrarycdn.propertysolutions.com/websites_media/applebriarapartments.com/cached_thumbs/640x480/4f3d4e49a2e4d854.jpg

http://medialibrarycdn.propertysolutions.com/websites_media/applebriarapartments.com/cached_thumbs/640x480/4f3d4ea301564975.jpg

That looks really nice, actually.

Marlboro.

The Marlboro location looks amazing

Awesome, abgemacht. It was really great in 2011.
Although that was the beginning of my moving away from webdip to regularly playing FtF.... But seriously, that's how good it was!
Also, do invite some local FtF regulars. They are always interested in getting to know new potential players and love to help out.

Once we have a date, I'll be sure to let the local F2F group know.

And if anyone's interested in trying FtFin Europe, let me know!

I'm curious whether there is a quorum for a SF Bay Area leg of the tournament that could run in parallel with perhaps an online playoff afterwards between the regional top players or something. (Imagine seven venues with a WebDip series between the seven champs... Hmm...)

Dates?