2nd Project GIPF Weekend

Organization: Project GIPF Centre
Place: 't Pannenhuis, Nijlen (B)
Date: March 22 - 23, 2003
March 22: DVONN and ZÈRTZ
March 23: TAMSK and GIPF
All 4 tournaments were played according to the Swiss System
Participants: 23


Attendance

In total 23 players... 14 players less than last time... Hmmm, not really a success. A comfort was that 11 of them played in all four tournaments, and that was exactly the same number of players that competed to become the overall champion during the first Project GIPF Weekend. But - I confess - first there were only 10 players. To get to the same number as last time I had to put Jix Demerco on the list with participants. Who? Jix Demerco! Some still think he's an obscure players from Mongolia or so, but others know better. *Jix* is just a name that was given to me by my two sons. On a blue Monday they added *Demerco* to it - a name they had found in a phonebook. Since I prefer not to play the games of Project GIPF under my own name, I started using that name as a nickname.

First I (Kris Burm that is; not Jix Demerco!) was disappoited with the fact that so few people had signed in. On the other hand, it is not because I organize such a weekend, that I may expect that a lot of people will participate. A whole weekend is *a lot of time*, and there are so many things to do. Keeping that in mind - and knowing that 5 players had canceled their participation the evening before the event and that more 2 players didn't show up -, I eventually thought a total of 23 players was not too bad after all. And what's more, in the end one organizes an event always for the ones who can make it and want to be there. And it worked out well. The ambiance was good, there was a lot of fun and goodwil. And, of course, there was a lot of playing going on. So, you may be sure of it: next year there will be another Project GIPF Weekend!


The Favourites

 Kurt Van den Branden.
He became the first Project GIPF Champion. Somebody who can do it once, can also do it twice! Sure thing that Kurt was going to try to prolong his title.
 Jeroen Weyn.
During the first Project GIPF Weekend, Jeroen Weyn was the second in *everything*. He was very eager to make sure that that was not going to happen a second time.
 Werner Dupont.
Probably the most natural player of the lot. During the first Project GIPF Weekend he had already proved that he was a potential overall winner. He won two of the four events (i.e. the DVONN and GIPF tournament), but... Sunday morning he overslept himself, as a result of which he missed the TAMSK tournament. Nonetheless, he ended in third place with 13 points.
 Ad Rovers. The strongest player of the EGO-members could, unfortunately enough, not make it this year. Hopefully he'll be back next year.
 Christof Nuyttens. A very unpredictable player. Last time he shared the 3rd place with Werner Dupont and Ad Rovers. Sometimes he does nothing but winning, and sometimes he does nothing but losing! You just never know in advance what it is going to be...


The Competitions

For more details we refer to the RESULT pages for each separate game. Below you'll find just the headlines.

1. DVONN (Saturday, from 14:30 to 18:00, 7 rounds)
Jeroen Weyn took a good start: 6 wins out of 7 games. Jix Demerco - ahum! - also gathered 6 wins. 3 players shared the 3rd place with 5 wins each: Werner Dupont , Jan C. de Graaf en Christof Nuyttens. Kurt Van den Branden kind of missed his start and lost 3 games. Werner Dupont - my personal favourite to win the overall title this time - did better and won 5 games, and so did Jan C. de Graaf and Christof Nuyttens. They were on Jeroen's tail.

2. ZÉRTZ (Saturday, from 20:00 to 22:00, 6rounds)

Kurt strikes back! Just like the previous time, he won the ZÈRTZ tournament without losing ag game, meaning that he is the only player to remain unbeaten in one of the Project GIPF games after 2 Project GIPF weekends. Michael Reitz became second with 5 wins. Jaques Robrecht and Werner Dupont shared the 3rd place with 4 points. Two other favourites, Jeroen Weyn and Christof Nuyttens, scored 3 wins, and so did Patrick Van de Perre, Jan C. de Graaf, Jix Demerco and Boris Ammerlaan. So, Jeroen got 2 point ahead after the DVONN tournament, but now dropped 3 points! And so did Jix! After day one, Kurt Van den Branden was in the lead again with 10 points He got 4 players on his tail: Jeroen Weyn, Werner Dupont, Jix Demerco and Michael Reitz. Two players were following with 8 points: Christof Nuyttens and Jan C. de Graaf (but, sadly enough, the latter could not participate the next day).

