7th European Tantrix Championship 2005    
won by Zoltán Németh ITM (HUN)

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The European Tantrix Championship, played online, was open to all Tantrix players living in or coming from Europe. It was won by no. 1 seed Zoltán Németh ITM (HUN), who had captained Hungary to two World Team Championships but was still seeking his first major individual title. This makes Hungary the first country to have had three European Champions and with no. 8 seed László Szobonya (who also took time out from, this tournament to win the recent British Open!) finishing as runner-up, this was also the first Euro Final with two players from the same country and also the most one-sided.

3rd place went to no. 6 seed James Else (GBR), who beat this year's surprise package, 9-year-old Omer Chor (ISR) in the playoff. It was an odd-looking knockout draw, with Zoltán having to beat the no. 2 and no. 3 seeds on his way to the Final (his own 'fault', because he only finished 3rd in Group A!) and the top quarter looking much easier than the rest (as the Elo ratings for the tournament are bound to reflect, to at least some extent), and the fact that Omer lost 11 of his last 12 games in the tournament supports that perception, yet it was still an amazing achievement at that age to get so far!

The Consolation tournament for those knocked out in Phase 1 of the main event was well-supported this year and was won by Zoe Andrews (GBR), who beat reigning World Junior Champion 9-year-old Hidde Ozinga (NED) in the Final. 13-year old Thomas Durand (FRA) finished 3rd.

In all, 138 players took part, among them 30 new tournament players, including the first-ever tournament entrants from Denmark. 98 of these players took part in Phase 1 and the 40 qualifiers joined the top 40 players on seeding points in Phase 2. Players from a record 16 countries played in Phase 1 this year and their flags are shown below. All except ESP & NOR had at least one player in Phase 2 - there were 22 qualifiers from HUN, 17 from GBR, 11 from FRA, 8 from SWE, 6 from GER, 4 from ISR, 2 each from BEL, DEN, FIN & NED and 1 each from IRL, POL, POR & TUR. Eight countries got representatives through to the Phase 3 knockout - there are 9 qualifiers from GBR & HUN, 6 from FRA, 3 from SWE, 2 from GER and one each from BEL, ISR & POL.

If you would like to enter NEXT year's (2006) European Championship, please click here.

33 29 20 12 11 10 7 3
3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

THE DRAW, RESULTS and PLAYER DETAILS
PHASE 3: DRAW and RESULTS for the last 32 onwards
(last updated Thursday, 02-Jun-2005 21:46:15 BST)
PHASE 2: SUMMARY RESULTS for GROUPS A-J & links to detailed group results
PHASE 1: FINAL RESULTS and links to individual Group 1-20 pages
CONSOLATION COMPETITION: Groups U-Z     KO Phase

SEND a new game result - Main KO Phase     SEND a new game result - Consolation KO

'Live' unofficial Main KO Phase results (use "ac" as username and password)
Euro previews, reports, polls, etc     Register to add reports / vote

FINAL LIST OF ENTRANTS:     in seeding bands     by country

ARRANGING GAMES / TIME ZONES
HELP WITH ARRANGING GAMES - email addresses, preferences, etc
Time Zone Conversion Table
Click here to add/change time details or away dates

TOURNAMENT RULES & CONTROLLERS
Summary tournament rules     FULL TOURNAMENT RULES
Rčglement     Regeln für Turniere
    A bajnokságok általános szabályai
*TIEBREAKS* "Decisive victory" rule - applies to Phase 3 (knockout) ONLY
also in French     also in Hungarian
NB. the full rules and the "decisive victory" rule in English will always take precedence if other versions differ
Click here to email Steven, the overall controller (but please try contacting your Assistant Controller first)

OTHER USEFUL PAGES
Eleanor Gordon's multi-lingual Tantrix phrasebook
Tantrix strategy advice and hints
Tournament World Records
General tournament seeding list and Elo ratings

Past Euros:   2004   2003   2002   2001   2000   1999
Top threes - all Tantrix tournaments

TANTRIX TOURNAMENTS HOME PAGE


Entering the NEXT European Championship - early 2006 - Notes for Entrants

All the notes are on this page - if you only want a specific section, click on one of these links:

Who can enter?    Tournament format    Rules
Free entry    Elo ratings/Seeding method    Final note

Who can enter:

The next European Tantrix Championship will take place in early 2006 and is open to players of all standards who either live in Europe or who come from Europe. There is no entry fee and while there are deadlines for matches to be completed, there are no fixed match times - you arrange a mutually convenient date and time for each match with your opponents.

Please note that if you come from Europe but no longer live there, you should enter only if you are willing to play the majority of your games at times convenient to those in Europe, i.e. mainly their evenings and weekends. In addition, if you enter this tournament you will be treated as coming from the European country you register with for the purposes of deciding your eligibility to enter any other tournaments in the 2006 season. eg. if you come from NZ but live in Europe, you can enter either the NZ or the Euro in 2006 but not both.

Tournament format:

The precise format of the 2006 Championship is subject to review once we know the number of entrants, however:

At least half of the places in Phase 2 will be filled by the entrants with the highest tournament seeding points. The remaining entrants will have to play Phase 1 preliminary matches in order to qualify for Phase 2. If the number of entrants is less than 120, the number of automatic qualifiers will rise and the number of Phase 1 groups will fall until each Phase 1 group remaining has at least four players.

Phase 2 will be a group phase involving ten all-play-all groups of eight players each.

The top three (or more) in each group will qualify for Phase 3, the last 32 knockout phase, in May.

You will need to arrange and play about 2 matches per week on average during the preliminary and main group phases and they will consist of 3 games, so they will take about an hour each. Knockout phase matches will be about twice as long and you will need to play 1-2 matches per week if you play in either of those phases. Please do not enter the Championship unless you intend to find the time to arrange and play all of your matches.

From March, there will be links on this page to fixture lists and results, which will be updated every day or two.


Rules:

The standard tournament rules apply eg. the time limit is 15 minutes per player per game and matches are scored using tournament points, which are mainly based on who wins and loses each game but also make some allowance for margins of victory.

Click here if you want to see the full rules or click here for just a summary of the main rules. The rules are also available in other languages as follows: French le rčglement, German die Regeln and Hungarian, a bajnokságok általános szabályai. .

Free Entry:

There is no entry fee and the winner will be able to call themselves the 2006 European Tantrix Champion. In order to maintain the integrity of online tournaments, we do not seek to award big prizes in order to avoid increasing any temptation for people to try to cheat.

Elo ratings / Seeding method:

All games played will count towards the Tantrix Tournament Elo Ratings which are the main factor in deciding seedings for future tournaments. See the
Elo seeding list page for details, but please note that you do NOT need to have an Elo rating in order to enter.

Final note:

The main tournament controller and contact will be Steven Trezise, email
tournaments@tantrix.co.uk. However, a non-European player will act as the independent non-playing controller in situations where a conflict of interest might arise. In the case of disputes, the decisions of the controllers will be final. Assistant Controllers, who will be the first point of contact for players in specific sections of the draw, will be appointed later.

To avoid chaos, we have to reserve the right to default at our discretion people whom we have very good reason to think are either cheating or not making an effort to arrange a match, even if (given the nature of the Internet) we cannot conclusively prove it. We will not, however, abuse this right and it is only ever used in extreme circumstances.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE ENTRY FORM FOR NEXT YEAR

Click here to add/change time details if you have already entered
Click here to send an email if you have any questions

Eleanor Gordon's multi-lingual Tantrix phrasebook
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