QUARTER-FINALS - 25 July-3 August:

25 Jul Stacy Henwood got tournament favourites NZL A off to a good start against no. 6 seeds GBR B when he won his first game against Rick Yagodich on table 5, but Rick came back to win the second game 42-16 and give GBR B an early 22.4-17.6 TP lead in the match. Rick may live to regret not managing to win game 1 as well against the only less well-known (or should that be less infamous :-) ?) player in the New Zealand team but in truth, being out in front after the first two games against the no. 1 seeds is as much as any team can really ask!

26 Jul It is still early days in the QFs but the lower seeded team is ahead in all three matches that have started so far. Only slightly ahead in each case though, because in each of the four mini-matches so far, both players have won one game. In the match between no. 3 seeds AUS A and no. 7 seeds FRA A, Graeme Jolliffe won his first game against Frank Heyer on table 2 by two tiles but Frank won the second by ten to give the French a 22.3-17.7 TPs lead. In the match between no. 4 seeds HUN A and no. 6 seeds GER A, Ilona Halbach on table 3 against János Püspöki and Brigitte Empt on table 5 against Tamás Köpeczi both won one game by a bigger margin than they lost the other so the Germans lead by 43.9-36.1 TPs.

27 Jul Saturday started with yet another mini-match in which each player won one game. Kathy Upton of AUS A had the higher margin win against Stéphanie Buisan of FRA A. Garry Laishley then did the same against Pierre Sanchez (i.e. one win each, Garry with the higher margin) and the Australian no. 3 seeds now lead by a narrow margin, 61.7-58.3.

Mauro Lazzara got no. 2 seeds GBR A off to a good start with the first double win of any of the QFs, against Steven Wiley of no. 5 seeds USA A on table 4.

US Captain and Pan Am Champion Brad Swanlund was on sparkling form though, hardly putting a foot (or a tile) wrong to hit back with a double win against European Champion Steven Trezise to reduce the deficit to just 41.6-38.4 TPs after a very long match where the players' times were 15:00, 14:59, 14:56 and another 14:??.

The tense first game might turn out to be the best game of the round - Brad got the better of the tiles early on and made very good use of them but Steven fought back strongly to take a 2-tile lead and went very close to getting a big loop. However, Brad got the first free move in the endgame and was able to block and extend his own line to give himself a 2-tile win.

Game 2 in this match hinged on a nightmare blunder by Steven at move 7 when he simply misread which tile Brad had replaced at the end of his previous turn (the tile being the only tile which could have turned an otherwise good move into a complete disaster) and Brad played a near-perfect game to capitalise on this. Towards the end, Steven's chances of a comeback depended on filling a forced space for which two tiles were left in the bag and Brad found a great move which created lookalikes for both on either side of the tile he played, though he was also very lucky that the two tiles that Steven had been waiting for one of were the very last two tiles out of the bag.

Julia Schwarz then extended GBR A's lead with a 5-tile win against Pamela Wiley, but forgetting that the colours were swapped on the first move in game 2 cost her dearly in the return and Pamela ended up winning a messy blocked game by 5 tiles to level the mini-match and leave the score 61.6-58.4 TPs - 0.2 TPs closer even than the very close AUS A v FRA A match.

28 Jul Bevan Chong started off well against Kevin Baird by winning their first game but Kevin came back to win the second game against one ofthe best players in the world and hence keep GBR B's noses ahead against no. 1 seeds NZL A and GBR B maintained their 3.2 TP lead when Simon Wright drew his first game against Murray Pharaoh. That game was the 59th game in the WTTC but only the first draw - remarkable when in general about 1 in 10 games are drawn.

Amazingly, after 21 QF games had been played, every team had won the same number of games as their opponents (game scores in the matches are 2.5-2.5, 3-3, 2-2 and 3-3), which is why the TP scores were all so close.

A disaster day for the no. 2 seeds GBR A in their match against no. 5 seeds USA A as their no. 3, Kevin Scott, suffered a crushing 33.3-6.7 TPs defeat by Dave Dyer. The main damage was done in game 1 where a horrendous tile draw near the start left Kevin chasing the game and, desperately wanting to get back into it, he took perhaps a risk too far at move 17 which ended up helping Dave to complete a 23-tile loop which he had carefully and cleverly constructed without ever expecting it to complete in its entirety. That would have more than reversed the small British margin advantage even if Kevin had managed to win game 2.

