A brisk round of Risk

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin: The competition heats up during Monday's game of Risk. (Danny Abriel photo)

Monday was a beautiful day for a barbeque and a band, but the students gathered under the tent in the Studley Quad had something riskier on their minds: world domination.

Seventy-two students took part in Aon Canada's Risk tournament at Dalhousie. Throughout the morning, their numbers were reduced to just six.

At last, the remaining players in the game squared off. Competition was fierce and the students played intently, never looking up from the board even as the crowd around them grew larger.

"Five minutes left to conquer the world," the band's singer announced, to laughs from the crowd. Then the bass player began the familiar opening notes of Queen's Under Pressure. Finally, the last seconds of the game were counted down, and Kyle Moor emerged the winner.

"I was literally walking by and decided to take part at the last minute," he says. It was a decision that paid off big-time — he wins a $5,000 bursary that will be put towards his education.

When asked about his winning strategy, he modestly chalked up his win to "a couple of lucky rolls of the dice."

David MacDonald took second place in the competition, claiming a $2,500 bursary, and Blair Salter took third place, winning $500.

"The competition was very intense. I've played a lot of Risk games, and I've never seen one as intense as this one," said Colin Craig, Marketing Communications Manager for the Faculty of Management, who was part of the organizing committee for the tournament and acted as referee.

"This was 'speed Risk,'" he says, explaining rules were modified so that the game, which can go on for days, could be completed in a relatively short time.

"In some ways, this event was a great simulation for real-world situations where students will have to think fast on their feet once they are in the working world," he says.

David Wheeler, Dean of the Faculty of Management, and Peter Shelton, branch manager of Aon Reed Stenhouse, handed out the prizes. In addition to the bursaries, the finalists were invited out to a dinner hosted by Aon at Pier 21 later that same day.