PREVIEW by 2002 European Champion Steven Trezise:

Here is a long preview to keep you going all the way through until Friday - maybe it will even spark a few interesting discussions!

Reigning Champion, first ever Tantrix Grand Master and no. 1 seed Matt Peek (NZL) and no. 26 seed Dave Dyer (USA) will contest this year's World Tantrix Championship Final over three sessions of three games each on Fri 29 Nov, Sat 30 Nov and Sun 1 Dec at 22.00 GMT.

This is the fourth year in a row that a player from Auckland has reached the Final and the third year in a row that we have had a northern hemisphere v southern hemisphere Final.

Firsts:

Dave has already claimed two WTC 'firsts':

a) Dave is the first American to reach (or even get anywhere near) the Final. Indeed, perhaps the biggest surprise so far this year is that there are no Europeans in the Final, given that a large majority of the entrants were from that continent, 11 of them reached the last 16 and two reached the SFs. This probably reflects the fact that the upsurge in Tantrix interest in Europe took place fairly recently. The players making up most of the increase in the number of Europeans are relatively inexperienced, whereas both of this year's finalists have been playing Tantrix for four years or more.

b) Dave is the first player in his 40s to reach the Final and hence the oldest player ever to reach the Final by some distance - last year's runner-up Heli Niemi (FIN) at just 26 had been the oldest Finalist since the current knockout format started and 2000 Champion Julia Schwarz (GBR) is the oldest winner of a knockout format WTC so far at just 24. While I won the original WTC in 1998 at 33, clearly that was not achieved under the same kind of pressure as the players have to face nowadays in repeated KO matches and even 33 was 16 years younger than Dave is now.

On the other hand, Matt is clearly the strongest player in the world at the moment and has plenty of firsts of his own, for example:

a) Matt is the first ever Tantrix Grand Master.

b) Matt is the first player ever to reach the WTC Final twice.

c) Matt became the first player ever to win two tournaments in a row when he won this year's NZ Championship.

2002 so far - Matt:

Unlike previous WTC winners, Matt did not seem to feel the pressure in his first tournament following his WTC win, storming to victory in the NZ Championship and in the process stretching his winning and undefeated tournament game (TG) run records to 19 and 26 games respectively, far ahead of anything that had ever been achieved before. He then captained NZL 'A' to victory in the first World Team Championship.

Matt had a relatively easy draw early on in this year's WTC, not meeting a seed in the first four rounds and with only the fast-improving Matthias Neumeister (GER) in R2 putting up much of a fight. Zoran Tomovski (MKD) and Thierry Berguin (FRA) were shown no mercy when Matt beat them by 5 games to 0 and 6 games to 0 in R1 and R3 respectively, and Eleanor Gordon (GBR) was beaten by 5 games to 0 with a draw in the last 16, though those who watched that match and Matt himself will confirm that she put up more of a fight than that scoreline suggests.

Probably Matt's most impressive performance so far was against the no. 20 seed Jérôme Papillon (FRA) in the QFs. Despite losing his first game in three rounds, Matt won the other six to record a really emphatic win against the 1998 WTC runner-up.

Matt's SF was a repeat of last year's SF against Péter Petrecz (HUN), and would probably have made a worthy Final in either year. Matt (through both skill and a fair amount of luck) held a big lead at the end of the first half of the match as he had last year. However, Péter mounted a better comeback in the second half this year, and although Matt had the match sewn up with one game to go, only 10.2 TPs separated these two players in the end. One consolation for Péter is that he looks very likely to be no. 2 in the overall Elo ratings at the end of the year and if he and Matt maintain their seeding positions until the next WTC, they will not be able to meet until the Final!

2002 so far - Dave:

Dave started off his tournament year in his usual fashion, with 3rd place in the Pan-American Championship for the third year running - quite an achievement in itself. His TP% in the Pan Am all-play-all has dropped each year though, and until his dramatic change of fortune this year, he had been going out of the WTC one round earlier each year. He was then part of the USA 'A' team that came 4th in the World Team Championship, his thrashing of Kevin Scott (GBR) in the QFs being pivotal in his team's shock win in that match.

Dave may have had a slightly easier draw in the QFs and SFs than Matt did, but he had a harder draw than Matt overall. His R1 opponent Petra Wark (NED) was a tournament newcomer whom he beat fairly convincingly, but he then had a very tricky draw in R2 against Hungarian Champion László Harsányi (HUN) who had only just missed out on a seeding place. However, after going a game behind, Dave won the remaining four games to win that match by a clear margin too.

Since then, all of Dave's matches have been very close and each one could have gone either way. Dave's big breakthrough came in R3, when he recovered from a slight deficit after four games to win the final two and beat no. 2 seed Leah Sanders (AUS), an achievement that makes it quite fitting that he has ended up reaching the Final.

Another very creditable and hard-fought win against former European Champion and no. 16 seed Ben Polman (NED) followed - in fact, this meant that Dave had destroyed the whole Dutch challenge single-handedly this year! In the QFs, Dave had to play another Hungarian Championship finalist, János Püspöki (HUN), a surprise package in this year's competition who had never really shone in an international tournament before. Dave was 0.4 TPs behind before the final game in this match but held his nerve to win it and progress to the SFs.

Dave's opponent in the SF was no. 11 seed Kevin Scott (GBR), looking for revenge for his humiliation at Dave's hands in the WTTC. It was a much closer match, with most of the games decided by just a couple of tiles, but Dave got his nose in front early on and kept himself far enough in the lead that he was never in any great danger of losing.

Strengths and weaknesses:

Matt has few weaknesses in his game, but his biggest strength is his defensive play - he has been known to block players so early in the game that hardly anyone watching even realises that he is doing it. Dave will have to be alert in the first half of the game and if 3-4 or more of any combination with Dave's colour on it come out of the bag early, he will have to play very carefully to ensure that he does not give Matt a chance of creating an unexpected permanent or near-permanent block.

Matt has proved that he can come back from almost any deficit to win a match. Dave will be well aware of this, because the last time Matt was in real trouble in a WTC match was in his first match last year against Dave's wife, Irene, who was two games up before Matt recovered to win the three remaining games - this has since been seen as marking the start of his recent dominance of the Tantrix world.

Dave's biggest strength is probably his tenacity. He never gives up on a game and can pull victory from the jaws of defeat right at the end of a game. He has quite an unusual style of play that players who are usually good defensively find hard to deal with, which might work in his favour against Matt.

Indeed, Dave has a history of regularly beating some of the top players and regularly getting thrashed by certain other top players, to a far more extreme extent than any other player I can think of. Kevin Scott (GBR) and I, along with quite a few others, fall into the former camp and prime examples of the latter from the early years of tournaments include Péter Petrecz (HUN) and, most of all, Britta Steude (NZL), who has always thrashed Dave to bits in tournament matches.

