Francis K. Lalumière: Project GIPF 10th Anniversary World Championship

Ten years already!

It seems like yesterday that Kris Burm’s baby was taking its first tentative steps, still putting pieces in its little mouth wherever it toddled to. Now GIPF is a strapping young lad, already thinking about high school and ogling girls for the first time. And there’s no better way to celebrate a 10th birthday than a world championship.

The previous world championship had taken place in Germany and in the Netherlands in 2004, when only four of the Project GIPF games had been published. Four years later, the event would encompass all six games of the Project – a first which Kris Burm anticipated with trepidation.

For the occasion, GIPF blew out its ten candles at the big Czech gaming extravaganza, the Mind Sports Olympiad. The event took place in Prague, the urban garden of Central Europe, where history is always in full bloom. Who could resist? Well, 35 excited players simply couldn’t. They came from all over: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy – and from the Czech Republic as well, naturally. In this hodgepodge of languages, one means of communication stood out as universal: gaming. Abstract gaming, to be precise. The meaning of pieces on a game board transcends all language barriers – which did not prevent Belgian player Werner Dupont from uttering a memorable misspoken line that became the hallmark of the friendly atmosphere that permeated the entire event. But more on that later…

The tournament hall was set up with two long rows of seven tables each, with a tournament clock on every table. Players competed through six games in the Swiss system, preventing elimination and ensuring that everyone plays all of their games, no matter how they perform. The time allowed for a match during the championship varied slightly from game to game, but on average each player had 15 minutes at his or her disposal. The clocks were set with the Fischer system, which adds five seconds to the clock after each move, expanding the total play time of each player by about five minutes in most cases, but that was not much of a breathing space, and many players discovered that a Project GIPF game under time pressure is not the same as a leisurely match with tea and crumpets.

First up, on Thursday afternoon, was ZÈRTZ. Twenty-two players entered the fray and fought side by side through six gruelling games of jumping marbles. When the dust settled, Christof Nuyttens (from Belgium) had won first place with 6 points, followed by Michael Reitz (from Germany) with 5 points, and David Korejtko (from the Czech Republic) with 4 points. All three winners wore their medals proudly, especially David, who would turn out to be the only Czech player to make it into the top three of any game in the championship. The same could be said of Michael for Germany but, hey, he was the only participant from his country, so he had it easy!

It was about that time that someone noticed a peculiar looking portrait on the wall of the tournament hall. In the big, sprawling building that welcomed the championship (and indeed, the whole of the Mind Sports Olympiad), busts and portraits of important historical figures were everywhere, on every wall, in every nook. But right in the GIPF room hung the portrait of what could only be an illustrious, long-forgotten ancestor of Kris Burm. Picture hounds jumped at the opportunity to capture this historical reunion.

The next morning, twenty GIPFers rose bright and early for the PÃœNCT tournament. Connecting two sides of a gaming board had never seemed so vital to any of them. Six games later, Mathijs Booden (from the Netherlands) had taken first place with 5 points. Also scoring 5 points for second place was Morten Mertner from Denmark (part of the infamous Mertner Brothers Tag Team!), closely followed by Bert Oostdijk (also from the Netherlands) with 4 points. All three of them, but Mathijs and Bert in particular, would prove to be strong performers throughout the entire championship.

A few hours later, 26 players showed up for the DVONN tournament, hoping to stay in touch with those red pieces for as long as possible – not an easy task, considering the caliber of players present at the event. After six engagements, Xander Nijhuis (from the Netherlands) took home the gold with 5.5 points, while Mathijs Booden (from the Netherlands) snatched away the silver with 5 points, and Morten Mertner (from Denmark) landed the bronze with 4.5 points.

It’s during that day – although reports as to exactly when the incident took place vary wildly from one source to the next – that Werner Dupont, an über-friendly player from Belgium, had a momentous discussion with a few fellow players between two matches. He was describing his last game – in English – and was trying to say that his opponent had completely surrounded him, although he couldn’t find the right word to express that concept. Yet he gave it a shot and announced that he had been “completely cucumbered” by his opponent.

It is unfortunate that nothing had been set up for audio recordings during the championship because mere words cannot describe the intensity of the laughter unleashed by Werner’s innocent remark. For the rest of the championship, no matter the game (and especially if no surrounding maneuver was possible), someone would congratulate their opponent on completely cucumbering them, thus creating a cascading hilarity that never failed to wash over the entire tournament hall. And Werner himself was always the one who laughed the loudest about it.

