Report on BOTTC 2004 (by Simon Wright)
The 3rd British Open Table Tantrix Championship on the 1st and 2nd of May turned out to be as exciting and as dramatic as both proceeding championships.
Friday:
Many of the players (myself, Ben, Brigitte, Thomas, Daniela, Zoltán, Petra, Mauro, Marion & Kevin, Alex & Dale, Karen and the Andersson family) played lots of totally un-tantrix related games on Friday night to take our mind off the tournament the next day. Julia arrived with the draw for the groups the next day, with everyone trying to claim that their group was the hardest!
Saturday:
The players started to arrive at the B&B on Saturday morning, and even trying to remember everybody’s names turned out to be a difficult task in the end. At 8:45, the procession departed to Parkside Community College, led by Ben as one of the only players who could remember the way from last year. As everybody filtered in, the final preparations of the (excellent) name tags were made. The last players arrived, and round 1 was under way
Round 1 (vs Polly Mackay)
My first game of the tournament was against Polly Mackay, who had reached the Consolation quarter-finals. The game was relatively tight at the start, but as I was able to take advantage of one of my ends not being on a controlled side, I pulled away. At the end of the game, Polly was trying not to concede a third time penalty, and thus let me add an extra 4 tiles to my line. The final score was 24-10, and with the two time penalties, the score was 19.0-1.0 TPs. All the games in this round went to the higher seeded player.
Round 1 action on tables 1 and 2
Round 2 (vs Petra Wark (15))
My first game against a seeded opponent was against Petra. This is about the one game of the tournament I can’t remember too well, but I do remember that Petra made 2 mistake penalties (which eventually pushed her over the time limit) and she started playing fairly recklessly after that. Poor early tiles for both players did not help the game develop. The final score was 20-14, and with the two time penalties it was 17.3-2.7 TPs, leaving me on a rather respectable 36.3/40 after 2 games J. In this round, Heli beat Eleanor on table 1, Thomas shocked Jens on table 3 and Polly won a hard-fought game over Mike on table 4.
Round 3 (vs Jens Ekengren)
This was another very tight game. I managed to take an early 2-3 tile lead in the line-building stakes and held onto it. Around 10 moves from the endgame, a controlled side broke that enabled Jens to connect another 9 to his line. Luckily, it was my free move and I had a tile to block the connection. In the first game I played with no mistake penalties, I won 17-12 (15.0-5.0 TPs). Also in this round, Zoltán and Heli kept up 100% records with wins over Polly and Thomas and Mike was Petra-fied (I’m sorry, the only time I’ll use that!) on table 4.
Round 4 (vs Heli Niemi (7))
I had won 3/3 before this game, and Heli had won 2/2, so both of us couldn’t maintain our 100% records after it. Heli took advantage of good early tiles and combined it with good line-building to take a good lead. I was rather lucky to keep the game close and in the end lost by 3 tiles, 20-17 (14.3-5.7 TPs). In the other all-seeded clash, Zoltán matched Heli’s 3 wins out of 3 by beating Petra, Eleanor beat Thomas after having a draw with a time penalty, and Jens won his first game on table 4 against Mike.
Round 5 (vs Eleanor Gordon)
If the game against Heli was the start of the slide, the game against Eleanor was the middle, end and aftermath! Eleanor managed to build her line quickly, and with constant loop threats I was often forced to add to her line. At one stage I had to spend 10 minutes on 1 move! In the end, Eleanor played very well to take an 11 tile win, with 2 mistake penalties on top of the 20:01 on my clock, meaning that although the tile score was 27-16, she won the game by a massive 19.4-0.6 TPs, the biggest margin at that stage! Elsewhere, Zoltán, Heli and Petra beat Jens, Mike and Polly respectively.
Round 6 (vs Thomas Bächle)
After the disastrous result against Eleanor, I was determined not to lose this game. I even enlisted the help of Petra’s bear for the cause (she was on a bye). I was quite fortunate that Thomas made an early mistake to let me loop him for 16. He did make up for it with some excellent defensive play, but in the end I was able to win by 20-16 (14.7-5.3 TPs). Meanwhile, on table 1, the two remaining 100% records of Zoltán and Heli were playing each other, and there was some great shock when Heli came out with a 20.0-0.0 TP win! On table 3, Eleanor beat Mike and Jens drew with Polly on table 4.
Round 7 (bye)
In the game closest to the camera, Eleanor beat Zoltán 36-21 to move onto 5 wins from 6 games into a clear 2nd place, and leave Zoltán with only 2.8 TPs from 2 games! On table 2, Heli took 18TPs off Polly, Jens beat Petra on table 3 and Thomas beat Mike on table 4.