Who is expected to win?

Everything from his Elo rating, seeding and other rankings to his record in this WTC so far suggests that Matt is the clear favourite to win the Final by quite a distance. The players' pre-tournament Elo ratings suggest that if they played an infinite number of 9-game matches, Matt should win by 112.0-68.0 TPs on average, that Matt has a 74% chance of winning any given game and (if we assume that the result of each game is statistically independent) that Dave's chance of winning the 9-game match is only about 1 in 20. (*)

Even their provisional ratings so far for the 2002 WTC only suggest that Matt has a 20 TP advantage on average over a 9-game match and a 60% chance of winning any given game and that Dave has a 1 in 4 chance of winning the 9-game match. (*)

The calculated figures above may look quite extreme, especially the low probabilities of Dave winning the whole match, but to put them in context, Matt has now played 22 tournament matches of between 2 and 9 games each since the start of last year's WTC and has astonishingly won 21 of them! (**) Not only that, but the longer the match, the more chance the stronger player should have of winning it.

However (as Tantrix statisticians including Matt himself will be quick to point out) in reality Tantrix players are human and subject to wild swings of confidence, so the results of successive Tantrix games are not statistically independent. Any player who has had a long winning run followed by a long losing run will vouch for that! In simple terms, this means that outcomes where Dave wins by starting off well and getting Matt on the run and outcomes where Dave starts off badly and then gets completely thrashed are each a bit more likely than they would be if the result of one game had no effect on the result of the next game.

(*) NB. If the match-winning probabilities for the lower-rated player do not seem consistent with those quoted in previews of earlier rounds, that is because the earlier figures were slightly inflated due to an error in the very rough calculations I did when writing those previews - apologies for that. However, the expected long-run average match scores in those previews (which follow more directly from the Elo ratings) were calculated correctly.

(**) Matt's only tournament match defeat in the last 18 months was a narrow loss over two games to Australian Champion Josh Button (AUS) during the WTTC SF between NZL 'A' and AUS 'A'.

Can Dave possibly win?

What can Dave do to try to ensure that the WTC Final is the one occasion in many when he beats Matt in a 9-game match? Well, Matt's ability to come back from seemingly hopeless positions was mentioned above, but conversely if Matt does get ahead early, then he is really unstoppable, as his 5- and 6-game sweeps in the early rounds prove.

So, Dave will have to do everything he can to put Matt under pressure early on, perhaps taking some calculated risks in the first couple of games. Of course, these must not be the kind of risks that depend on Matt missing something because Matt does not seem to miss anything.

Winning the WTC again means a lot to Matt and he did take a little time to settle in last year's WTC Final, so maybe a nervous start from Matt will give Dave a chance to get ahead. Of course, Matt may have less first session nerves this year having been in the Final before and Dave will certainly be nervous himself because winning the WTC must mean a lot to him too.

If Dave does get ahead early on, that may dent Matt's confidence and cramp his playing style just enough to give Dave a chance of pulling off a momentous victory, but much as it would be nice to see the youthful domination of the WTC challenged by the person who has done so much to make online play possible, if I were to bet, I would have to put my money on Matt even at very short odds. There, with a prediction like that waiting to be blown apart, what more do you need on your side Dave! ;-)

By the way, as far as I can remember, Matt and Dave have never played each other in a tournament before.

... and one last piece of Tantrix trivia:

Matt may be interested to learn (and Dave keen to ignore) that the previous three World Championship Finals have all been won by players whose first choice colour was yellow. Obviously one of those three was Matt himself, but Julia Schwarz (GBR) played with yellow too and Zenon Kowalczyk (AUS) had registered yellow as his first choice even though he was unable to use it in the Final because his opponent Jamie Sneddon (NZL) had yellow registered as his first choice too.

Don't all rush to change your colour preferences at once ... ;-)


REVIEWS OF THE GAMES:

Once again, some of the strongest players in the world have kindly agreed to contribute some reports on the Final. Their reports will be posted during and after the Final. Reports often refer to the colours of lines, loops and links, so please note that Matt will be playing yellow and Dave green throughout.


GAME 1 by Tantrix Inventor & 1999 Pacific Champion Mike McManaway:

Click here to replay game 1

Matt went into the first game pretty nervous after losing most of his recent training games against other masters and commented afterwards that he "played the game poorly with no control". However I think he was a little harsh on himself- some games don’t lend themselves to control!

Start: An uneventful opening sequence left the game evenly balanced after the first 13 tiles played.

Move 14: Matt decides to build a 2nd yellow line- always a risky choice. It immediately goes wrong, but with 2 equally long lines, Dave will be sweating that they stay separated throughout the game. (They do)

Move 24: Matt is tempted to work on his lower left line, but eventually makes the obvious move at top right.

Move 27: Dave attempts to add to his line without helping the 2nd yellow. Using tile 1 seems a little wimpish compared to adding the more obvious tile 4 but closer inspection will reveal that there was only 1 legal GRB tile left. Well done Dave.

Move 32: Matt has few options and decides to create a forced space which blows the game open. Perhaps with hindsight he’ll agree that he should have played only one tile and hoped his opponent unblocked the game. (NB: That’s because having a free move after a big "unblocking" often allows some dangerously nice choices)

Move 43. With the game now completely unblocked, Dave faces his free turn with 2 tiles left in the bag, and Matt is guaranteed to gain the first free move in the endgame.

Btw, at this point (while watching the live game) I noticed an interesting option that takes advantage of the lack of YR tiles. If Dave were to add tile 6 to the bottom right end of his green line, the yellow line might be effectively blocked at that end. (Then again so would Dave’s green line so I’m not sure if it works out better or not)

Anyway Dave adds 2 tiles to his line and Matt does the same (blocking Dave at the same time), so the score is now tied 15 apiece with Matt in the box seat.

Move 49. With no way to block the top end of the yellow line, Dave carefully adds one more tile to his own line (noticing that there are no green corners left, hence it is critical to choose a tile that does not force Matt’s BBY tile). He uses the only YR tile so the bottom end of the green line is now blocked too.

Matt adds a final 2 tiles, and Dave gets a chance to add one more too, thus drawing the game. Dave was pretty lucky that Matt couldn’t force his last tile, but all in all this was a good game and a fair result I thought.

NB: While watching the game live both Bdot and myself had the impression that plenty of errors were being made by nervous players, but in fact they were not so easy to spot during the postmortem.

Final score: Drawn 17-17, 10.0-10.0 TPs.


GAME 2 by 2000 European Champion Ben Polman:

Click here to replay game 2

After the first game ended in a draw the match started afresh in game 2.

This game started quietly, in move 5 Dave adding two tiles to his own line created a forced space which blocked one end of Matt's line until the endgame. One would expect that with only one end to work on Matt was in trouble, but of course this wasn't known during the game.

