The Puffing Billy® tournament will be held at 2025 EuroQuest
Conductor: Pierre LeBoeuf
Tournament Start time: Thursday 12 noon
Tournament End time: Sunday 2:00 PM
The Puffing Billy tournament format is owned by the Train Gamers Association and has a structure similar to the EQ Wild Card tournament.
Games List and Schedule
PFGames25 (MS Word)
EQPuffBill25 (Excel)
Schedule
The Puffing Billy schedule lists the suggested start times and length for each classification of games. Meet at the Puffing Billy table at the specified time to be matched up with others who want to play games in the same category.
By specifying Ticket to Ride (for example) for play on Thursday and Friday afternoon, with start times at 11am, noon, 1, and 5 pm, it will make it easier to find opponents to get a game started. Any of these games can be played as pickup games outside of their scheduled time as well. All pick-up games must be approved beforehand by a TGA Conductor to be counted in the tournament. Stop by the Puffing Billy desk to pick up a score sheet. All games must have a valid scoresheet to be counted.
For the separate 18xx tournament, however, only games played during the four indicated time intervals can be used to qualify for the final on Sunday.
OVERLAP WITH OTHER TOURNAMENTS
A few of the other events at EuroQuest are running games that also count for Puffing Billy points. You may turn in a second score sheet for those games at the Puffing Billy desk.
- Ticket to Ride “minis”
- Ticket to Ride World Maps
- Great Western Trail – Argentina & New Zealand, El Paso
- Lightning Train
Game Availability
It is strongly suggested that you bring your own copy of a game to ensure that you can play it. There are some games available from the GCOM library at the convention, and the conductor will also bring some. If more people show up to play a game for the time slot than there are games to accommodate everyone, the people that brought the game will have first priority and the remaining players will be determined by lot.
Plaque
The top finisher in the overall tournament will have their name engraved on the EuroQuest Puffing Billy plaque and will receive an individual take home plaque.
Overall Puffing Billy Tournament Rules
All games are to be played according to the latest published game rules version, with TGA exceptions. Call the Conductor if there are any questions. Variants may be played with Conductor approval if all players approve. Conductor rulings are final.
Scoresheet completion instructions
Take the correct scoresheet corresponding to the game category you are playing. At the start of the game, fill in the day, start time, game played, the player name and badge number. After completion, fill out the ending time, place results, and score for each player. Each player is responsible for completing the scoresheet and turning it in to the scoring table. See the conductor if there are any questions.
Puffing Billy scoring
Modified Puffing Billy scoring:
For the purposes of scoring in the Puffing Billy tournament, a player’s best score in each of the four categories will be used to determine their overall Puffing Billy score. Only games of 3 or more players will count towards Puffing Billy scores.
1 point for winning the game, plus 1 point for finishing ahead of each opponent (i.e, winning a 6-player game is worth 6 points). Additional fractional points are awarded based on percentage of total score in the game for each player
Bonus calculations: (totaling 1.00 for all players in a game)
The bonus for each player equals the percentage of their score to the total score in the game
Scoring for the 18xx tournament:
The top 4 scores in the three 18xx heats will advance to the final on Saturday night. Scoring will use the Puffing Billy system, which emphasizes not only winning, but margin of victory. Only the best score for each player will count towards placement in the final, number of wins or number of heats entered will not.
Last Updated Nov 3, 2025