Round 7 action in groups A
(top-left), B (top-right), C (bottom-left) and D (bottom-right)
Round 8 (vs Mike Gwilliam)
My penultimate game of the day was against Mike, who had failed to win a game out of the 7 he had played that day. At the start of the game, I added to my line quite a lot, but the game became very blocked quite quickly, and my line was in a bit of trouble. I had given him a loop of 16, and was beginning to wonder if this was a mistake. However, I was able to extend my line to 19, and Mike’s line fell one short on 18, leaving me with a very close 1-tile win and Mike very unlucky to end the day without a win. On table 1, Zoltán lost the third game in a row, against Thomas, Heli taking her 7th win in a row against Petra and Eleanor having to work hard for a draw against Polly.
Round 9 (vs Zoltán Németh ITM (1))
When the fixture list came out on Friday night, I knew this was going to be a big match, but I hadn’t envisaged Zoltán losing the previous 3 games. We both had a chance of going 3rd with wins here, if Eleanor lost to Petra. Zoltán started out of the blocks quickly and raced into the lead. I had a 2/4 chance of connecting my two lines, and when Zoltán pair blocked it, it became 1/2. I was able to block one end of his line, and he was able to waste all 4 tiles left and the two tiles which would have connected my line at the left. Darn. But, in doing so, he (very unfortunately) left me with an opportunity to connect the line at the right. I took my opportunity, and took a 27-23 tile win. Zoltán pointed out to me that I could have added to my line, but I was so concerned with blocking his line, I didn’t think it would matter.
How wrong I was! Petra beat Eleanor by 2 tiles (it could have been 3, but she was under severe time pressure), but she conceded a time penalty. After some desperate arithmetic, I realised I had come up 0.2 TPs short of here total, 1 tile over 8 games! Thomas had a chance of going 4th and qualifying for the 9th-16th group if he beat Polly, but he lost all 20 TPs to finish 6th. However, easily top of the group was Heli, who finished off with a win over Jens to take 8 wins from 8 games.
Heli and Eleanor qualified for the 1st-8th group, where Eleanor would compete with Niklas Andersson for the junior gold and silver medals.
I qualified for the 9th-16th group, and thus won the junior bronze medal in the process. Zoltán also qualified in 4th place. We would be joined by:
Group B – 3rd Kevin Scott & 4th Kati Karlsson
Group C – 3rd Monica Andersson & 4th Lewis Palmer
Group D – 3rd Paul Smith & 4th Ben Polman ITM
Saturday evening:
On Saturday evening, most of the players and relatives/spectators went to Chili’s restaurant for a group meal.
Kate & Eleanor Niklas,
Monica, Patrick & Jens
Lewis & Sarah Tom & Victoria
Notable highlights include:
A lot of photos, some unwelcome!
Floating frogs
A semi-floating bear
Awards: -
Most outrageous – Tuomo for his hat
Star – Jens
Most grumpy – Kevin
Best Babysitter – Mauro
Best laugh/giggle – Niklas
Indulgence – Rob for cuddly toys, Jens for caffeine…
After the meal the people staying at the B&B headed back, most with, and a couple without, shoes (Rob). More games were played, but a relatively early night was had by most people…
Sunday:
The first thing that took place on Sunday morning was the group photo. After a lot of running around, and a nearly forgotten bear, the final result can be seen here.
Round 1 (vs Zoltán Németh ITM (1))
When I looked at the fixture list for the first time, I almost thought that Steven and Julia had done this on purpose! Anyway, this game was slightly more even on the luck front, although Zoltán did get a lucky draw for a 13-tile loop. I tried very hard, but was not able to extend my line enough, eventually losing 26-22 (14.7-5.3 TPs). On table 6, Ben beat Lewis, Kati shocked Kevin on table 7 and Monica won against Paul on table 8.
Round 2 (vs Kati Karlsson)
This, like the majority of my games, was very close at the beginning. I began to pull out a lead, and took advantage to make almost certain of a connection to add 5 to my line. With 8 tiles left, 3 being forced, Kati could only force 2. When neither of the tiles came, I was able to force 4 and get the forced tiles, and waste them where I wanted. In the end, the score was 21-12 (16.0-4.0 TPs). On table 5, Zoltán beat Kevin, Ben beat Monica on table 7 and Lewis was too strong for Paul on table 8.
Round 3 (vs Monica Andersson (9))
At the start of this game, the line were dead level. Monica took a slight advantage with the line building, but in doing so left her line close to a loop but hoping on a forced space. I built my line and created as many duplicates as I could for the space, and it paid off when I was able to play the non-yellow tile. Monica had created an extra bit which would add to her line if 1 out of the 2 remaining tiles for the space came out. The wrong one came out, immediately followed by the right one, and so she got a loop threat K. Luckily enough, I got the last tile from the bag, the crucial YBY, and it meant that she couldn’t join her loop up. In the end, I won 17-13 with a time penalty (15.7-4.3 TPs). The other 3 tables all had wins for the higher ranked player, with Zoltán, Ben and Kevin beating Paul, Kati and Lewis respectively.
