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 What is Tantrix?The Story so farThis Month's RankingTournaments |
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| The Kuchen Games |
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5. World Tantrix Open (2014)  The 2014 World Open will forever be known as the "Kuchen Games". They took place on a sunny spring weekend in Bischoffen, Germany, and was ably organised by the well known comedian duo Klaus Quecke and Susi Rieger, not to mention the support of the whole village! It was also the 10th German Table Open. |
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Front rows: Left to right - Nightboy, Icebreak, Bdot, Pimboli, gaitman, Superman, JeeJee, Grandpere, Kcina, Syagrius, Allure, Padam, Egmaria,Tommg, Blick, Sirpi, Pepe Second row: Adampett, Xyolotuba, Igor85, 1Kornik21, Pellepen, NAK, Benopi, pam1248, Ellajolie, Monii, Tizz88, Konstantin, Shunter, Kameamea, Retro, Mizo Third row: Othello, wassolls, Rick, cera, Luigi, Lenchen, Zaramos, flohuels, Justus, Hilkii, JOgie1846, Niklas Top row: Zormac, Fafa, Annelore, Nica, Schwabe, Josefin, Jeedee, Leslie, Bikey, Mikem |
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Tantrix World Puzzle Open The inaugural Tantrix Puzzle Open (TPO) took place on Friday evening and was won convincingly by Kameamea, Rolf Schreiber. Seventeen players took part including the inventor himself, who had been training hard for the previous two years! Most players were inexperienced at this new solitaire version of Tantrix but a few had also been secretly preparing themselves. Nonetheless, the inventor was very confident despite the late evening hour. However, things went badly awry right from the start. The wrong tiles came up, time pressure was intense and the concentration surrounded by the other players was furious. With the pressure, many players made simple mistakes and very few achieved the official objective of a "Full Loop". This was strange, because in private practice players had reported achieving full loops regularly. So after lots of stress, anguish, laughter and tears, the top four qualifiers (Mizo, Syagrius, Retro & Kameamea) completed the final. In the end, the result was decisive and the beautiful wooden trophy is currently residing in Stuttgart. We are confident the Tantrix Puzzle Open will become a small but permanent part of each WTO. Start your training now! |
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Colour Markers Naturally the unlimited Kuchen had to be accompanied by unlimited hot coffee. What better vehicle for it than custom designed mugs which double as Tantrix colour markers? The only downside - if you weren't protective enough, and let disorderly players get too close to your cup, not only would you lose your cup, but also your marker. And yes, it did happen! At last count, there was only one person in Germany not addicted to coffee, but to her surprise she found the cup worked with any liquid. Another great idea from Klaus and Susi! |
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Did Trouble show up? Of course he did. Trouble has been no slouch since the last WTO, in fact he's been making lots of friends. Some of them were scary creatures! He seems particularly drawn to prehistoric animals (see photo) that look like larger copies of himself. Maybe it is genetic. Fortunately Benopi is keeping a close eye on him. Ben has reported that Trouble is well and happy. And maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, Ben will write up a sentence or two about what happened to Trouble during the WTO in Bischoffen!
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Limitless Kuchen 
First let me (Mikem) admit that all my life I've had a sweet tooth. So starting about 3 years ago, I made a determined effort to eliminate all added sugar from my diet. And until this year in Bischoffen, I had been remarkably successful! But sugar addiction is like alcohol, and one can never relax.Klaus and Susi knew my weakness and decided to exploit it with the help of the Bischoffen community. From early morning on both days, a steady stream of locals arrived with the most amazing variety of Kuchen (cake). I must have been caught in moments of low will power, because I found myself eating as much of it as anyone. Simply delicious, and probably useful for powering complicated Tantrix analysis. So a big thank you to all the neighbours who generously contributed. |
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5th WORLD TANTRIX OPEN - Report from J.D. de Vries Proudest father to compete in the WTO. Two weeks after a fantastic World Record with 50.000 Tantrix Spaghetti tiles in Almere Netherlands, my son JeeJee and I (Jeedee) played at the 2014 WTO in Germany. JeeJee had a big part in the Spaghetti event, including a radio interview on the local station and finally an interview on Dutch television at 'Jeugdjournaal'. Niklas and JeeJee had been a great team in solving problems! 
You can google "Tantrix World Record Almere" to find out more about this big event or read a summary on the Tantrix site. On Friday morning, the dutch players Gaitman, Superman, JeeJee and Jeedee were ready for a 375 km ride to Bischoffen. We arrived at 14:00 and on time for the visit of the Leech farm. 
It was very nice to meet a lot of the Tantrix players again since Trosa last year. I had played many Table Tournaments but this time it was special, because this was the first international tournament together with my son, and that made me proud! Back at the Klaus-house we played a nice "Hammer and Nail" competition. There was also a Tantrix battle between Klaus and Susi to decide who would qualify for the tournament. The score after 8 games was 80-80 TP! The final two games were played on Friday evening. Susi won and entered the WTO. After this deciding game, the BBQ started. Mike and Britta organized a Tantrix Puzzle competition where we had to make a full loop with 14 tiles without red. Many players tried this new game and Kameamea was the best player and won. 
On Saturday morning at 9am the tournament started with 50 players. Klaus and Susi welcomed us all. I was one of a few parents with playing kids during this competition. The other proud parents were Nica & Luigi, Pepe, Monii, Grandpere & Kcina. 
After 9 games on Saturday, we walked to the restaurant and had a nice diner. In the evening we played several games and had lots of fun. 
On Sunday morning there was a battle between the youngest and oldest Dutch players: JeeJee - Benopi, which ended in a win for Benopi (19-23). I hope JeeJee will get a lot of revanche matches in the coming WTO's. We had a great weekend and we will practise many games and looking forward to next year in France. 
The top 5 places were Hungarian with Zormac, Blick, Pepe, Mizo and Padam. Many thanks to Klaus and Susi for organising the German Open for the 10th time! By the way, JeeJee was not the youngest player at this WTO. Annelore (Fafa's daughter) was busy with a Rubix Cube... 
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