Matt answered by adding to his open end blocking both ends of Dave's line but taking in my opinion quite a risk. Four of the 5 remaining GYY's were very good for Dave, if one of them had popped out of the bag he would have been set up with a good chance for a loop. But this did not happen.

Dave decided to add indirectly to his line. Here he had two options, using a tile with or without yellow. He chose yellow where the other tile might have been safer.

Dave adds: "Move 8 was a blunder, pure and simple. I intended to use the other rrg but in the process of trying combinations to extend the line by more, I grabbed the wrong tile when I came back to actually play the tile."

Matt didn't have much choice, he more or less was forced in his next move (move 9) and had to hope that his two lines would get connected either along the top or along the bottom. He then picked up a straight almost making the connection along the bottom.

Now Dave was forced to keep the lines apart. This made Matt's next move an obvious choice, adding three to his line and keeping the threat of connecting his two lines alive, with even a big loop a serious possibility. He was again lucky with the tiles by picking up the GGYY. This proved vital later on since it made it impossible for Dave to connect his two lines on the right, because of the the small loop sitting in the way.

At move 16, Dave had again a difficult choice, and in hindsight I think he made the wrong choice. He filled the forced space at the bottom, thus creating a second green line, whereas filling the left spot would have left only 1/2 YGY to connect Matt's line. He did reduce the risk of a big loop considerably in this way though.

Matt's next move was again simple, adding two more tiles to his line. Dave had to fill some forced spaces and then move 27 was decisive for the rest of the game and here I think Dave missed the best move. He played his straight green at the bottom right, probably hoping to be able to connect his two lines on the right side of the Tantrix. If he had played tile 5 at the left side of the Tantrix, he would have added 6 indirectly to his bottom line, making it 18 long against Matt's 15.

Matt's next move again added two to his line and created a nice lookalike forced space at the left end of Dave's line with only one tile left for it. Dave chose to keep his line open, running the risk that the indirect connection at the bottom of his line might get blocked in the endgame. Then finally one of the 5 tiles fitting the forced space from move 5 popped out (only 10 tiles left in the bag), and here Dave was not unlucky - Matt's small line would not get connected to his main line.

Dave's next move (35) proved fatal at the end. It provided Matt with the chance to add seven to his line making the connection over the top right of the Tantrix. Dave and Matt had to fill a lot of forced spaces and Matt's next move concluded the game, making the connection over the right top corner.

This game was also notable for a new spectator record - There were 22 spectators plus the players in the game room at one time.

Final score: 24-16 to Matt, 15.8-4.2 TPs. Matt leads by 25.8-14.2 TPs after two games.


GAME 3 by Tantrix Inventor & 1999 Pacific Champion Mike McManaway:

Click here to replay game 3

Start: Matt has no safe yellow tile so plays a "no yellow", which gets Dave off to a strong start. I would have been tempted to play the red straight myself, which would likely have initiated an exchange of small loops.

Move 5 Dave spots the opportunity to link to his isolated green corner, and his indirect score jumps to 8 compared to Matt’s 3 points. Matt replies with the best of a bad lot ... a risky move that blocks Dave’s loop threat.

Move 8: Dave should have defended the top isolated green link and kept his loop threat alive, but instead he unaccountably creates a very temporary block with the yellow straight. The block fails and Matt is right back into the game with his obvious move 11, which links his 2 lines together.

Dave's take on this is: "Move 8 (again!) - I disagree with Mike's opinion - his suggestion was also my primary alternative, but the deciding factor was that since my line was completely blocked, Matt's line should be blocked too. Connecting across the top is not likely, since the best connecting tile is already played, and Matt has ample oppotunity to extend his line if not blocked. I was just unlucky that one of the four tiles that hurt dropped immediately. 4/37 is normally pretty good odds."

Matt agrees with Dave's analysis, whereas [the editor would have to say that] after quite a few 1/30-1/40s went against me in the WTC this year, I wouldn't consider a 1 in 40 chance of disaster safe enough in a crucial game, let alone a 4/37 ... and I think many of those who have had similar experiences in matches they were expected to win would agree. It should be worth the risk though, shouldn't it.

Move 15: Now Dave makes the move he should have last time, maintaining his loop threat. Matt makes an uninspiring reply and loops the isolated green tiles.

Move 19: Dave makes a dangerous move adding to Matt’s 2nd yellow line, then the game unblocks and he gets to play another 7 tiles filling forced spaces. These moves include some very tricky choices and nobody would be able to have analyzed them well under time pressure (I didn’t try ) The game is evenly poised.

Move 27: A clever move by Matt, creating a pair block to stop the dangerous green straight (still in the bag) and at the same time creating a lookalike for it (GYR). Dave waits patiently for his loop threat to unblock.

Move 34: Matt fills in his 2nd yellow line hoping that he will pick up the critical tile (the yellow straight)

Move 36: Dave has used up 8 minutes, Matt only 3, and there are 9 tiles in the bag. It’s a tough position for Dave, no easy move, so he correctly creates some forced spaces to maximize his chances of picking up the last 2 critical tiles. However perhaps he misses an opportunity to tidy up his 2nd green line at the top which could eventually contribute, depending on how things work out.

The game breaks open, and with the bag empty, the game is evenly poised - both players having one line end still open.

However Matt spots the chance to ensure all Dave’s remaining tiles are forced, leaving him free to extend the yellow line with his last two tiles and win the game by 1 point. A well played game by both players, and with Dave using his time well. Matt had time galore up his sleeve - still 10 minutes spare with the bag empty. It was probably a fair result, with Dave’s move 8 being the most obvious mistake.

Final score: 18-17 to Matt, 13.3-6.7 TPs. Matt leads by 39.1-20.9 TPs after three games. End of the first session.


GAME 4 by 2002 'Plate' Champion Kathy Upton:

Click here to replay game 4

Game 4 started with nothing out of the ordinary, but by move 6, Matt had nearly formed a 10-tile loop, with the connecting tile in his own hand. Move 7 saw Dave play the percentages and turn away Matt's loop, but at least he added to his own line at the same time.

In my opinion, Dave's tile draw at move 13 proved to be a lifeline for him. At that stage, Dave was slightly behind indirectly and Matt had a good loop forming, but Matt's forced space on the LHS virtually ensured that the tile Dave picked up after move 13 would be forced in at the start of Dave's next turn (on move 21 as it turned out), giving him the chance to fight back - see below.

Move 17 saw Matt go for the jugular! He played to connect his loop at the bottom right of the Tantrix. He had a tile sitting in Dave's hand all lined up for the connection, and with a good draw of the straight yellow RBYBRY (the tile needed to connect the top of Matt's loop), he looked set for a 16-tile loop. However, a forced tile draw at move 20 spoilt that for him, turning his line away from the loop by indirectly connecting it with a yellow corner.

