“For once I'm not going to talk about the game - you can see from the stats how one-sided it was - I'm going to talk about my opponent instead...

I've played against Swampserpent (aka LordPetru) many times now, and he's a great opponent. He doesn't waste time, he plays hard, and on the many occasions that his luck sucks he never complains, never rages, he just gets on with the game and tries to play through the bad dice.

He wasn't able to do that today, because the bad dice just kept coming, but at the end of the match he just thanked me for the game and moved on. This is really hard to do, and it's very much appreciated. It makes playing this game so much more enjoyable and this is why I will happily come back and play against Swampserpent again and again - even when things go his way and not mine.

He plays a lot of games. He plays a lot of games that are really not in his favour, but he always seems to accept every challenge. Honestly, he just seems to love this game and would rather play right there and then than wait around on Gamefinder for a more balanced offer. And I really respect him for that. I certainly don't do it. Maybe he's much less of a pixel-hugger than I am (it wouldn't be hard) but even so, he still manages to create some truly impressive players along the way.

At the moment, he's one of only two other coaches who have a player in the Highest Passing top ten (which is my personal obsession) and he managed it playing much tougher opponents than I did with most of mine.


So don't look at the scoreline here and think it means Swampserpent is a bad player, because he's not. I doubt anyone could have done much better in the circumstances.

And while I've been writing this, he's probably been off playing another game, because that's what he's like. I hope he wins it!”