April 16, 2002
DVONN goes well...

American Mensa (you know, the high IQ society...) organises every year its Mensa Mind Games. The five board games that score the highest receive a Mensa Select® distinction. Fifty-four games were played and evaluated during the event. After 40 hours of game playing, DVONN was choses as one of the 5 winners.
And - even more important - there's more: the Strategy Gaming Society has put DVONN amongst the finalists for the 2002 Gamers' Choice Awards in the category "General Strategy Games for 2 players"

EGO grows...

What we consider the best news since a long time is that EGO (a GIPF-club that is located in Eindhoven, NL) is growing. People who look at it from a distance will probably notice nothing, but we think it's a big step forward. Stronger: it's a giant leap, a hugh *wave*, an enormeous canonball that can't be stopped anymore, etc. Six guys organized a first Round Robin tournament (in January, 2001, that was) to create the possibility to play GIPF without having problems to find an opponent. Since then 3 more competions took place, and soon the fifth will start. They remained with 6 players for the second legague, then 2 more players joined them for the third league, and 3 more for the fourth, and now it looks as if they will be with more for the fifth. They are also organizing a GIPF Regularity Contest this year and, even more significant, they are setting up a local ranking list, which is a "primeur".
The reason why we consider all this such good news is that neither Don & Co nor the GIPF Centre was envolved in it. It is the first time that an independent initiative is turning into something concrete - and, on top of that, it looks as if it will stay. As said: the best news since a long time!

You'll find the final standings of the fourth EGO League in the GIPF results section.
And if you want to know more about EGO, contact Angelo Wentzler or visit their website.

DVONNERS, the game is online !

Brettspielwelt is a games portal that has been set up by 4 youngsters. It is in the air for already more than 2 years (if we got that right) and their fuel is nothing but sheer enthusiasm. And that shows: they did a fantastic job! Their names: Tobias Lang, Alexander Zbiek, Regina Michl, and Sebastian Mellin.

Now they have written a program that makes it possible to play DVONN online. If you are not used to play games online you'll probably find it rather difficult to get around in their virtual world. Hold on! Nothing comes for free, so just do a little effort and you'll be rewarded - not only with DVONN, but with plenty of other games, too. The good news is that most of what you need to know can also be found in English. The bad news is that the commands for DVONN are not yet available in English... But Brettspielwelt is a friendly world and most players you'll encounter will be prepared to help. Just ask!