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2008 Swedish Open

2008 Swedish Table Championship

The 2008 Swedish Open was held on 22-23 November, 2008 in Trosa, Sweden. It was the fifth Swedish Table Championship. Sixteen entrants from nine different countries took part. Fourth seed Marek Reiners of Poland won the championship and took the trophy back across the Baltic Sea.

1. Place:  Marek Reniers (POL)
2. Place:  Neil Jenner ITM (UK)
3. Place:  Rob Morton ITM (UK)


Tall guys in back: Caffe, Benopi, Pellepen, 1kornik21

Middle row: Malle, Rick, NiklasA & Greenfox (joined at hip), Soqquadro, Igor85, Typo, Nica, Skweeki, Luigi

Front row: Helly, Syagrius


Champion's Report

PRE-TOURNAMENT
As the crow flies, it’s only 700 km from Kórnik to Trosa. You can choose two ways to get there. The first is by ferry and is more comfortable, but it takes longer. The second option is to drive through Denmark, it’s faster but you have to drive more than 1.600 km. I chose the ferry and set off on Thursday afternoon. I caught the ferry in the nick of time, I was very lucky ;-)

On the ferry I played my first Tantrix online game at sea (with a Polish player – Kamelot). It was my warm-up before the Swedish Open. There was a violent storm all night long, so I couldn’t sleep at all. On Saturday morning Sweden greeted me with snow. Finally, after a couple of hours’ drive I reached Trosa.

On Friday evening we had a very nice dinner at Monika’s home, after that we all played lot of interesting games.
SATURDAY
The first games are usually very stressful; my first game was with Monika. I won by 4 tiles but I got 3 time penalties. In the 4th round I played with Rob. I had never won a table game against him before. I see red when I can't play green and Rob had a game pack with no green tiles ;-( Anyway our game was very good, and I was very happy after the last move.

After the tough game with Rob, it was high time to lose something, and that happened to be a game with Lennart. It was my worst game in the whole SO. Later things kept getting better and better. I won the next 4 games and I was leading after the first day.

On Saturday evening we spent time in a “Fyren” restaurant. Everyone tried some local cuisine. Everything was really very tasty. We played “Set”, “HeckMeck – with 2 sets” and some interesting game with white and black – numbers from 0 to 11 and jokers... but I can’t remember the name of the game.
SUNDAY
On Sunday we played only 6 rounds, cause Vincent had to cach a 4pm bus and I had to be in Nynäshamn about 5pm. (It’s 90 km’s from Trosa). My ferry wouldn’t wait for me. I started the games with a dramatic draw with Niklas, with only a few seconds left on my clock. Later, luck again was on my side in games with Ben and Carl. Next came my second loss, to Igor, but the most important games were still ahead.

Before the last 2 rounds three top players were so close (me, Heli and Neil) In the 14th round I played Heli, that was the most stressful moment in the whole tournament. At the beginning of the game I wasn't lucky, I had 2 green lines with more than 10 tiles and no connection. Finally, I came into some luck and I made a beautiful 36 loop.

In the last round two top fighters met – me and Neil... I was leading by 10 points, I could have lost even by a few points, but I won by 2 tiles.

After drawing the last tile I was the happiest man in the world, I had been waiting for that moment very long, over six years.

It was the first medal for Poland in the whole history of Tantrix. We’ve had a Hungarian reign, maybe it's time for a Polish one now? I know we can win more tournaments, please help me with it.
FINALLY
Many thanks to organisers and all players, I was proud to play with all of you.

I would like to dedicate my Victory for two people, without you my success wouldn’t have been possible. You are so exceptional ;-*

Marek Reniers

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Last update: January, 2009