Kevin started game 2 much more strongly and looked to be doing well, with his line getting ever longer and Dave temporarily blocked. Then disaster struck again as Kevin tried to force Dave to lengthen his line by three, not realising that even if the plan had worked, that end of Kevin's line would have been completely blocked at least until the endgame. In the event, an unlucky tile draw meant that Kevin's line got blocked at an even earlier forced space and Dave won that game too, to leave British hopes of building on their success in tournaments so far this year in tatters.

James Mihalisin now needs just 8.3 TPs in his two games against Tom McCoy to complete the upset win whereas Tom would need to copy Dave's heroics against Kevin to save the British team now.

Each player won one game in the mini-match between Australian Champion Josh Button and French no. 1 Jérôme Papillon, so both teams have now won four games in that match. The no. 3 seeds have had the margin advantage all the way through, and Josh added a bit more to this to leave AUS A 82.3-77.7 TPs ahead of FRA A with only Anthony Sanders and Alex Heyer left to play.

29 Jul Hungarian captain and former European Champion Péter Petrecz achieved the first double win in the match between HUN A and GER A to put the no. 4 seeds ahead. German no. 1 Wolfgang Schwarz handed Pepe the first game from a won position - he was 26-18 up as the last tile came out of the bag but a nightmare blunder on move 48 allowed Péter to add 11 tiles to his line before the end to win 29-26.

Péter had the better of their close second game as well and won that 15-13. However, although the Hungarians have now won four games to the Germans' two, the German wins were by 7 and 9 tiles and all the Hungarian wins were by three tiles or less, so the match score is still quite close at 64.3-55.7 TPs.

The first big upset of the Championship was concluded today when no. 5 seeds USA A knocked out no. 2 seeds GBR A by 110.9-89.1 TPs. After his team's disappointing results over the weekend, British Open Champion Tom McCoy had an almost impossible task against Pan Am runner-up James Mihalisin but gave it his best shot.

In game 1, it looked like James had decided that the best way to ensure that Tom did not win by the kind of margin he needed was to block the game up, and this he did very well, though in carrying out this plan he did also get a little help from Tom himself early on. Tom still looked like winning, but the end of the game was agonising for him. There were about half a dozen tile draw/forced space possibilities which were all about 50:50 as to whom they would favour depending on which order the tiles came out and it looked like every single one of those 50:50 situations ended up going the American's way. Tom and the British fans looked on in stunned disbelief as the final stages of the game unfolded, and the no. 2 seeds were out.

There was actually one fairly pivotal move (move 23) where Tom had a forced tile which could fit either of two spaces and he thought about this move for quite a few minutes. In hindsight, the way the tiles actually came out, he would almost certainly have won by quite a big margin had he filled the opposite forced space to the one he actually did fill. At the time though (without the benefit of hindsight), I fully agreed with his choice of move. Without knowing the next few tiles that would come out of the bag, the other move would have been far more risky, and it must have just added insult to injury to see that the way the tiles came out, the foolhardy risk he did NOT take is about the only situation that would have worked out for him in the whole game!

Indeed, it must in some ways have been even more galling that when the luck did finally go Tom's way in the second game, where he completed a loop to win 28-20, it was just too late.

The no. 2 seeds probably suffered greatly from the fact that their top three players were by coincidence all in the middle of bad runs when this match took place, from a lack of match practice compared to their opponents who had already had a confidence-boosting win in R1, and from being drawn to play the country against whose team members they for some unknown reason have the worst individual records relative to their overall ratings.

However, in the end all credit must be given to the top three Americans who really raised their game for this match and were instrumental in achieving a famous victory. Indeed, the USA is the only major Tantrix-playing country (apart from Germany) that has never had a semi-finalist in the individual WTC and the number of American players in the lobby has even been on the decline recently - all this makes their achievement in reaching the semi-finals of the World Team Championship at the first attempt all the more impressive.