Friday night was a long night, with an impromptu celebration of the 10 years of GIPF – and a big thank-you to creator Kris Burm – organized by the participants. Refreshments had been smuggled to a back hall during the day, with everyone signing a “happy 10th anniversary” card literally behind Kris’ back. All was revealed at the end of the DVONN tournament, including what seemed to be an entire keg of local alcohol (a present to Kris), as well as a collection of Project GIPF-based puzzles designed by Netherlands player Angelo Wentzler.

The mob then moved on to a neighborhood restaurant for a quite late dinner before the more reasonable elements of the group retired to their hotel rooms in preparation for the activities of the following day. The actual conclusion of the evening is lost to history.

Saturday morning eventually came about, bringing with it 22 players eager to cross swords (and rows of four pieces) over the GIPF board. Not satisfied with a second or third place anymore, Morten Mertner (from Denmark) made sure he took first place in GIPF, doing so with 5 points, followed closely by the favorite for the GIPF tournament, Patrick Van de Perre (from Belgium), who also scored 5 points. Mathijs Booden (again! and still from the Netherlands) took third place with, well, 5 points.

It was during the GIPF tournament – the most serious and silent of the normally cheerful tournaments – that, ironically, one of the funniest incidents of the championship took place. At some point, one player made his move and enthusiastically slapped the clock on the next table. All four players involved burst out laughing (a testament to the camaraderie during the tournaments) and the situation was quietly rectified. Strangely, though, this one occurrence appeared to precipitate a veritable epidemic of “wrong clock hitting” where several players in the affected row, overly conscious of the importance of not hitting the wrong clock, started doing just that. The outbreak thankfully lasted but a few turns and everyone involved was cured of the hilarious ailment.

There were still two solid tournaments to play through.

A respite of a few short hours later, 28 brave souls sat down to chase each other’s stacks in the TZAAR tournament. Intent on bringing Belgium to the forefront again, Kris Boyen won the tournament at the head of another triple tie with 5 points. But the Netherlands were not far behind, since two proud representatives landed second and third places: Jan Willem Knopper (5 points), and Mathijs Booden (also 5 points).

On Sunday morning, 26 players stepped up to the plate one last time. YINSH was on the breakfast menu, and some participants looked decidedly hungry. Michael Reitz (from Germany) proved to have the biggest appetite of all, taking first place with 6 points. Bert Oostdijk (from the Netherlands) took second place with 5 points, while Erik Koster won the Netherlands one more medal with 4.5 points and a third place.

Throughout the championship, Project GIPF publisher SMART provided medals and prize money for the three top winners of each tournament: gold received €150, silver €100 and bronze €50. Not only that, but Smart also partly sponsored players who traveled to the event. Each player from outside the Czech Republic received between €50 and €150, depending on distance traveled and the number of tournaments played.

Had enough? Hardly. SMART also honored the five best overall Project GIPF players – those who scored the most points throughout the entire championship:

• Fifth place and €50 went to Kris Boyen (from Belgium) with 22 points
• Fourth place and €100 went to Jan Willem Knopper (from the Netherlands) with 23 points
• Bert Oostdijk (from the Netherlands) took third place with 23.5 points, going home with €150 and a trophy
• Michael Reitz (from Germany) finished in second place, scoring 25 points for €200 and a trophy
• The biggest trophy of all, together with €250 and a World Champion title, were awarded to first-place winner Mathijs Booden (from the Netherlands), who scored a grand total of 27 points, which equals 27 wins out of 36 games played. Not too shabby.

There was time for one last trophy and that was the Cucumber Award, bestowed upon Werner Dupont for thinking up such an innovative tactic. The world of abstract games will never again be the same.

The Project GIPF 10th Anniversary World Championship came to a close in the early afternoon of October 5, a bright and sunny Sunday that was a welcome relief after a gray, cloudy week. Participants embraced each other one last time in a final jumble of languages on Ujezd street before parting ways and driving and flying back to their respective homes – with the promise to meet again soon for another go at a world championship, of course.

Author’s note: Thanks to Angelo “I’m Going to Essen and You’re Not” Wentzler for the use of some of his pictures.

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