Plan A must be to avoid the two Tantrix professionals who fill the top two seeding places, especially Mike whose competitive instincts rush to the surface when he's playing a tournament. Britta's the more consistent of the two, but Mike has a knack of winning when it matters most. In fact, there might be more chance to knock him out early than when the tournament reaches its final stages.
The other player who makes a living from Tantrix and can hence be called a 'Tantrix professional' is the European distributor, Laurent Berguin. He hasn't played so much this year, so he's only seeded 21 - but he's a lot better than that suggests and definitely the player to avoid from that seeding group.
Of seeds 3-8, the Kowalczyk brothers, Simone & Jérôme are all frighteningly good players when they really put their minds to it. Jason falls into this category too and he may well have analysed a couple of your past games and worked out exactly how to beat you! Ben was very impressive in the Pan-American Championship, but hasn't been tested in tournaments by the top players yet.
Seeds 9-16 start with European Champion and lobby ranking 'superstar' Péter, last year's World Champion Steven (I wouldn't mind playing him in Round 1! LOL) and Silvio, another player regularly near No. 1 in the lobby. The other 5 players are all very strong too. I'll be hoping to avoid Dave, since I have an appalling record against him in tournaments.
Among the other seeds, No. 21 Laurent sets the danger lights flashing, as mentioned before, but all of them are good, experienced players. Anyone with the name McManaway must be dangerous, even though (or perhaps even moreso because ...) Mike's daughter Marina is only 8.
There must be a "ringer" among the unseeded players, but who is it? Quite a few unseeded players have been practising hard and improving. However, if I had to pick one to avoid, it would have to be Kat - Mike says she's one of the best players never to have played online - so catch her in Round 1, I guess, and hope she spends the 15 minutes trying to work out how to place the tiles! * joking *
Hoping the draw turns out good for you ...
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Last Updated on 29/06/99
By Steven
Email: tournaments@tantrix.co.uk