31 Jul No. 7 seeds FRA A kept up the pressure on no. 3 seeds AUS A when Alex Heyer won the first of his two games against Anthony Sanders to make the score 92.4-87.6 to the French with one game to go. However, Anthony kept his cool under huge pressure to win the final game 24-14 and take the Australians through to the SFs by just 103.8-96.2 TPs.

This was the closest match of the tournament so far, with all ten players winning one game. In four of the five mini-matches, the Australian player had the higher winning margin and that was what made the difference in the end.

1 Aug For the first time since the first game in the match, no. 1 seeds NZL A got their noses in front of no. 6 seeds GBR B when NZ runner-up Murray Pharaoh beat World Junior Champion Simon Wright in their second game. NZL A now lead by 63.1-56.9 TPs and now at least one of Marion Scott or Martin Harlow is going to have to win both games against World Champion Matt Peek or Shaun Cooper respectively to regain GBR B's advantage, a very tall order.

It looks like we might be heading for another shock in the bottom half of the draw after Matthias Neumeister, the no. 4 player for no. 8 seeds GER A who moved up to play at no. 2 because of availability problems, scored a double win against Hungarian champion László Harsányi of no. 4 seeds HUN A. Both teams have now won four games but because all but one of the German wins have been by 7 tiles or more and all of the Hungarian wins have been by 3 tiles or less, GER A hold a big 85.8-72.2 TPs lead. This means that Lutz Göhmann only really needs to win (or maybe even just draw) one of his two games against Miklos Hansel.

2 Aug No. 1 seeds NZL A extended their comeback against no. 6 seeds GBR B when 2001 NZ Champion Shaun Cooper beat Martin Harlow 26-15 in a complex game which saw Martin lose another TP by going just over time too. However, Martin kept his team in with an outside chance of qualifying by winning game 2 by a single tile. NZL A now lead by 87.2-72.8 TPs, so Marion Scott will need a win by one tile and a win by two tiles against World Champion Matt Peek in the final mini-match - a tall order but not beyond the realms of possibility.

No. 8 seeds GER A completed the second big shock win of the tournament in the bottom half of the draw, possibly an even bigger shock than the win for the Americans, when Lutz Göhmann won his first game against Miklos Hansel to take the Germans over 100 TPs with a game to spare. Lutz won the second game too to give GER A the biggest win of the QFs by 116.8-83.2 TPs. In successive rounds, both Hungarian teams have suffered the agony of losing their last four games to lose 4-6 in game terms after being 4-2 up.

The only two major Tantrix-playing countries who have never had an individual World Championship semi-finalist, GER A and USA A have ended up facing each other in the World Team SFs!

3 Aug World Champion Matt Peek ensured a trans-Tasman NZL v AUS battle next week by clinching a place in the SFs for no. 1 seeds NZL A ... but not without GBR B's no. 1 Marion Scott putting up a great fight in another contender for mini-match of the round.

Marion was well on top early in game 1, with two long lines that looked likely to become linked unless Matt wasted time and tiles turning them away from each other. However, Matt is not the World Champion for nothing - less than halfway through the game, on move 25, he spotted a chance to create a permanent block between Marion's two lines and hence dash the hopes of the no. 6 seeds in the cruellest fashion.

Marion did not let this nasty shock affect her play though, and she could still have won had she had a bit more luck with the tiles towards the end of the game and had Matt not been efficient in creating the necessary lookalikes. She later spotted that she could still have won by playing a different tile on move 30. However, this was not completely obvious at the time, and she still managed a 12-12 draw despite Matt's block so early in the game.

The draw meant that all was not completely lost, but a 15-tile win against the World Champion in the final game was always going to be too big a task. Marion still played for it though, putting her team's interests ahead of her own, since had she not gone forthe big loop she might well have won the game. In the end, to her credit, she was not at all far off a loop that would have been big enough and only lost the game by a single tile. Matt had done what he had to do at the right time as usual and NZL A went through by 110.5-89.5 TPs.

