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Phil Sneddon of Auckland wins | |
Phil Sneddon from Auckland is the first ever New Zealand Tantrix Champion and wins a return flight to Nelson, the home of Tantrix, from any airport in New Zealand served by Origin Pacific and obtains his first International Tantrix Master norm. In the final, which was played on Tuesday 4 July, number 7 seed Phil beat number 6 seed Jamie Sneddon, who just happens to be his twin brother!
The two top seeds played out the 3rd and 4th place final, Tantrix inventor Mike McManaway from Nelson taking 3rd place over Matthew Peek from Auckland. Previous reports
Round 2, Quarter-Final & Semi-Final Report:
In Round 2, the top 8 seeds really showed their class, all going through to the quarter-finals. You wouldn't think Tantrix had a significant element of luck, would you! Five of the eight quarter-finalists come from Auckland, two from Wellington and one from Nelson.
Coincidentally, top seed Matt Peek (AKL) will play Bevan Chong (AKL), the two classmates meeting in a repeat of a 1999 World QF - it was delicately poised at 20 TPs each after two games but Matt won the final two games a week later. 6th seed Jamie Sneddon (AKL) beat 4th seed Justin Phillips (WEL) - they had a long and close 1999 World R3 match too. So, the semi-final in the top half of the draw is a repeat of the corresponding 1999 World SF!
In the bottom half of the draw, 7th seed Phil Sneddon (AKL) narrowly beat 3rd seed Chris Peek (AKL) in the first 'upset' result of the tournament and he will play a non-Auckland player, Mike McManaway (NEL) having beaten Murray Pharaoh (WEL) in their quarter-final.
In the semi-finals, Phil Sneddon beat Mike McManaway by 42 tournament points to 38, having needed and just managed to get a win in a nailbiting final game. Jamie Sneddon repeated his 1999 World Championship semi-final win over Matthew Peek in a very close match where the first three games resulted in one win for each player and one draw and Jamie won the last game by just one tile - Matthew suffered very similar fate against Mike too.
Notes for Entrants
These pre-entry notes have been retained for reference. All the notes are on this page - if you only want a specific section, click on one of these links:
Free entry/Prize Elo ratings/Seeding method Final note
Who can enter: Click here for details of the 2000 Pacific Championship (Australia & NZ) The date and time are : This file was last modified on Monday, 31-Mar-2003 00:20:45 BST
The NZ Tantrix Championship is open to everyone who lives in NZ or comes from NZ. There is no entry fee and no specific date or time you have to play each round (you arrange each match with your opponent) so we hope all NZ Tantrix players, from the strongest to the newest, will enter!
Even if you are new to Tantrix, this is a good chance to start getting in some tournament practice in time for the World Championship later in the year - even in this tournament. you might surprise yourself!
Those who entered last year's World Tantrix Championship (WTC) will notice that the total time allowed for this tournament is shorter. However, whereas the match length rose round by round in the WTC, all matches in this tournament consist of four games (and hence will last 60-90 minutes based on WTC experience) and arranging matches should be a lot easier with virtually all of the entrants in the same time zone.
Please note that if you come from NZ but no longer live in NZ, you should enter only if you are willing to play the majority of your games at times convenient to those in NZ - i.e. NZ evenings and weekends.
Tournament format:
The tournament will be a knockout competition, with the eight strongest players seeded to avoid each other in the early rounds (see below), as in tennis for example.
A match will consist of four games against the other player, possibly more in the semi-finals and final if the players concerned agree. To allow for margins of victory, the games will be scored on the Tournament Point system. In June, there will be links on this page to fixture lists and results, which will be updated overnight (NZ time) most days.
Timing:
As mentioned above, in practice a four game match lasts about 60-90 minutes, though in theory a match can last up to 2 hours. If you go a long way in the tournament, you will need to play just over a match per week. In order to keep the tournament moving so that virtually all matches are played in June, rules about defaulting will be applied more rigorously than usual, so if you're away for a couple of weeks in June, it's probably best not to enter this time.
Rules:
The standard tournament rules apply, with time penalties if a player takes 16 minutes or more for a game and scoring using the Tournament Point system. Click here to see the full rules - they include notes on how to arrange games, what to do if an opponent does not show and so on.
Free Entry/Prizes/Buybacks:
There is no entry fee. The prize is a free return domestic flight to Nelson donated by Origin Pacific Airways plus the honour of becoming the first ever NZ Tantrix Champion.
Elo ratings / Seeding method:
All games played will count towards the Tantrix Tournament Elo Ratings which are to be used to decide seedings for future tournaments. See Tantrix tournament Elo ratings for further information. The seeding method is based on these ratings - see the Seeding method & list for full details. The Elo ratings will be updated and hence the seeding points finalised in the last week in May.
Final note:
The non-playing controller will be Steven Trezise, email tournaments@tantrix.co.uk In the case of disputes, the decision of the controller will be final. Assistant controllers, who may be playing in the tournament, will be appointed later.
We have to reserve the right to default at our discretion people whom we have very good reason to think are either cheating or not making an effort to arrange a match, even if (given the nature of the Internet) we can't prove it. We will not, however, abuse this right and in previous tournaments it has not been necessary to make use of it and we very much hope that will continue to be the case. :-)
Entries close on Sunday 28 May, though we reserve the right to close entries early if we reach a convenient round number of entrants (eg. 32) before that date, so don't delay entering!
Click here to send an email if you have any questions
List of previous tournament 1-2-3's
Tournament comments - Tantrix 'Discus' forum
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Sunday, 06-Jul-2008 06:03:57 GMT
Sunday, 06-Jul-2008 07:03:57 BST (local)
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