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2008 Polish Open

2008 Polish Table Championship

The 2008 Polish Open was held on 26-27 July, 2008 in Krosno, Poland. It was the 2nd Polish Table Championship. Sixteen entrants from four different countries took part. The trophy was captured by the Hungarian invasion force led by Attila Mikulán.

1. Place:  Attila Mikulán (HUN)
2. Place:  László Szobonya (HUN)
3. Place:  Mike McManaway (NZ)



Top step: Sheena, 1Kornik21,

Second step: Chupacabra, Blick, Leslie

Third step: JoeB, Sirpi, Fafa, Mikem (seated), Igor85

Front row: Allure, Raniuszek (with niece), Egmaria, Zormac (seated), Bdot (seated), Peja
  More photos

Champion's Report

PRE-TOURNAMENT
First, I would like to thank Teresa for organizing the tournament, I think everybody had a great time.

Leslie, Sirpi, Joe and I arrived in Kraków on Wednesday, directly from a match camp organized by us. The weather was awful, raining all the time, so we decided to have dinner and go to sleep.

On Thursday, the weather was still rainy, so we went to Park Wodny (an aquapark in Kraków). That was great, after 9 hours spent in car, and the cold weather, the sauna solved everything. :-)

Before getting to Krosno on Friday Sirpi and Joe went to the Wieliczka salt mine. Tomek, Leslie, and I went to the airport to pick up Britta and Mike. We arrived to Krosno at about 18:00. I knew half of the players from previous opens, and it was great to meet new faces, as well. After the dinner, we went to the street to try The Wave-board, which was brought there by Leslie.
SATURDAY
On Saturday morning everybody looked very tired, nobody really wanted to play. But, we had to. It was an all-play-all tournament, I hadn't played one before. I was excited.

I started with Leslie, I was happy to get it done in the beginning. I don't like to play Hungarians in the end. It was a very close game, but I won. :-)

In second round, I played against Tomek. I won that with a very lucky loop, but even after a 20-0 match, Mike was ahead me.

3-4th round: 2 more Hungarians - Zormac and Sirpi. With Z, I succeeded to avoid his big loop, so it was a close endgame. For the other game, I can't really remember, I was very hungry. :-)

After the lunch, came Mike, who put arsenic in my soup, so it was very difficult to play him. :-) But, the only antidote - beating him - kept me alive. After this round, I was leading the group till the end. :-)

My first loss came against Kornik, I couldn't beat the Polish mafia... But afterwards I played Britta and Maria, those 2 wins helped me to get back in a good position.

We went to a very good restaurant, the mood and food was wonderful, we played some games, and Mike showed us the fabulous Cork Trick. It was funny. :-)
SUNDAY
First round, a very difficult game with Eva, but I won it.

Then came the Polish mafia again... Chupacabra, who is Sheena's sister... I really wanted to take revenge on the whole family because last year's WTC :-) . But I couldn't, and lost by 8 tiles... Well, it's the Polish players' home, so they have an advantage. :-)

Then the real revenge started: next opponent was Sheena. In the first half of the game, it seemed that she would beat me as well, but I blocked her lines, and with some luck, only 1 corner missed from my 42 points loop. It was her turn, only 1 tile left in the bag, and still 5 blue corners in the game. It was impossible to block my loop, but she tried really hard, so she got a time penalty at the end, that's how I got 20 TPs. Well, the revenge was good for my soul. :-)

And then the organizer came, another Polish player, another loss... This wasn't my best morning, 2 losses out of 4 games, and 2 Polish left. I was really scared and nervous... While everybody were waiting for lunch, I went outside to calm down, so I was waveboarding for half an hour.

Igor, Joe and Karolina were my last 3 opponents, none of the games were easy, but all of them turned out good for me, and I won all of them. Even before the last round, there was a chance, that Sirpi would win the whole tournament, but a 5 tiles loss against Karolina was enough for me.

Afterwards the podium ceremony was held, where we got the "medals", which are made of glass. They are really nice.

In the evening, 9 of us went to Krosno's main square, and had dinner. It was a very good evening, with good live music played by local bands.

At the hotel we played one more HeckMeck, while drinking Martinis, then everybody went to sleep. We were all very tired.

© Copyright 2008, Tantrix Games International, Nelson, New Zealand. All rights reserved.
Last update: August, 2008