SEMI-FINALS - 4-13 August:

6 Aug The top mini-match in the semi-final between no. 5 seeds USA A and GER A was played today. US captain Brad Swanlund got off to the best start, winning game 1 by 24-15, but in a blocked second game, Wolfgang Schwarz took advantage of whatever fortune came his way on a tall thin Tantrix to almost even the TP scores for the mini-match, marring this better performance only slightly by not noticing that Brad could create a loop of 9 tiles at one end of the Tantrix (longer than Brad's longest line) to reduce Wolfgang's winning margin to 24-18 and give the USA a slender 20.7-19.3 TP lead after two games.

Matt Peek of NZL A became the first captain to make a change to a successful team, replacing Stacy Henwood (who had done her job reasonably well in the QF) by Catherine Moxham (who is currently having a good run in the lobby) for the no. 5 mini-match against Kathy Upton.

7 Aug Steven Wiley won his first game against Matthias Neumeister by just one tile but Matthias came back strongly to win game 2 by seven tiles and GER A now lead USA A by 41.5-38.5 TPs.

AUS A are going to rest Garry Laishley and bring in Leah Sanders, 3rd in last year's World Championship, at no. 2 to face Shaun Cooper in the trans-Tasman needle match (well let's face it, it is, isn't it) against top seeds NZL A, with Australian Champion Josh Button staying at no. 1 to play World and NZ Champion Matt Peek.

9 Aug There must be easier situations in which to play your first ever tournament game than to open a semi-final for the no. 1 seeds NZL A against their arch-rivals AUS A, but that's what Catherine Bastet did today ... and she won, by one tile against Kathy Upton, though in a complex game she lost her first time penalty too.

The second game was very tense, both players saying that they were still shaking for a while afterwards! In fact, both played well in a difficult game with lots of temporary and potentially permanent blocks. Kathy proved to be better at keeping her line together and open and was also helped by slightly better fortune with the tiles to win 18-13 and give the Australians an early lead in the match by 22.7-17.3 TPs.

More severe attacks of the shakes were admitted to by both players in the third of the mini-matches between USA A and GER A, but a true captain's performance by Lutz Göhmann in the no. 2 games against James Mihalisin gave GER A a commanding lead in the match.

Game 1 saw James get close to a big loop before getting blocked. Lutz completed a long line in the end to win 30-19. The game was so complex that James had used up 11 minutes by move 25 and in the end both players took just over 15 minutes, possibly the first time that both players have had time penalties in the same tournament game. Can anyone remember another time? Game 2 was less intricate but still very close, Lutz eventually emerging triumphant by 23-20 to leave GER A leading by 72.2-47.8 TPs.

Things got even better for the Germans when an 18-tile loop gave their vice-captain Brigitte Empt a big 36-21 win against Pamela Wiley. At that stage, the Germans had outscored the Americans in today's games by 47.9-12.1 TPs. Although Pamela came back well to win game 2 by 24-14, no. 8 seeds GER A look like they are on target to upset the form book again. They lead by 93.2-66.8 TPs and even if Ilona Halbach lost both games against Dave Dyer on Sunday by 11 tiles (an unlikely scenario), the Germans would still go through to the Final.

10 Aug Last year's NZ Champion Shaun Cooper won his first game against Leah Sanders, who finished 3rd in last year's WTC, coming out on top by two tiles after a tense game. However, Leah won the return game by three tiles to edge the mini-match and keep AUS A out in front by 43.1-36.9 TPs. There is still all to play for.

11 Aug There is still very little to choose between NZL A and AUS A after the pattern of one player winning each game was repeated in the third mini-match between Bevan Chong and Anthony Sanders. Once again the bigger margin of the two came in the second game and the only difference this time was that it was won by the NZ player, so the gap closed slightly to leave the Australians leading by 61.8-58.2 TPs.

How does Ilona Halbach do it? She had two big upset wins in the last WTC (including one against the captain of USA A) and won the first game against Dave in the GER A v USA A match, all while chatting incessantly in the game room and the lobby and apparently paying no attention to the game whatsoever.