Move 22 saw Dave with the play and the tiles to form a 14-tile loop that only needing a green corner to complete it. At this point, the direct score was 13-10 to Dave.

Move 29 saw Matt play at the top right of the Tantrix, which in turn blocked his line at both ends, also blocking Dave's loop mind you. Was this the correct move? You be the judge.

Matt said later: "I think my move to block permanently across the top and give myself the chance of blocking Dave's loop was certainly the right choice since had I not blocked the loop, the score would have ended up something like 28-20 - better to give yourself a 50-50 chance of a win than accept near certain defeat but minimise the margin.

Move 37 made Dave think a bit. What did he need to do? Matt's line was blocked by a forced space (the only tile left that could fill it being the RGYYGR), which in turn would have left the YYRRBB as the only tile left to add on to Matt's line! I probably would have made an alternate force for this tight yellow. In the end, he decided to waste tiles of his own.

Move 40 saw Matt play a tile that did nothing to or for either player. With the added beauty of hindsight, had Matt wasted tile 2 at the top right of Tantrix, this would have wasted a green corner and possibly given him first free move in the endgame, which is very crucial at the best of times but especially in a position like this in the WTC final. Having said that, this may not have happened anyway, and Dave would have played the forced tile draws differently to Matt.

Matt's choice of tile placement in either of the two forced spaces available at move 43 was also his undoing. He exclaimed at the end of the match that he made a "bad choice". It formed an alternate forced space for the one remaining tile he needed to add to his blocked line. This left only one tile in the bag, and Matt still had to play. With Dave having first free move in the endgame, his loop was now a certainty. There were 4 green corners still out and Dave had no problems completing his loop, and permanently blocking Matt at the same time.

Matt said later: "I played the last tile I had forced in the wrong place. I realised this after I had played it before my free move (that darn 50-50 that didn't go my way :-( ) - this meant I couldn't join up my line when Dave looped (I could have otherwise I think) and I got blocked pretty badly instead :-(" ... [editor] good to know that even a TGM and possible double world champion is capable of blunders like this isn't it :-)

Although the result was now known, move 51 by Dave was a good move, which wasted all the remaining useful yellow tiles. Yellow was in total disarray ... there were fragments everywhere!

The fortunes of the game had fluctuated throughout and it was a better game by Dave. In the first session, he was nervous (as you would expect) and didn't play as well as he can do, and I think the luck (against him) in game 3 was probably heartbreaking.

I felt Dave controlled the game better and Matt didn't get (or create) the luck he often does. I don't think either player played as defensively as maybe they should or could have ... but the best form of defence is attack ... so maybe they did! All in all, a good game that keeps the match well and truly alive as a contest.

Final score: 28-10 to Dave, 17.7-2.3 TPs. Matt leads by 41.4-38.6 TPs after four games.


GAME 5 by 2001 NZ Champion Shaun Cooper:

Click here to replay game 5

The first 14 moves of this game featured strong line building by Matt. Dave seemed to be worried that Matt's ends would join to make a loop, and sometimes he added tiles to Matt's line to remove the threat of a loop.

After move 14, the score is Dave 7, Matt 3. But if indirect links are counted as well, then Matt's line is 17 long, while Dave's is just 7. Matt seems to be well in control at this point. All he needs to do is fill in the indirect links (there are 6 of them) and restrict Dave. Conversely, perhaps there is an opportunity for Dave to block one of the indirect links in Matt's line. Keep your eye on these indirect links as the game progresses.

On move 15, Matt begins to join his indirect links. He hopes to force Dave into a 3 tile loop as well. But he plays too close to Dave's end, and draws a straight green which he is forced to play, lengthening Dave's line by 3 instead, missing out on the 3 tile loop.

Dave's move 20 is sensible. He adds 2 to his own line, and wastes 4 yellow tiles.

Move 24 is a careless one by Matt. The move seems to have three purposes: to join more of his indirect links; add to his line; and waste a green tile. Matt unluckily draws the worst possible tile, which allows Dave the possibility to add 10 to his line on his next move. I concede that Matt was unlucky to draw this tile, but the risk was simply too great to have played this tile here - a real blunder by Matt.

On Move 28, Dave accepts Matt's gift. He adds 10 to his green line (this includes some indirect links) and makes a loop of 4 yellow tiles in the process.

It is interesting to compare the game at the end of moves 14 and 29:

In addition, there are 6 wasted yellow tiles (i.e., not connected to the main yellow line and unlikely ever to be), and only 2 wasted greens.

Dave is now in the driving seat, and Matt is not even in the car any more - he is running behind with his tongue hanging out, eating Dave's dust.

On move 30 Matt is desperate to join more of his indirect links. He does so at the expense of adding 2 to Dave's line.

Move 35 is one that would come back to haunt Dave later in the game. Dave's aim is to join two of his indirect green links, to add 5 to his score. He does this by playing a tile with a yellow. Is this a risky move by Dave? Have a look and see what you think. There is a chance that this could join up with one of Matt's ends, but this will require three forced tiles to join up the right way. There are still 8 green corners; perhaps Dave could have joined his indirect links another way.

The other disadvantage of Dave's move is that Matt gets to play a lot of forced tiles, and therefore has many opportunities to control the game. Indeed, starting with move 36, Matt plays 8 forced tiles, which sees his yellow line grow from 19 to 23, and Dave's green line grow from 19 to 26.

After playing the 8 forced tiles, there is one tile left in the bag, and Matt has his free move. This move drew coos of surprise from the spectators, who naturally suppressed the coos until the game was over. Matt spots a way of forcing Dave to play 4 tiles along one edge to add 6 to Matt's line. The score is now 29-27 to Matt, and Dave plays his single remaining tile to prevent any further growth of Matt's line.

This was a memorable and intriguing game. Both players played well, and both made mistakes - although Dave's seemed to be minor and more subtle than Matt's blatant blunder. I thought Dave played a low-risk game and steadily took control from about the halfway point. But as anyone who has played Matt will know - if there is an opportunity, he will seize it!

Matt said later: "I was lucky to join up all my indirects from so early in the game and that I was able to chancily force such a good last move before the endgame - it really could have gone either way."

[Editor] I feel that this game probably sealed the match for Matt. If he had not found (or had the chance to find) such a good move just before the endgame and Dave had won game 5, Dave would have been ahead in the match and even if he had lost game 6, he would have had all to play for in the final session. The shock of losing this game when it looked to be won might well explain Dave's atrocious play in game 6, and losing both games 5 and 6 would leave him with very little chance of winning the match in the final session.

