Ranking Tournament

Organization: Interludium (Christof Nuyttens in colaboration with game club "Speelduivel" and games shop "Mertens")
Place: "Ensor", Diestsesteenweg, Kessel-Lo, Leuven (B)
Date: March 24, 2002
Format: Swiss system, 5 rounds, 20 min. player/game
Participants: 18


André De Laet joins favourites

Three things made this a very agreable tournament: (1) after weeks of rain it finally was a beautiful day again and that resulted in a one big good mood; (2) four participants were of the female gender; that was more than 20% of the participants, which is a record; and (3) there were six newcomers amongst the participants.

The last GIPF tournaments had all been dominated by Kurt Van den branden, Patrick Van de Perre and Werner Dupont. That was also the case in Leuven, but they got company...

Start at 13:00. Werner lost his first game surprisingly against Nico Habraken. Surprisingly? Werner got 3 pieces behind in a very early stage of the game, came back, but then Nico prooved to have become a quite experienced player in only a handful of games played in a competition. He concentrated on his defence and launched an attack each time Werner had only a few pieces left in reserve. Patrick won his first two games, but then encountered Jan Roelens. Jan had already shown that he was a strong player with, out of the blue, 4 wins during last year's tournament in Leuven, his home town. He immediately caught Patrick by the neck and finished him off in what probably was the shortest game of the afternoon. That made him face Kurt Van den Branden in the fourth round, in what could be considered the final. Kurt got one piece ahead, but it was Jan who dominated most of the game. It was not until Jan became short of time, that Kurt succeeded in making the difference. A very close game, that costed both players a lot of energy. And that showed in their last round match. Kurt had no chance against Werner - who, after his loss in the first round, had scored nothing but wins - and Jan couldn't find his normal rhythm any more. But that was against André De Laet and most can't find their normal rhythm against him. After having experimented for years with plenty of GIPF-pieces - with mixed results - he changed his strategy drastically: suddenly he started playing with only 2 GIPF-pieces, and shortly after that with only one. Risky, but he always seems to find a way to have that sole GIPF save and tries to make sure that he has always more pieces in reserve that his opponents. And it seems to work - at leats, for him. He became one of the hardest to beat, which resulted this time in a shared first place with Kurt, Patrick and Werner.


Standings

Place Name                      Rtg   Score   M-B.  Buch.  Prog.

1-4   Van den Branden, Kurt     1735    4     8.0   14.0   14.0
      Van de Perre, Patrick     1782    4     8.0   14.0   12.0
      De Laet, André            1529    4     8.0   13.0   11.0
      Dupont, Werner            1771    4     8.0   13.0   10.0
5-9   Roelens, Jan              1681    3     11.0  16.0   12.0
      Walvisch, Demian          1432    3     9.0   15.0   10.0
      Monsieur, Dirk            1715    3     8.0   14.0   10.0
      Pauwels, Rita             1529    3     8.0   13.0    9.0
      Reynders, Ann             1490    3     7.0   10.0    8.0
10-15 Habraken, Nico            1330    2     11.0  17.0    9.0
      Reitz, Michael                    2     8.0   12.0    7.0
      Nuyttens, Christof        1302    2     8.0   12.0    5.0
      Claes, Robrecht                   2     7.0   11.0    4.0
      Adam, Joke                        2     7.0   10.0    5.0
      Van Aelst, Frédéric       1391    2     5.0   10.0    3.0
16-17 Claes, Bruno                      1     8.0   12.0    2.0
      Bovens, Herman                    1     7.0   10.0    4.0
18    Corten, Marjan                    0     5.0    9.0    0.0

1.    Van de Perre, Patrick  1782  10:W   6:W   5:L  11:W   4:W
2.    Dupont, Werner         1771  11:L  15:W   9:W   7:W   3:W
3.    Van den Branden, Kurt  1735  12:W   7:W  11:W   5:W   2:L
4.    Monsieur, Dirk         1715  13:W   9:L   8:W  18:W   1:L
5.    Roelens, Jan           1681  14:W   8:W   1:W   3:L   6:L
6.    De Laet, André         1529  15:W   1:L  12:W   9:W   5:W
7.    Pauwels, Rita          1529  16:W   3:L  14:W   2:L  11:W
8.    Reynders, Ann          1490  17:W   5:L   4:L  16:W  18:W
9.    Walvisch, Demian       1432  18:W   4:W   2:L   6:L  13:W
10.   Van Aelst, Frédéric    1391   1:L  11:L  16:L  14:W  15:W
11.   Habraken, Nico         1330   2:W  10:W   3:L   1:L   7:L
12.   Nuyttens, Christof     1302   3:L  16:W   6:L  13:L  17:W
13.   Adam, Joke                    4:L  18:L  17:W  12:W   9:L
14.   Bovens, Herman                5:L  17:W   7:L  10:L  16:L
15.   Claes, Bruno                  6:L   2:L  18:L  17:W  10:L
16.   Claes, Robrecht               7:L  12:L  10:W   8:L  14:W
17.   Corten, Marjan                8:L  14:L  13:L  15:L  12:L
18.   Reitz, Michael                9:L  13:W  15:W   4:L   8:L