The Catan World Championships were played in Essen last week. The new world champion of Settlers of Catan is Markus Nuopponen from Finland. Markus won three out of the four games in the first rounds and kicked butt in the semifinal and the final. Go Finland!

I’ve had the pleasure to play with Markus, who is a nice guy and one of the better players I’ve ever met, in just about any game — he’s not just a Catan guy (I heard the German guy in the finals had about 2000 Catan games under his belt — I understood Markus hasn’t played Catan much outside the tournaments). Some people just have the skills to be good in many games, I suppose, and Markus is definitely one of those. If you can read Finnish, Markus posted a fascinating tournament report on the FBS message board.

Finland is now 9th in the national ranking. In addition of Markus’s 1st place, Finland has 3rd and 4th place.