1. World Tantrix Open (2009)    

The inaugural World Tantrix Open was held in Edinburgh, Scotland on 13-14 June 2009. The organizers were Steven Tresize and Julia Schwarz. Forty-six entrants from 14 different countries took part. The tournament was won by Niklas Andersson from Sweden.



1. Place:  Niklas Andersson (SWE)
2. Place:  Attila Mikulan (HUN)
3. Place:  Simon Wright (UK)

Full Results

Next World Open

On Friday the 12th of June Greenfox, Nica, Luigi, Pellepen, Malle and I met at Skavsta airport to get the same flight to Edinburgh. When we arrived there on the evening I was very tired since I had had an very early start in the morning and graduated from upper secondary school on the same day as well. When we finally arrived to the Pollock Halls I just said hi to some people who were there before I went straight to bed.

Finally it starts! In phase 1, I managed to win 5 games out of 7, drew one and lost one. Unfortunately, I don't remember very much from those games. I finished third in my group though, and qualified for the top 18 in phase 2.

The phase 2 group was a bit harder though, in my group I had a WJTC-, WTTC and ETC-champ (Shunter), a SOTTC, ESPOC, GOTC-champ (1kornik21), one of the players that reached the final in the ETC (colly89), ISRO two times runner up and 2000 years runner up from the ETC (leslie).

My first game was against Simon. It turned into a blocked game with about 5 forced spaces around the game that could be filled with the same 3 tiles, so everything was more or less a matter of who drew the right tiles. Today Simon did, which meant he could connect two smaller lines to win by 17-16.

In the second game I played against Marek. I got a horrible start with almost nothing to add to, and got two small lines in my colour. After about the middle of the game I had the opportunity to connect these two lines, but one forced couldn't be filled immediately, a BYB. I knew there was only one of those left in the bag, but I had to take the risk otherwise I could have been lost. Marek pair-blocked that important space, but After filling in a lot of other forced spaces I managed to draw every tile in the bag and connect my two lines. The game ended 25-16 in my favour.

Next game was against Leslie again I can't remember anything of it, but I won by 23-16.

The fourth game was against Michael (colly89). After a start which wasn't that good a lucky draw gave me the opportunity to connect two lines. For a while I also almost had a threat on a 50+ loop, but Michael wasted the tiles I needed very quick as soon as the threat came up. I won this game by 28-19.

My last game was against Galina, (Galca). By now the group was very close, with me on 3 wins and one loss, and then 4 players on 2 wins and 2 losses. Anyone of me, Simon, Michael, Galina and Marek could finish top two and qualify for the final.

I had a horrible game against Galina, a combination of unlucky draws, bad tiles and bad playing from me soon gave Galina a threat on a 28-tile loop. I could find a way to block the last connection by putting it on a controlled side, later on be lucky with the order the tiles came out. Now the game finished as a 13-12 win in Galina's favour, but it could as well have been 28-8 in her favour if the tiles had came out her way...

So, I made it to the final... A all-play-all group with me and 5 other players. The other players were Attila, Neil, Simon, Lennart and Chris.

I started the final by playing Chris. A close game which after some forced spaces in my favour towards the end of the game finished in my favour, 20-16.

Next coming up was my Swedish team mate Lennart. We both got quite long lines, and if I hadn't drawn the right tiles the score would have been something like 48-25 in Lennarts favour instead of the way it actually finished, 27-21 in my favour.

My third game was against 4th seed Neil. I managed to win that as well, but in the next game I lost to Attila (today again....).

Before the last game I was just a few TPs ahead of Attila (even though he had beaten me). Attila needed to get 2 TPs more against Neil than I got against Simon.

My game against Simon was horrible, and it turned out to be the person who picked the very one tile from the bag was the person who won the game. It was my move with 6 tiles left in the bag, and I found a way to waste six tiles in one move to make sure I drew that tile and could win the game by one, 16-15. That meant, since Attila drew against Neil, that I actually did win the tournament...! Of course I was very happy, but I can't really describe the feeling... :-)

This weekend was not only about the Tantrix though, it was a nice weekend in many other ways. The Saturday evning dinner, the evening playing other games, and so on. On Monday I went sightseeing in the town with Lotta, Chris and Simon before I went back home in the afternoon. I travelled with hand luggage only, and I can tell that the guy at the security check looked as if he wasn't sure what I had in my bag.

Thanks to everyone for a very nice weekend, and many many thanks to Steven and Julia for the extreme amount of work they've been doing to make this tournament possible, see you all next year!