Whether Matt's last free move before the endgame was as stunning as it seemed to many spectators at the time has since been questioned, even by Matt himself as you will see from the comment above. For someone keeping an eye on the game and realising the significance of still having the crucial yellow straight, perhaps it was not quite as spectacular, but in my opinion it was still a credit to Matt that at such a crucial point in the match when the pressure had really started to turn on him, he spotted that move and coolly and accurately analysed the possibilities to ensure that none of the crucial tiles could end up being used elsewhere.

Final score: 29-27 to Matt, 13.9-6.1 TPs. Matt leads by 55.3-44.7 TPs after five games.


GAME 6 by 2002 'Plate' Champion Kathy Upton & 2002 European Champion Steven Trezise - comments amalgamated into one report:

Click here to replay game 6

The game had a fairly conventional start, with both players building their own lines as opposed to trying to limit their opponent.

Move 7 saw Dave turn the RHS of his own line into a block, whilst also adding to Matt's line! I must admit that his choices of an attacking move were limited and I may have played the same tile Dave used but played it on the LHS of his line. This would have added indirectly to Dave's line and added to Matt's line, but (after the tile this move would have forced had been added) it would have left a forced space up the top, with the chance of a RRB tile with green on it being drawn, which would have indirectly connected with Dave's line. As it turned out, the straight blue with red and yellow corners (RRBYYB) came out 2 tiles later, which would have given Matt no problems in linking to his line, and also threatening a yellow loop. So, with hindsight, Dave made a reasonable choice.

The game continued with Matt building his line quite happily, and by move 12, the score was 11-6 (indirectly) to Matt, but Dave had 3/4 of a loop formed indirectly, still needing a green corner to indirectly connect the LHS of it.

Move 16 saw Matt temporarily block the loop, turning one side of Dave's line away, whilst blocking the other side.

Move 19 was not the best move by Dave. He played a green bend upwards, on the LHS of his line, forcing in a green corner above it, adjacent to another green corner, but not adding these corners even indirectly to his line. I suspect Dave was still aiming for a loop, although this was now a long shot. He would have needed a lot of luck with the forced space still to be connected on the RHS, and of course Matt would have tried to kill off the loop again. Considering Matt's strength, the safer play would have been using tile 3 or 4 (green corner), to turn his line downwards. This would have added to his line directly and also closed the open green corner mentioned previously. The score would have then been Dave 12, directly, to Matt 12, indirectly!

Another drawback of move 19 was that it created a forced space below the tile played with only one tile left (BRRBGG) that could fit it before the endgame. Even if this tile did come out and get played in that space, it would leave a significant chance of the indirect connection in the LHS of Dave's line ending up permanently blocked, because of the three tiles that would then be able to fill the indirect link in Dave's line, only one (BGGYYB) would be playable before the endgame.

Move 19 did achieve one thing though ... it forced Matt to do something about the possible, if unlikely, loop. At move 21, Matt turned the green line away on the LHS. With move 22, Dave persisted with building the LH end of his line, which would normally be a good plan if it were not for the high risk of him getting blocked as described in the previous paragraph, which would of course mean that the extra tiles he was adding now might never count. Move 22 also forced yet another tile onto the isolated green fragment.

Dave looked to be self-destructing in this game and just when it looked like he could hardly make things any worse for himself, he made a massive blunder on move 26 to hand Matt the game on a plate. Not only did he fill the indirect gap in Matt's line with a yellow corner, he also played the only tile that would fill the indirect link on the LHS of his own line before the endgame! Definitely the blunder of the match. Why did Dave do that? Why not attempt to block the connection? Was Dave still experiencing the after-effects of the shocking end to game 5?

Now Matt knew that after the BRRBGG came out (which it did after move 29, with Matt playing duly it on move 30) and was played in the first forced space below Dave's move 19, there would be only two tiles that could fit the forced space below and complete the indirect connection in Dave's line, neither of them could be played until the endgame as mentioned above, and both were already in Matt's hand, his tiles 1 and 3!

So with move 27, Matt set out to waste both of these tiles. By playing his YGRYRG at the top LH corner of the Tantrix, he could force in first his tile 1 then his tile 3 immediately below it. However, as Matt later admitted himself, he made an uncharacteristic and potentially disastrous blunder by playing the tile the wrong way round, so that it forced in tile 3 first and left tile 1 unplayed. Fortunately for Matt, he would eventually be able to waste tile 1 elsewhere on move 43, just before the endgame.

Through a series of forced moves, any usable green tiles were wasted, and there was nothing Dave could do to significantly add to his line or to stop Matt from adding to his own. Dave must have been heartbroken, but he paid the price for effectively blocking his own line at move 19 and for that dreadful move 26!

I felt that the game after move 19 was one of "desperation" for Dave, while Matt kept his head and had some good fortune after making one mistake of his own. This game was not at all representative of Dave's play in the rest of the match and is clearly a game that he will want to forget in a hurry.

Final score: 16-8 to Matt, 15.8-4.2 TPs. Matt leads by 71.1-48.9 TPs after six games. End of the second session.


GAME 7 by 2001 European Champion Ben Polman:

Click here to replay game 7

Given the deficit with just three games to go, Dave either has to win all three games or have at least one more monster score as in game 4. A tall order indeed.

With move 2, Dave decides to try to create the potential to force a small loop on Matt, but he does not pick up a tile that can force it. Matt simply starts a line of four tiles, creating at the same time a threat to loop Dave for only 14 and ensuring that he will be able to hook up his solitary tile.

Not a good start for Dave and moreover, after he plays his more or less forced next move, he is unlucky to pick up a tile which helps Matt even more. So after Matt's move 8 (simply hooking up his two lines and creating a small green loop in the process), the indirect score is 9-7 with both players keeping an eye open for a loop.

Dave adds to his line with move 9, also blocking Matt's open end, and picks up a nice forced tile that adds two more to his line. He will certainly be less happy that this is followed by two more forced tiles that open up both ends of Matt's line. Matt then simply adds to to his line so that after move 14 the indirect score is 13-11, still in Matt's favour.

Move 14 gives Dave the option to add two to his line at the bottom or two at the left, the latter option blocking his own line but with four tiles left in the bag that would fit the forced space. He chooses to add just one, keeping his line open and using up two yellow tiles, hoping to waste them permanently with his next move.

Matt counters with a move that is typical of his ability to keep track of every possible way to win, not adding to his own line but taking a longer view and wasting two RGRGs - four are gone after this move. After filling some forced spaces, the indirect score is 14-12 to him.

That brings us to move 21, where Dave decides to add two to his line at the bottom, blocking the one open end of Matt's line. He has a potentially big opportunity here. He could play his second tile at the bottom left corner of the Tantrix, blocking Matt with only one tile for the forced space left in the bag and more importantly creating the potential to add five to his own line and keeping the threat for a big loop open. The only really bad thing about this move is that the one tile left to unblock Matt's line would most likely end up adding eight to Matt's line if it ends up being played in that space, so I can understand why Dave opts for the safer course.

