European Tantrix Championship 2002 - The Final - Preview & Report

Preview:

The Final is due to be played on Wednesday 1 May and Thursday 2 May at 19.00 GMT / 20.00 BST / 21.00 CET. Spectators are welcome, but both players would like to request complete silence during the games and may ignore all spectator comments - a request from Franky which I am happy to agree to.

Thanks go to Franky who has provided many of the stats for this preview of the Final.

First, what do the two players have in common? Well, both players came second in their qualifying groups (as did last year's finalists and the other semi-finalists this year, strangely enough) with a TP% between 59-60%, both less than 4 TPs behind the group winner and well ahead of the player in 3rd place. Franky had a W 7 D 1 L 2 record in his group games and Steven a W 8 D 1 L 3 record in a group with one extra player. In the KO phase, both players have the same record so far - W 12 D 2 L 4.

Both players were in Group D in 2001, Steven coming 3rd and Franky 5th. Amazingly, Franky has already met, and beaten, the players who finished 4th and 6th in that group in this year's KO phase. Steven won the 2-game match against Franky in that group, but this year has been the year of revenge wins so far ...

Both players beat members of the Scott family in the SFs. Franky's closest call was against Heli Niemi (FIN) in the last 16, but he scraped through that match 65.3-54.7 by getting the win he needed in the final game and Steven's was against Kevin Baird (GBR) in the last 16, where after losing games 4 and 5 he was within one tile in game 6 of throwing away the huge advantage he had held after the first three games.

Given that players from 10 countries entered the tournament, it is surprising that both players have only met players from three other countries - Steven has played against other British players, French and Germans and Franky has only played Britons, Finns and Hungarians.

As for the differences ... well, no. 4 seed Steven Trezise (GBR) won the first World Championship in 1998 (when it was rather easier to win than it is today!) and came 3rd in 2000. He also finished 2nd in the European Championship in 1999. His big SF win has left him still in with a chance of becoming only the second player after Matt Peek (NZL) to gain a third and final TGM norm if the Final goes well.

On the other hand, Franky's best performance was in the 2000 WTC Plate, where he came 3rd= with Heli. Steven's Elo rating, lobby and master rankings are all far ahead of Franky's too. So what chance does Franky have? Well, probably quite a high one. Unseeded, he has been the scourge of both the seeds and the British players so far and he has nothing to lose in the Final.

Franky has beaten every seed he has played so far - no. 1 seed Péter Petrecz (HUN) and no. 12 seed Simon Wright (GBR) in the group phase, then no. 8 seed Heli Niemi (FIN) and no. 16 seed Marion Scott (GBR) in the KO phase. Steven's only match win against a seeded player so far was his record win over no. 2 seed Kevin Scott (GBR) in the SF.

Franky has played matches against four British players in the tournament so far and has won them all (indeed he is the only player to have beaten a British player in the whole of the KO phase) while Steven has only played one other French player so far, last year's European Championship runner-up Philippe Durand (who was also in Group D last year!), and narrowly lost that match, though he did come well ahead of Philippe in the final table.

As you can see, both players have had a mixture of similar and very different experiences in this and previous tournaments, but both are on a roll and it should be quite a match!

Report - First Session - 1 May:

No. 4 seed Steven Trezise (GBR) led unseeded Franky Heyer (FRA) in the Final by 40.1-19.9 at the halfway point after two wins and a draw. As is so often the case in finals, the first session was characterised by nervous, below par play from both players.

Franky is very good at line-building and creating difficult problems for his opponent in the early part of the game, and Steven nervously started at least two of the three games playing like a beginner. In each case the pendulum swung soon after the halfway point, when Steven woke up to the danger he was in and his better blocking and endgame play (coupled with the odd small mistake from Franky under pressure) saved him from what had looked like probable defeats in all three games.

Report - Second Session - 2 May:

No. 4 seed Steven Trezise (GBR) held his nerve in the final game (well, just about!) to become the first British player ever to win the European Championship a long three and a half years after his previous win in the 1998 World Championship ... but he only just made it.

An exciting final session drew in spectators until there were a record-equalling 11 watching the final game as unseeded Franky Heyer (FRA), backed by an impressive group of French supporters, mounted a sprited fightback from a 40.1-19.9 deficit after the first session. Both players were playing better than the previous day at the start of game 4, but Franky got ahead and when Steven tried to distract him by threatening a largish loop, Franky replied by blocking both ends of his line along a controlled side. It was a bit risky but it worked, the crucial forced space not being filled until near the end of the game, and while Steven played the endgame better than Franky once again he had too much to claw back and Franky won 14-12.

Now things were getting tense, with everyone remembering that anything can happen in any given Tantrix game and that Steven had almost lost his QF after having an even bigger overnight lead. Franky started game 5 with a strong opening that had Steven in big trouble right from the start. In the middle of the game, with few attractive options, Steven created a BYB forced space which when filled would have given him the lead. Even though he thought after counting many times that there was only one BYB tile left and knew it was risky, all the other options looked even worse.

However, this was a terrible blunder because he had miscounted under pressure - as virtually all the spectators knew, the last BYB was already out! Things got worse when, with one tile left in the bag, and still thinking it had to be the vital BYB, Steven played to block one end of Franky's line. He then had to look on in stunned disbelief - not only was the last tile not a BYB, but it filled the block in Franky's line allowing him to add a few more tiles to it AND to add insult to injury, it forced a tile which blocked the free end of Steven's own line, so Franky won 22-16.

With Steven in shock at making such an appalling mistake, the French began to scent victory, and if the atmosphere was tense in the previous game, now the hearts of both players were really pounding. After a short break to compose himself, Steven made the stronger start to game 6. Franky then surprised everyone by turning Steven into an indirectly-connected loop of 12 tiles. Maybe a sudden loss of confidence made him think that he could not win the game by line-building and felt he had to trust to luck or maybe he thought he could block his way to victory, not usually the strongest part of his game. Anyway, the die was cast - if the loop completed, Steven would almost certainly win since blocking play was one of his strengths but if not, the title would be Franky's. Everyone in the game room held their breath ...

On his next free move (move 13), Franky created a YY space on the controlled side which Steven needed to fill. A good move at first sight, but in fact World Champion Matt Peek pointed out afterwards that Franky could have increased his chances of winning hugely by instead playing the same tile at the top of the Tantrix with the YY on top, creating BB spaces on either side of the crucial forced space and hence cutting the number of tiles that could fit that forced space before the endgame to just one. In the end the loop completed and while Franky extended his line well and Steven spent a long time nervously checking and double-checking the various tile counts, in the end he blocked Franky's line and won the game 24-16 to win the Final by 66.7-53.3 TPs. Both players, and probably most of the spectators too, were exhausted!

Knockout Phase Results Page

2002 European Championship Home Page

The date and time are :

Tuesday, 13-May-2008 09:50:06 GMT
Tuesday, 13-May-2008 10:50:06 BST (local)

This file was last modified on Tuesday, 21-Mar-2006 21:15:17 GMT

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