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1 1st Blitz (7-minute) Tantrix Championship
Qualifier 1 - Sunday 10 August 2003
3247
9 7 5 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 Report by tournament controller Steven Trezise: Congratulations to World Champion Matt Peek (NZL), who won Qualifier 1 with 7.0/8, and to Hungarian Champion Miklos Hansel (HUN), who claimed the other SF place by coming 2nd with 6.5/8. Matt won his first 5 games to be a whole point ahead of the field, but nearly slipped up v Neil Jenner (GBR), winning 28-26 with 6:55 on his clock and 7:02 on Neil's! Miklos beat Matt in R7 to leave 5 players within a point of Matt at the start of the final round, but beating British Open Champion Ben Polman (NED) in R8 sealed Matt's victory. Miklos beat Rob Morton (GBR) to win the battle of the two players with 5.5 and claim 2nd place.
Neil Jenner (GBR) finished a very impressive 3rd, 0.5 behind Miklos with NZ Champion Murray Pharaoh (NZL) 4th on 5.5, just ahead of Rob and Eleanor Gordon (GBR), who also performed well above her rating, on tiebreak. Even Neal Bolton (GBR) and Christine Dreesen (GER) on 5.0 (another two players who shone by doing better than results in 'normal' tournaments might have indicated) were only 2 points behind the winner - it was a very close contest indeed!
Well done also to Tamas Gombkoto (HUN) and Simon Wright (GBR), who reached the U16 SFs by finishing 10th and 11th overall with 4.5 points, and to GBR who won the team challenge thanks to their top 3 (Neil in 3rd, Rob in 5th and Eleanor in 6th) scoring 17.0, just 0.5 ahead of NZL, i.e. Matt in 1st, Murray in 4th and Peter West in 14th, who were in turn just 1.5 points ahead of HUN, who only had 4 players to choose their 3 from. NB. The team comp was very ad hoc since some countries had a lot more players than others.