Warfare To Return with CEB Turf

Harvard students are once again trading in books for bunkers as another game of “Risk” begins just in time for reading period.

After last spring’s success with the cyberspace-adapted board game, the College Events Board (CEB) is sponsoring round two of a campus-wide Risk tournament.

The game, called CEB Turf, is managed by Michael F. Ayoub ’10 and Kevin M. Mee ’10.

Despite little publicity, there are already about 1,000 students signed up on the Web site, ready to engage in cyberspace combat.

CEB Turf administrator Andrew C. Fong ’07 said that close to 1,500 students have signed up but 500 of them haven’t yet activated their accounts.

This Friday, each House’s elected war minister will choose territories, and the first turn will commence at 6:00pm on Saturday.

“By and large, people are excited and have been looking forward to it since last spring,” said John F. Pararas ’08-’09, CEB chair. “There is a contingent of people who felt like it ruled their lives, but people who get too into it can abstain or plan their time a little more wisely.”

Newly-elected Currier war minister, Michael Y. Mi ‘10, said, “It will most likely take over my reading period life. As war minister, I control a lot of people’s accounts.”

A few posters and e-mails have been sent out encouraging game-play.

“It’ll publicize itself,” said Pararas, who is also a Crimson magazine writer. “It’s a big House pride thing. Hopefully, we’ll get rising sophomores into it.”

“Last year we had around 3000 people sign up, and if more than 3000 people end up playing the game, we’ll consider it a success,” Fong said.

The tournament is expected to close by the end of reading period to keep students from being pre-occupied during exams.

“It’s not a good idea to have an event going on during finals,” Ayoub said.

The prize is a six-foot tall “Risk Trophy” still in CEB’s possession.

According to Pararas, last year’s winners, Quincy, PfoHo, and Leverett failed to work out a sharing plan, so the trophy is unclaimed and ready for this year’s winner.

“Currier finished 12th last year, which is absolutely miserable,” Mi said. “House pride, it’s the biggest thing.”