Does she do it to make her opponents think she's really dappy and lull them into a false sense of security? (if so, it seems to work)

Maybe she really is dappy, but unbelievably lucky? (seems doubtful with not one but three big wins under her belt)

Or does her incessant yakking just wind her opponents up so much that their brains get fried and they can't play any more? (my bets are on this one! *grin*)

I am guessing that if Dave had not created the facility to turn off your opponent's comments already, it would have been the first thing on his list after this match ... and did he forget to use it or is he just too polite? Now, I 've met the German no. 3 in real life and she's really nice, but if I ever have to play her in a tournament game, player comments off will be the first option I use! ;-))

Whatever is behind all the talk, it made her a happy German heroine once again, which is why I'm hoping I'll get away with being so cheeky above! That's because the no. 8 seeds are through to the Final. As they said when the German football team reached the Final of the recent World Cup, who would have predicted THAT at the start of the tournament (especially when they went so close to getting KO'd by the British C team in R1, still their closest match so far) and who would now dare to bet against their team spirit and special brand of Teutonic madness triumphing in the Final? :-)

By the way, the second game in the mini-match was drawn 18-18, so the final score was 117.9-82.1 TPs to GER A. Oh and it's now 1 am German time and they're still all in the lobby celebrating :-)

12 Aug At last, a breakthrough in the trans-Tasman SF with one player winning both of their games. That player was Murray Pharaoh who won two close games against Graeme Jolliffe to give no. 1 seeds NZL A the lead over no. 3 seeds AUS A for the first time since the very first game of the whole match.

The score is now 86.4-73.6 TPs and World and NZ Champion Matt Peek effectively needs just a draw in one of his two games against Australian Champion Josh Button tomorrow to take his team through to the Final to meet Germany, whose team are confirmed as unchanged for the Final. Still, if Josh finds a way to win game 1, we could be in for a titanic struggle in the final game of the match!

13 Aug A fantastic performance by Australian Champion Josh Button, marred perhaps by missing his one chance to win game 2, meant that he became the first player for over a year to beat World and NZ Champion Matt Peek (TGM) in a tournament match consisting of more than one game. However, Josh was unable to win by quite enough to let no. 3 seeds AUS A overturn the NZers lead in the overall match, and may have missed a chance to do so in the second game. So, it will be top seeds NZL A who take on no. 8 seeds GER A in the Final. In the end, NZL A won the match by just 105.7-94.3 TPs.

Matt admits that he was outplayed by Josh in the mini-match, especially in the first game which Josh won 20-15 to keep the overall match alive. Indeed, had Josh had a better run of tiles in game 2, he might even have won that game too and knocked the NZers out. Reviewing the game afterwards, it looked like Josh could have won that game if he had forced his straight on the left of the tantrix on move 43 by playing a short bend instead of playing the straight directly, though since he would then have had only one blue corner left which Matt could easily have forced out of his hand, Josh now thinks he might have just lost by more had he forced the straight.

After that, Matt could have won the last game by more (and perhaps kept his unbeaten match record going) with more analysis, by blocking and leaving one tile in the bag for his move, but when he found a definite win by three tiles, he just took it, such was his relief at the end of one of the most important games of his Tantrix-playing life.

FINAL & 3/4 PLAYOFF - 14-19 August:

16 Aug AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION LOSES MATCH WHILE DRUNK! (allegedly!) There, that got your attention. :-) Actually, a weekend away meant that Josh Button's only chance to play Pan-American Champion Brad Swanlund was at 4 am on Saturday morning his time. Whether he was also a little tipsy at the tiome is open to question, but he did miss a clear forced win on move 45 of game 2 when he could have forced his main line to connect to a loose blue corner along the bottom right of the Tantrix.

In fact, the first four games of the playoff for 3rd & 4th places between no. 3 seeds AUS A and no. 5 seeds USA A were all very close and all eight scores in those games were 19, 20 or 21! However, the Americans had the edge in all but the first game, which was drawn. Dave Dyer managed to win his second game against Kathy Upton by a single tile and Brad won both games against Josh by one and two tiles respectively.

As a result, the tiles scores are very close, 81-77, but the game scores are not with the Americans 3.5-0.5 up, so overall USA A have a clear lead by 50.5-29.5 TPs.

17 Aug Surprise finalists GER A were stopped in their tracks today as the Final got underway. Top seeds NZL A won all four games (one only by a time penalty but two by more than 20 tiles) to put the match almost out of sight before the halfway point.