Matt then plays at the top right, hoping that the block on that end of his line will soon be lifted, then Dave simply adds four more tiles to his line. The indirect score after move 27 is 18-14 to Dave and the direct score 13-6 to Dave, so the prospects for Dave to get his much wanted win are finally looking up.

However, with move 28 Matt effectively blocks one end of Dave's line permanently. Only one tile left could relieve the block but it cannot not be played until the endgame and Matt has it in his hand, so has plenty of time to waste it.

With move 29 Dave, could simply fill in an open connection making the direct score 15-6 to him. Maybe he fears the possibilities this might create for Matt to get a loop in the endgame, but I think this move costs him the game in the end, because Matt is able to waste the tiles that would have fitted the forced space above this tile just before the endgame and hence blocks it permanently.

With move 30, Matt just wastes the crucial tile to make the block at the LH end of Dave's line permanent, then Dave continues wasting BYB's, a tactic aimed at enabling him to block Matt's line as soon as the right end opens up. During his next turn, he wastes the last BYB and then picks up one of the tiles needed to open up the RHS of Matt's line. This is lucky in that the RH end of Matt's line is then permanently blocked, but unlucky in that another eight indirectly connected tiles in Matt's line get directly connected in the process.

Matt then fills a forced space to take the score to 14-13 with each players having only one end of their line left open. Now Matt gets all the choices - otherwise Dave would certainly win. He manages to limit Dave to 16 with both ends blocked and in the end is a bit unlucky to be left with only two tiles after filling all of the forced spaces with the score 16-15 to Dave. He can only add one of them, but this gives him an important 16-16 tie in the game, which makes final victory in the match almost certain.

All in all Dave should have won this game I think, but it was not to be.

A new game room spectator record of 23 was set during this game : "Lobby: Session 5 is active. Players are: ddyer and Pekko. Spectators are: guest78, Ariel, hexactio, steven2, jade, burgot, totte, humber, jmn34, toddy, Cuthbert, albicolon, Bastet, SiRPi, pepe, Bell, space, bhoys, idyer, phildnarud, guest7, Zormac and jacgir."

Final score: Drawn 16-16, 10.0-10.0 TPs. Matt leads by 81.1-58.9 TPs after seven games.


GAME 8 by 2001 NZ Champion Shaun Cooper:

Click here to replay game 8

Faced with miserable tiles, Dave leads with a non-green tile. By move 5, Matt has already created two thirds of a green 3-tile loop.

A basic strategic error was committed by Dave on move 7. His green line is now restricted to the lower left corner of the Tantrix, and this gives Matt plenty of scope to create mischief around the remainder of the Tantrix.

And sure enough, by move 14, things are fragmented for Dave. He has two lines - his original, now 4 long; a new line of length 5; and two thirds of a 3-tile loop. It will not be easy to join the two green lines - perhaps impossible. Meanwhile, all sorts of opportunities exist at both ends of Matt's yellow line.

Move 15 is a wonderful defensive move by Dave, as he attempts to keep Matt from running away with the game. It removes all threat of Matt building along the right edge of the Tantrix, and the YBG position will not be able to be filled until the endgame - if at all. But this move comes at a cost to Dave. His longest line is now 7, and one of the ends is now blocked until the endgame, possibly permanently.

On move 17 Matt adds 2 to his line and keeps both his ends free. It also forces the last YBG tile held by Dave. One end of Dave's longest line is now permanently blocked, and he abandons it for the rest of the game.

On move 19 Dave begins to gamble - he has no choice now - and attempts to add 4 to his original line (which does not have a permanently blocked end). His plan succeeds, and after several forced moves are made by both players, Matt is finally forced to play the piece needed to extend Dave's line.

But Matt immediately counters on move 24 by adding 5 to his own yellow line.

On move 31 Dave does what he can to lengthen his line, and wastes some yellow tiles at the same time.

On move 35, Matt permanently blocks an end of Dave's current line. Matt is wisely playing for a small guaranteed win, and is achieving this by systematically shutting down Dave's lines.

The rest of the game is played out fairly uneventfully, with Matt keeping a small lead and not allowing Dave an inch. A nice block by Matt on move 51 freezes the score at Matt 19, Dave 15.

Matt never let Dave into this game, and it seems there was nothing Dave could do about it.

Final score: 19-15 to Matt, 14.7-5.3 TPs. Matt leads by 95.8-64.2 TPs after eight games and retains his world title with one game to spare.


GAME 9 by 2002 European Champion Steven Trezise:

Click here to replay game 9

Game 9 was of course a 'dead' game as far as the match was concerned, but Matt still had the record winning margin in a WTC Final to go for and Dave the record losing margin to avoid, so it was an interesting contest all the same.

Move 3: Dave creates a loose yellow corner, but with no yellow bends or straights in his hand, Matt can do little but ignore this. He creates another loose yellow corner with move 4, but forces a green corner into a 3-tile loop and temporarily blocks the top ends of both players' lines in the process.

Move 6: Dave loops off the bottom yellow corner and adds to his green line. It looks like he could have achieved a slightly better position by playing his tile 5 on the bottom LH corner and forcing Matt into a loop of four tiles while still adding two to his own line. However, had he followed that course, he would not have wasted his GRG with his free move and would have had to play it in the forced space that was created at the bottom right, thus adding an indirect link to Matt's line too.

Move 8: Matt connects to the other loose yellow corner, using up three green tiles on the RHS of the Tantrix. This move also creates a forced space to the left of it that can be filled with a non-green tile to keep Dave's lines apart at the bottom. The small green loop effectively keeps them apart at the top too. A nice move, if perhaps a risky one.

Maybe Matt's only plan was to add to his own line and rescue that loose yellow corner, but maybe he was trying to tempt Dave into the trap of building two distinct lines, confident that he could stop them from ever getting connected. However, if Matt had been very unlucky with the tiles and picked up the GBRGRB, and Dave had played his GYG near the bottom, Dave's lines would have become connected very quickly along the bottom and he would create a loop threat into the bargain. So, Matt's plan was just a little risky, but when things are going your way, luck as bad as that does not tend to come along too often.

Move 13: Dave did have a go at tempting the GBRGRB to come out of the bag into his own hand by playing the GYG as described above (and why not, at this stage of the match, especially when the move was a good way of adding to his main line even if the crucial tile did not appear), but the magic tile stayed in the bag and Matt was quite happy to be forced to turn the green lines apart again.

Move 17: Matt played a YRY at the top RH corner of the Tantrix, lengthening his line and leaving a vague threat of a large yellow loop for Dave to worry about. However, Matt playing the YRY gave Dave a reasonable chance of doing something at which Matt is usually the master, i.e. wasting all six tiles of one type and hence getting the chance to block the permanently block the opponent early in the game.