Lunchtime:
There was great excitement at lunchtime as the reigning Countdown champion was spotted by Tom, Paul and Neil, none of whom wanted to claim responsibility for recognising him or getting his name. For the same reason, no-one went up to him to introduce him to tantrix, and he got away. Maybe just as well…
Round 4 (vs Paul Smith)
The first game in the last session matched me with Paul, the lowest ranked player to make the top 16. We both play the same 1st choice colour, so I played blue and he played yellow. We were roughly level around half-way through, when I realised I was playing against red and not yellow… I was quite lucky that in keeping the two red lines apart, I’d also kept the 2 yellow lines apart. I was able to quickly block one end of his line and as the other end was on a controlled side, he couldn’t do much. I came out a lucky 19-14 (15.0-5.0 TPs) winner, and he admitted that he’d thought I was playing against the wrong colour as I was playing strange moves, but that might just be the way I play! Zoltán maintained his 100% record against Monica, but Ben lost his to Kevin, and Lewis kept up the pressure on 2nd by beating Kati.
Round 5 (vs Kevin Scott (8))
The run for home began here against 3 other seeded players. Kevin had the instantly better tiles at the start of the game, maybe because he won the toss to be red, who knows! Anyway, he had a 2-tile lead and repeated loop threats. Seem familiar? With flashbacks to the previous day, I decided to be bold and not deal with the loop unless he could definitely connect it. In the end, he won 24-22 (13.9-6.1 TPs), but my line of 22 only needed 1 blue corner to be a loop of 23 L. Zoltán moved onto 5 from 5 with a win against Kati, Ben moved back into second with a win over Paul (who had beaten him the previous day), and Lewis beat Monica on table 8.
Round 6 (vs Ben Polman ITM (4))
The game against Ben was one of the strangest I have played, and I was also looking forward to it as a form of “revenge” for the ETC L16 match. Anyway, it started with the lines being of roughly equal length, but when Ben pair-blocked my last 2 RYRs I was in trouble. I then decided on a bold move, I blocked one end of his line and either let him extend his line to 19 but have both ends blocked (like a loop) or keep them open, but only be on 13. After a few minutes, he went for the 19. People looking at the game (Kevin and Zoltán) were looking at it, and then looking at me with an “oh dear, he’s going to get a 40-loop” face. I couldn’t turn round and say, “it’s OK, it’s blocked”, because I wanted to make him spend the time counting it J. In the end, we ended up wasting tiles in one corner, and most of the gaps couldn’t be forced. When the forced space broke 4 tiles from the end, I was able to connect to the tiles we had wasted, and I took the game by 22-19. However, Ben had conceded 3 time pens and a mistake pen and I had just managed to stay under time, so I won the game by 18.3 TPs to 1.7, which doesn’t reflect fairly on the effort that went into the game. Zoltán moved to 1 game away from an unbeaten day with a win over Lewis, Kevin beat Paul and Monica beat Kati, and although beaten, this guaranteed Kati the “rising stars” gold medal and Paul the silver.
Round 7 (vs Lewis Palmer (13))
In my final game, I was up against Lewis. I felt I had the better opening and rushed into a 5-6 tile lead, but Lewis played very well to peg it back. I had a poor tile draw which enabled Lewis to move my line away from the 5 tile extra bit I wanted to add it to, but poor counting meant it was in part my own fault for forcing it. I got the first move in the endgame (by 1 tile, again!) and decided to go for the conservative approach and block his connection than go for my own, which required a lot of counting. In the end, I was able to get a 2-tile win 19-17 (13.9-6.1 TPs), a very low tile score considering it was nearly that score 15 tiles from the endgame! Zoltán beat Ben to get a 100% record from day 2, and knock Ben down to 4th (12th overall). Kevin beat Monica, but it wasn’t enough to move out of 3rd (11th), which meant that I got 10th J. Also, Paul, determined not to lose every game on Sunday, beat Kati on table 8. It wasn’t quite enough to move him out of 16th, but it does mean he can have a claim on Kati’s gold medal!
In the main competition, Rob took the trophy after winning all 14 of his games, with Niklas coming in a very impressive 2nd. Tom came 3rd to keep up his run of podiums, Zoltán won the 9th-16th group, Niklas won the juniors with Eleanor in 2nd and myself 3rd, and Kati took the “rising stars” from Paul and Karen, who also won the 17th-34th competition. I think it’s fair to say that fun was had by all, and that next year’s tournament is already greatly anticipated. Many thanks to Rick for organising the accommodation and to Steven & Julia for controlling the tournament and making it all run so smoothly!