The match started with the two no. 5s and looks like it is going to move up through the ranks over the next couple of days. Catherine Moxham won a hard-fought first game against Brigitte Empt 24-21 but managed a 21-tile loop in a very quick game 2 to win her match by the massive score of 33.1-6.9 TPs, the fourth highest mini-match win in the tournament so far behind 1=) Jérôme Papillon and Steven Wiley's 33.4-6.6 TPs thrashings of Andreas Kemerle and Matti Vaismaa respectively in R1 and 3) Dave Dyer's 33.3-6.7 demolition of Kevin Scott in the QFs.

Things went from bad to worse for the Germans when Bevan Chong also got a big loop in his first game against Matthias Neumeister to win 44-22. The second game between Bevan and Matthias broke the spectator record with 15 watching in the game room at one point and was at least worthy of a Final. The scores were close throughout the complex game, ending up 17-17, but Matthias went just over the time limit and NZL A gained yet another point.

NZL A now lead by 62.4-17.6 TPs after four games - it is not impossible for GER A to win from here, but a mark of how much of an uphill struggle they face is that if they won all ofthe last six games by a single tile, they would still lose the match.

18 Aug Leah and Anthony Sanders both had one big win and one big loss for AUS A against James Mihalisin and Irene Dyer respectively. This leaves an interesting situation in the playoff for third place with one match left - USA A have won 5.5 games to AUS A's 2.5 but AUS A lead the tile scores by no less than 29, 180-151. Overall, USA A still lead by 83.4-76.6 TPs. Like Irene, John Warden will be playing his first match for the Americans after being drafted in as a late replacement for Steven Wiley and realistically will need to win one game against Graeme Jolliffe for USA A to win the match.

In the Final, Ilona Halbach of GER A managed the best performance from a German player in the Final so far, repeating her 2001 WTC victory over Murray Pharaoh to end his unbeaten record in this tournament. She apparently gave her own team the impression that she had no idea what she was doing, but after a shock loss to Eleanor Gordon of GBR C in Round 1, she has continued her habit of playing well against the more experienced players, so she must know something they don't ... and her results will ensure that none of the seeds will be looking forward to playing even a quiet Ilona in the WTC this year. Against Murray, she won the first game 24-20 and the second game was drawn to make a slight dent in NZL A's lead, cutting it to 77.7-42.3 TPs.

18 Aug In what was probably the best mini-match of the Final, German captain Lutz Göhmann made Shaun Cooper fight to seal the title for no. 1 seeds NZL A, even getting a draw in the first game. However, Shaun won the second to get the New Zealanders over the magic 100 TP barrier and ensure that the country where Tantrix was invented became the first ever World Team Champions.

Matt Peek then won two more good games against Wolfgang Schwarz (in the second, he was lucky that a loop Wolfgang was aiming at got closed off quite early and a bit unlucky that a 22-tile loop did not complete) to ensure that his team celebrated in style by recording the highest margin win in the whole tournament - 134.8-65.2 TPs. In the end, NZL A looked as dominant as their captain had done when winning last year's World Championship. The no. 8 seeded German team had met their match at last, but deserve many congratulations for making it to the Final in the first place.

The last mini-match of the whole tournament was agony for supporters of no. 5 seeds USA A - ahead for most of the match, they lost out on third place to no. 3 seeds AUS A when late replacement John Warden lost both games against Graeme Jolliffe. In the end, won by 105.5-94.5 TPs, the big margins of their wins and the very small margins of their losses outweighing the fact that the Americans had won 5, drawn 1 and lost only 4 of the games in the match.

CONCLUSION:

Congratulations to New Zealand A and to all the teams who fulfilled or surpassed expectations. Many thanks to all the captains who did a great job of organising their teams within the inevitably tight deadlines - the captains were really the making of the tournament, and had a lot to do with why so many people were spectating and getting excited about the games. Thanks to all the players who played and watched in such a good spirit too!

The WTTC will definitely be back next year - almost certainly with a group phase at the start so that everyone gets a few more games and at a more neutral time of year. My mind is fully on the WTC now, but once it has started and clamed down a bit, I will email people who played in the WTTC to canvas opinion about the best way forward.

If you are already suffering withdrawal symptoms from all the excitement, don't worry, the WTC is but a couple of weeks away! :-)

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