Move 20: When Dave picked up another YRY after his forced move 19, there were two YRYs already in the Tantrix and Dave had all of the remaining four in his hand. It looked like Dave had noticed the potential of this because he looped off one of his own corners with move 20 but wasted a YRY in the process. However, he may just have played this tile because it temporarily blocked Matt in a GGY forced space which there were only two tiles left to fill. It also looked like Dave's best chance of diverting Matt away from his potential loop, though it would also add a lot to Matt's line if his line did get diverted when the forced space was filled.

Move 23: Matt clearly thought that his line would end up being turned around the top RH corner of the Tantrix because (after being forced to fill the forced space that unblocked the top of Dave's line) he played a tile that completed one indirect link in the yellow line fragment that Dave had created for him at the top, wasted a green tile and stopped Dave from turning the yellow fragment away from the main yellow line if he decided to change his mind about whether move 20 had been a good idea or not. This was a good (if somewhat speculative) example of how to achieve three things with one move. The direct score was now 10-10.

Move 26: Even if Dave's move 20 was been intended to waste one of the YRYs, sadly he never followed the rest of this plan through. His actual move 26 (another triple-purpose creating a long controlled side with the RH end of the yellow line fragment right at the other end, wasting two yellows and adding one to his own line) would have been a very good move had there been no better option, but had Dave played the red straight (his tile 5) at the far LH corner of the Tantrix at move 26, that would have wasted one of the remaining three YRYs and the last two YRYs (his tiles 3 and 4) would have been wasted above and below it, creating yet another YRY space at the LH end of Matt's line which would then have been permanently blocked. The tiles were even in the right orientation in his hand and what a move that would have been, especially against the player who is the master of this kind of situation himself!

Further evidence that Dave did not see the potential of the YRY situation, either at move 20 or at move 26, is that he made it clear at the end of the game that he felt the tiles had run against him because he hardly had any green in his hand in the middle game, when of course the plethora of YRYs in his hand actually gave him what was probably his best chance of winning the game. Of course, to be fair to Dave, we will never know whether he might have seen all this had the game been capable of affecting the overall result of the Final - it is quite possible that he would have been looking far harder for chances like this had that been the case.

Move 27: Maybe Matt did not notice what was on for Dave either, because his innocuous move 27 gave Dave another bite at the YRY cherry on move 29.

Move 29: Would Dave take his chance this time? Those who had noticed what he could do held their breath as he tried the wrong YRY tiles in the correct place ... and (if I remember rightly) even the correct YRY tile in the correct place but in the wrong orientation! In the end, he played a YRY tile there, but it only created a temporary block. The crowd (the two of us here at least!) groaned. Dave's move left him with temporary 11-10 lead and did waste a few yellow tiles too, but the forced space he left blocking Matt's line would lead to Matt adding four more tiles to his line before it was eventually blocked permanently. He pulled out the one tile left that would fit this space and played it at move 33, effectively putting the result of the game beyond doubt.

Move 35: Matt created a simple permanent block at the bottom end of Dave's line and the direct score was still 11-10 to Dave but sure to move up to at least 14-12 in Matt's favour.

Move 39: Luckily for Dave, the top end of Matt's line had remained blocked since move 20, and with only six tiles left in the bag, still neither of the two tiles that could fit the important forced space had come out. Perhaps Dave should have created a lookalike here but (somewhat understandably in a dead game at the end of such a long and stressful match) perhaps he had given up by this time. In the event, he had to fill the forced space with the tile that added five more to Matt's line (including the loose fragment referred to earlier), taking Matt's lead to 19-12.

The endgame: The endgame was fairly uneventful, both players adding two more tiles to the open ends of their lines to make the final score 21-14 to Matt.

Final score: 21-14 to Matt, 15.5-4.5 TPs. Matt wins the match by 111.3-68.7 TPs after all nine games and 3 h 20 m of play.

This is a record winning margin for a WTC Final and only the third time any player has scored more than 100 TPs in a match of any length. Guess what - Matt did it the other two times (last year's Final and last year's QF) as well!

A few of the rows in the table at the top of the page can now be updated:

Player	MATT PEEK (TGM)	DAVE DYER
Photo
WTC in 2002 : W-D-L in total	Pld 46 W 35 D 4 L 7 (80.4% wins)	Pld 46 W 26 D 2 L 18 (58.7% wins)
WTC in 2002 : TPs in total	603.5-316.5 (65.6%)	498.5-421.5 (54.2%)
WTC in 2002 : Time taken in total	6 h 59 m (ave. 9 m per game)	8 h 10 m (ave. 11 m per game)
WTC in 2002 : Time played in total	14 h 09 m (including opponents' time)	16 h 23 m (including opponents' time)

CONCLUSION by Steven Trezise:

MATT:

Many congratulations to Matt for becoming the first player to retain the World Tantrix title, an amazing feat given the large element of chance in the game. Matt is perhaps the first player to find a way to to control the chance factor really effectively, and after winning two World Championships and the NZ Championship, not to mention captaining the winning NZL 'A' team in the first World Team Championship, it is not surprising that he remains the only player to have qualified for the Grand Master title so far and will almost certainly be the only player with an year-end Elo rating in excess of 2000 for the second year running.

Given Matt's victory, it is now the case that since the knockout format for the WTC started in 1999, there has been an Aucklander in every final and the youngest finalist has always won. Indeed, Julia Schwarz was the oldest winner of a 9-game WTC Final at the age of 24 and the other three finals have all been won by teenagers (1999 winner Zenon Kowalczyk being just 15) despite this age group not making up a huge proportion of WTC entrants.

DAVE:

Dave deserves plenty of praise too, both for coming out just on top in some very close matches against good opposition on the way to the Final and for being the oldest player to get to the Final by more than 20 years.

Dave's form in this year's WTC has been a revelation, since he has never got that close to a major title before and his WTC progress had been worsening each year. In fact, he has probably always been on the edge of becoming a top player and despite being a bit outclassed by Matt at times, now looks to be making his final breakthrough into the top flight. His WTC Elo rating will probably be pushing 1950 and his overall Elo close to 1900, confirming his improved form and giving him a strong platform for perhaps pushing for the 2003 Pan-Am title and breaking into the top 10 in the ratings next year.

THE FINAL:

It would be easy to say that the result of the match was never in much doubt, but looking back, Dave played particularly well in the first game of each session and tended to have his really bad games at the ends of sessions. If he had followed up the only game he won (incidentally this was the only game in the Final won by more than 10 tiles) with another win in game 5 (a victory that looked almost certain at one stage), things could have ended up a lot closer, and Matt's escape in that game and Dave's capitulation in game 6 while still in shock constituted without much doubt the defining period of the match.