3. TAMSK (Sunday, from 10:00 to 12:00, 5 rounds)
Immediately after the first Project GIPF weekend, Jeroen Weyn could have been pointed out as the most unfortunate participant. He preformed well - no question about that! - but in all four tournaments he had ended just one point behind the respective winners. And, on top of that, in the overall standings he also ended just one point behind Kurt Van den Branden. This only to say that Jeroen is a very talented and consistent player, who came to this 2nd Project GIPF weekend with a clear plan in mind: he wanted to get rid of that second place; he wanted to do better than that in at least one of the tournaments. And so he did! As already said above, he started by winning the opening event the first day. Quite happy with such a successful start, he kept his rhythm going and also won the TAMSK tournament one day later. 5 straight wins on his score sheet! And since kurt, his main rival, lost 2 of his 5 TAMSK matches, it was now his turn to lead by one point.
Johannes Cannoodt claimed the second place with 4 wins. Kurt Van den branden, Jix Demerco, Michael Reitz and Hennes Passman shared the third place with 3 points each.

4. GIPF (Sunday, from 13:00 to 18:00, 6 rounds)
Only 2 players remained unbeaten after 3 rounds: Jix and Nico Habraken. Jix won against Nico in the 4th round, so he was the only with 4 wins out of 4 games. But then he lost against Werner Dupont. Werner also won his match against Patrick Van de Perre. which brought his total up to 5 wins. Jix ended with a win against Kurt Van den Branden. That made that Werner and Jix gathered both 5 points, but Werner had beaten Jix, so it was only logic that he got the title. Jix's second place was less logic, because Kurt should never have lost his match in the 6th round against him. Jix was in a completely lost situation; Kurt had still over 10 minutes on his clock and was leading by 5 pieces, yet for some (still unknown) reason he did not succeed in finishing the game; again and again he left Jix a way to get pieces back into his reserve - and then, suddenly, Kurt's flag fell! Very strange, because Kurt is one of the most experienced players. And since it was the very last game of the last tournament of the complete Project GIPF weekend, this loss appeared to be very expensive! Kurt knew that! If he had won, he would not only have ended the GIPF-tournament on a shared first place with Werner, but he would also have had the chance to become the Project GIPF Champion for the second consecutive time! Now, as things went, he came just one point short: that one point he should not have lost!
3 players ended on the 3rd place with 4 wins: Patrick Van de Perre, Jeroen Weyn (and by doing so, he secured his first place in the overall standings), and the surprise of the day: Frédéric Van Aelst, who first won against newcomer Koen princen, and next against former tournament winners Rita pauwels, André De Laet and Boris Ammerlaan.

And that was it, folks! All 4 tournaments were played! And we had a new Project GIPF Champion: the one who had become second in every possible meaning during the first Project GIPF Weekend, now ended a fantastic weekend with a fantastic score of 18 wins out of 23 games played. Jeroen Weyn became the second Project GIPF Champion! Congratulations! Well deserved! And congratulations also to all the others !!!

Pl.	Name	DVONN 7 rounds	ZÈRTZ 6rounds	TAMSK 5 rounds	GIPF 6 rounds	Final score
1	Jeroen Weyn (B)	6	3	5	4	18/23
2	Kurt Van den Branden (B)	4	6	3	4	17/23
2	Jix Demerco (B)	6	3	3	5	17/23
4	Werner Dupont (B)	5	4	2	5	16/23
5	Michael Reitz (D)	4	5	3	2	14/23
6	Christof Nuyttens (B)	5	3	2	2	12/23
7	Johannes Cannoodt (B)	3	1	4	3	11/23
8	Gijs de Leeuw v. W. (NL)	4	2	2	2	10/23
8	Boris Ammerlaan (NL)	3	3	1	3	10/23
10	Patrick Van de Perre (B)	2	3	0	4	9/23
	Jan C. de Graaf (NL)	5	3	-	-	8/13
	Rita Pauwels	3	-	2	3	8/18
11	Hennes Pasman (NL)	2	1	5	-	8/23
	Koen Princen (B)	4	2	-	1	7/19
	Robrecht Jacques (B)	2	4	-	-	6/13
	Frank Van Braght (B)	2	-	-	3	5/13
	Fred Van Aelst (B)	-	-	-	4	4/6
	André De Laet (B)	-	-	-	3	3/6
	Nico Habraken (B)	-	-	-	3	3/6
	Jotek Burm (B)	0	-	-	3	3/13
	John Van Schaik (NL)	-	-	-	2	2/6
	Andreas Banze (D)	2	-	-	-	2/7
	Eric Verbraeken (B)	-	-	-	1	1/6