Tantrix Tournament Reports

[Sirpi]

An early R2 game with a question: "Can sirpi take a revenge on behalf of leslie, who was beaten by lolo in R1?"

3 games were arranged to 15th Sep, 15 GMT and they were started smoothly.

Game 1 was close, both of us built our lines and lolo had the first free move with a lead of 20-18. But I had dangerous connections at both ends, and they couldn't be blocked at the same time, so I won the game by 24-22.

Game 2 was a painful game, blocked from the start, but I was luckier, and picked up the crucial tiles, so Laurent's line didn't join at the end (and mine did), thus I won by a nice margin, by 23-10.

Game 3 was also interesting, I had a long, but not connected line, and lolo had only 7 points at move 30. But then he started to fill the forced spaces, and I just looked his act as an outsider. Finally he blocked one of my corner connection and built his line with fast speed. But it was a bit late, I won G3 by 18-16.

That was the point, when I wanted to arrange the second session (at the score 44.6-15.4), but lolo wanted to finish... I agreed.

Game 4 Separate line buildings at both sides, but at about move 40 I noticed that no more red corners are in the bag. So I was blocked similarly like in G3, and in time pressure I didn't find the best block for Laurent's dangerous end. This morning I found, and with my perfect play it would have been a draw, but yesterday I lost by 3.

Game 5 Lolo made a loop of 15 tiles so soon with 2 corners missing. I defended against it before, but lolo had one chance to pick up a tile to the blocked space, and he did, so he could easily made the loop in his free move. I didn't see any chances to block one of the missing corners, so I tried to build my line. It worked for a while, but lolo blocked my left end before move 40, and I could add only 1 tile to the other end (after the bag became empty), so the game resulted in 24-30.

The score after 5 games (3-2) was 55-45 TPs for me. If lolo wins the last, then a tiebreak game is needed, moreover if he wins by 17 then he wins the whole match. A draw was enough for me to qualify to R3.

Game 6 This game was also blocked. But I knew that I only had to wait to the important tiles, and my line can join. I had a bit of luck additionally, so in this game lolo saw my tile-placing activity without a chance of interaction. At the end my 28-21 win meant my qualification by 70.5-49.5 TPs.

In summary, Laurent was a tough oppo, and with more luck he would have made the match much harder.
I wish good luck him in the Plate, he'll likely do well there.

My R3 oppo is unknown at this moment, I'll play against the winner of the Othello-Pierre match, it will be worth spectating.

Thanks, if you had patience to read this long story

Sirpi