Interestingly, Matt's TP score in the Final (111.3) was within 0.7 TPs of the score of 112 that I 'predicted' in the Preview near the top of this page using the players' pre-WTC Elo ratings. Of course, this is something of a coincidence because the score 'predicted' by the Elo system is an expected average score over an infinite number of matches between the two players concerned, which is why actual outcomes in many other matches vary widely around their expected values.

Havng said that, this outcome does suggest that Dave played as well in the Final as his pre-tournament form relative to Matt's would have led one to expect. While this is of course not quite as good as his pre-Final form in the WTC itself might have suggested, Dave was in his first Final whereas Matt must have benefited from the experience he gained last year, so Dave certainly did not disgrace himself in any way whatsoever. Also, the tiles went Matt's way early on in the match and I think Dave might have kept things a bit closer at the end had the match not been all over bar the shouting after game 7.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & REVIEW OF THE TOURNAMENT YEAR by Steven Trezise:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

This year was notable not just for the big increase in the number of entrants and nationalities taking part in the WTC but also for the even bigger explosion in interest in spectating the matches and in taking part in the competitions that run alongside the main event. There are lots of people who contributed to this success in large measure, and without whom my own task of pulling the whole thing together would be completely impossible (instead of just almost impossible) :-)

Brad Swanlund deserves special mention for running easily the most popular Fantasy Tantrix competition yet and for persevering so conscientiously when other commitments made this more difficult.

Péter Petrecz (with help from Stefan) provided a great results service for the Plate, which, though technically part of the WTC, had more entrants than any other tournament so far except the 2001 and 2002 WTC main draws.

Jamie Sneddon as independent non-playing controller took on the thankless task of intervening in some of the most contentious situations before they went out of control and made every effort to be diplomatic, conscientious and scrupulously fair as usual. I am sure we all wish him well for his imminent marriage to Liz, which (only very indirectly!) prevented his participation in the WTC as a player this year.

I would also like to thank Dave Dyer - once again, the applet has coped with the increase in numbers of games and spectators very well indeed. In fact, barring a few very temporary glitches, I get the impression that the applet was more stable than ever during the WTC this year. It is a pity that the same could not be said of the tournament website at times this year, but rest assured that big improvements are planned to be in place by the time the next WTC comes around.

Perhaps the biggest improvement this year was having a crack team of half a dozen storm troopers (oops, I mean Assistant Controllers of course!) who looked after dedicated sections of the WTC and Plate draws and helped to ensure that despite the increased size of the WTC, it kept to time better than ever and (most impressively of all) that all 127 potential matches in the main draw were played, with all R1 defaulters being replaced by reserves in good time.

All of the ACs did a great job, and although I still had about 1000 WTC-related emails to deal with (excluding results submissions), very few were the result of AC inaction and things can only improve further as the ACs gain more experience and are able to make more decisions on their own.

So, I would like to thank (in order of first names as usual) Alex Thompson, Ben Polman, Josh Button, Kathy Upton, Lutz Göhmann and Simon Wright for all their help; Kathy and Ben again, plus Mike McManaway and Shaun Cooper for being brave enough to contribute reports on the Final; Malcolm Wotton for his in-match TP score calculator; Simon again for his reports on the early part of the Plate; and lots of other players for their contributions to reports on their own matches earlier in the competition.

Of course, I'm sure all the non-UK players would like to join me in thanking Rick Yagodich for his barbecue / UK pre-WTC training camp, which seemed to put a WTC 'hex' on virtually all those unfortunate players who attended. Little did we know that a clever 'spy' from another country had switched the invite list with a list of Fantasy Tantrix picks compiled by someone determined to finish last! Ah well, it was a great day anyway, Rick, and lightning cannot strike in the same place twice ;-)

Finally, of course, I'd like to thank all of the players for entering, for their enthusiasm, for helping to make the tournament manageable by arranging their matches on time (and not complaining about too many things!), and for the sporting 'Tantrix-like' behaviour seen in virtually all of the matches.

TOURNAMENTS IN 2002:

Nearly 2500 tournament games have been played this year, over 1250 of them in the World Championship and Plate. This is as many tournament games as were played in all of the three previous years put together. The average number of tournament games per player has also increased significantly, with consequent benefits for the accuracy of future tournament Elo ratings and seedings among other things.

Apart from another massive increase in interest in the WTC and related events as described in the last section, this year has seen the European Championship go from strength to strength (doubling its entrants to over 50), the Australian Championship grow and the PanAm maintain its size, with only the NZ Championship (very disappointingly) contracting, perhaps due to it being scheduled earlier in the year than in 2001.

New events have included the World Team Championship (almost an afterthought that generated an amazing amount of player interest, not to mention its fair share of controversy!), the first World Junior Championship and the first Hungarian Championship, as well as the British Open - the first official (i.e. reasonably open and with timed games) table Tantrix championship which was held in Cambridge, UK in May. All of these tournaments are likely to be repeated (and enlarged) in 2003.

The tournament webpages have received nearly 100 000 hits this year, another record by a huge margin, and the WTC has again featured in the media in more than one country.

TOURNAMENTS IN 2003:

The formats of the major tournaments like the WTC/Plate on one hand (knockout) and the WJTC, PanAm, Euro, NZ and Aus on the other hand (a group phase plus a knockout phase if there is more than one group) are becoming fairly fixed, though the NZ and Aus may be merged again if interest does not pick up. The existing formats seem to provide a good balance between the constraints of practicality and the desire to give newer/weaker players the chance of playing a reasonable number of tournament games each year.

More extensive preliminary rounds are likely to be needed for the lowest-ranked entrants in the WTC and the Euro next year. I intend the main draws for those tournaments to be limited to 128 KO for the WTC and 64 in eight groups of eight for the Euro for the next couple of years at least, with at least the top 64 and the top 32 respectively qualifying for the main draws automatically based on seeding points.

Plenty of things are not yet fixed though and a questionnaire about certain aspects of tournaments (in particular scheduling, new tournaments and the WTTC) will be emailed to tournament players during December 2002 so that we can get some valuable feedback.

The year-end Elo ratings and a provisional schedule for the major annual tournaments in 2003 will be posted before the new year, and you will be able to enter all scheduled 2003 tournaments from that point onwards. I hope you all had fun in tournaments this year, whether or not you felt that you fulfilled your potential this time around, and I hope to see all of you entering the fray again in 2003.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS : R4 (last 16) to the Final
EARLIER ROUNDS : Prelims then R1-R3 by section :   S1 (Matt's section)   S2   S3   S4   S5   S6   S7   S8 (Dave's section)

Go to www.tantrix.com to play or spectate games

THE 'PLATE' for R1 & R2 losers : Home Page / QFs onwards   Earlier rounds : Rounds 1-3   Preliminary Round
Brad Swanlund's FANTASY Tantrix - won by Mauro Lazzara (GBR)

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