REPORT

The GIPF Problem Solving Championship during MSO3 in London

On Saturday, August 28, 1999, the first GIPF Problem Solving Championship ever took place. And that… well, some won't forget that day lightly. To summarize what happened in three words: blood, sweat and tears. What had announced itself as an enjoyable afternoon of puzzling, turned out to be 2 hours of extreme suffering. Ben Player got sobered almost immediately after having opened the envelope with 12 problems. And he was not the only one: by the time Ben resigned (after about 10 minutes) faint plumes of steam were coming out of the ears of most of the participants and, to judge by the number of heads that sunk deeper and deeper between the shoulders, 3 quarter of them would have liked to follow Ben's example…

This demands for a word of explanation: I had worked myself half into a coma to assemble a series of worthy GIPF-problems. The MSO is an event that is unique in its kind, attended by the best players from everywhere, so I wanted a real challenge for the GIPF-players - something that could be used as a reference afterwards. Weeks and weeks and weeks I stared at diagrams and juggled desperately with pieces on the board, attempting what I hadn't done before: assembling 12 challenging GIPF-problems without bugs nor backdoors. My great fear was that it was something beyond my level; that the Problem Solving Championship was going to be a big laugh. Problems: too evident. Solutions: far too easy. Peanuts! But, inexperienced as I was in the matter, I got that completely wrong. The rules were simple: 2 hours to solve 12 problems. The problems were another story…. As time passed by, the participants got paler and paler; sighs and moans everywhere, desperately shaking heads with glassy eyes, as if most were not thinking about the problems any more, but, if not about the meaning of life, then at least why they had decided to come to London.

I apologized a first time after having collected the sheets with answers, and a second time - as thoroughly as I could - after having corrected the answers. I had little other choice than to acknowledge that the problems had been too difficult.

But back to the point: the problems were difficult, okay, but they were difficult for everybody and, thus, the championship concerned a pure and straight contest. No fuss, no differences, no bad moves to hide behind. At the start each players got an envelope with 12 problems, a GIPF-board, 18 white and 18 black pieces, a pencil and a clock. And 2 hours later, there was a winner: Yoshitomo Ikkai. He appeared to possess the most analytical mind and found 7 of the 12 solutions. In fact, he found 8 solutions, but he didn't note down the last one in accordance with the rules. A fantastic achievement, which resulted in a well deserved golden medal. Just behind him came a Belgian trio with 6 correct solutions: Kurt Vandenbranden, Aksel De Meester and Werner Dupont. Kurt was awarded with silver and Aksel with bronze, for as it was mentioned in the regulations that, in the event of a tie, the one with the fewest wrong answers would get the advantage. That was a true pity for Werner, because he had solved a 7th problem, but unfortunately he made a mess of the notes he made.