Project GIPF Championship in Cannes

Organization: Festival International des Jeux
Place: Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France
Date: February 25 - 27, 2005
February 25: DVONN
February 26: ZÈRTZ and GIPF
November 27: YINSH


Playing at the Côte d'Azur !

The International Games Festival in Cannes is a *beauty*. I've always proclaimed that there are not enough events that combine tournaments, workshops, initiations and demos. The festival in Cannes offers the best combinations of different activities related to games I've seen so far. The event as a whole is not as spectacular as e.g. the yearly fair is Essen, but nonetheless for sure worth a visit. And, of course, the Côte d'Azur adds a fantactic extra little bit of flavour, especially when you're there with good weather.

As most of you will know, we had scheduled a Project GIPF Championship in Cannes. Here are the results of the 4 different tournaments, followed by the final standings:

DVONN (Feb. 25), 14 participants.
Two germans on spots 1 and 2. Jürgen Simon and Michael Reitz were clearly stronger than the rest of the pack. Four players ended with 3 wins each. Thierry Claudel's MB-score was just a bit better than the others, so he snatched the 3rd place.

ZÈRTZ (Feb. 26), only 5 players, round robin tournament
The very first time that a French dude won a Project GIPF tournament. Pol Morin (FR) scored 4 convincing wins! Michael Reitz (D) and Kurt Van Den Branden (B) are amongst the best players, so he did not get his victory the easy way. Three players ended with 2 wins each but there was no manner to point out who had become second and third. So Michael Reitz, Kurt Van Den Branden, and Frédéric Simon (F) shared the 2nd place.

GIPF (Feb. 26), 6 players, so again a round robin tournament
What counts for the Germans in DVONN, also counts for the Belgians in GIPF. For the time being they have the strongest players: 3 Belgians on the first 3 spots - respectively Patrick Van de Perre, Kurt Van den Branden, and Rita Pauwels. But my guess is that the Belgian hegemony will last so much longer. They already have the Dutch players on their tail, and now also a bunch of German and French players is catching up. To be continued!

YINSH (Feb. 27), 12 participants
Again the same two germans as with DVONN on spots 1 and 2, Jürgen Simon and Michael Reitz, but this time in reversed order.
Luca Cerrato from Italy won the trophy for the 3rd place because of a better MB-score than Patrick Van de Perre (B) and Gerald Garcia (F).


This resulted in the following final standings:

Pl.	Name	DVONN 5 rounds	ZÈRTZ 4 rounds	GIPF 5 rounds	YINSH 5 rounds	Final score
1	Michael Reitz (D)	4	2	2	5	13/19
2	Kurt Van den Branden (B)	2,5	2	4	2	10,5/19
3	Patrick Van de Perre (B)	1	0	5	3	9/19
	Jürgen Simon (D)	5	-	-	4	9/10
	Rita Pauwels (B)	3	-	3	2	8/15
	Frédéric Simon (B)	2	2	1	2	7/19
	Pol Morin (FR)	1	4	-	1	6/14

Many thanks to all the participants!