Although I live relatively near to the venue (or maybe because I do), I couldn't attend the Friday night gathering or the draw. On the other hand it meant that I had a fresh start on Saturday morning. Though finding out that Heli (Helly) was in my group was a bit of a setback.

Heli has been a bit of an angstgegner for me at the Opens over the past few years and indeed our game had the usual outcome. Fortunately, most of the other matches went my way so that at the end of the day I won my group. Heli had a difficult day but managed to qualify for the first group and so did Marek (1Kornik21), Eva (fafa), Mark (markelsa, great results!), Jan Dirk (jeedee), Vincent (syagrius) and Timo (retestrack). In all Open Championships there are some surprising upsets, this year's most notable was probably Lennart (pellepen) missing the first group.

Saturday was concluded with a group dinner and a very pleasant evening at a local pub with a lot of puzzles and games. For some Saturday evening ended very close to the start of the games on Sunday morning.

Sunday proved to be a fantastic day for me, game after game the tiles did their magic. Given that the rest of the group stayed very close together the 5th round game against Marek who was second at the time was an early final. After a tough and close game first place was practically decided, giving me a relatively relaxed final two rounds. After a bad start, Heli fought her way back to the top finishing second just before Eva.

Having been the top ranked Dutch Tantrix player for a long time, this title is special. I was unable to attend the first Dutch Open and with the ever increasing numbers of new strong Dutch players it will be a lot harder in the future to claim this title which I felt belonged to me.

And to conclude, a nice summation was given by Judy (Moorehen): Brilliant organisation, good venue, and best of all, a delightful crowd of people all made for a memorable weekend.

Ben Polman

Back to previous page