13th WPC,
For some reason I always
get to compete in the Eastern European countries. After
Strange thing about my
election for the Dutch team was the fact that I hadn’t taken part in the Dutch
qualifying round. My wife and I were expecting (our first) baby in the period
the qualifications were held, so I withdrew from the event and ended up making
some puzzlerounds
for the event.
But because two of our
top-5 puzzlers couldn’t compete, I was asked to fill up the empty spot.
Tuesday,
arrival day.
Tuesday October 12th
we left for Opatija with a very experienced team and with
great expectations. The instruction booklet showed familiar puzzles than the
ones in “Breinbrekers”
and the last WPC. So after last years 3rd place with three rookies,
this year with the experience of 18 WPC’s among the four of us we thought this
could be our year!
After several hours of
travelling (train, plane and buss) we arrived at the Hotel Ambassador in
The
hotel Ambassador
Rick
and I became roommates for the championship.
Wednesday,
excursion day.
The second day is these
years the traditional excursion day. We skipped the excursions this year
because it involved the, also traditional, “three hours buss ride”. Instead we took
a walk through the centre of Opatija.
Left:
Niels;
Right: Jan, Rob and Hans
Thursday,
first competition day.
First team photos! (We
concluded that team members were picked on length (around 1m85) rather than
their puzzle capacities)
Standing:
Tim, Niels,
Jan; Sitting Hans (captain) and Rick
My goal for the
championship was to finish (close to the) third puzzler of our team, or better.
(For me, this would satisfy my membership of the team.)
We started off with 13
puzzles in round one. Thirteen was the main theme of this championship:
thirteen rounds which lasted (a multiplication of )
thirteen minutes, most rounds contained thirteen puzzles, 13 by 13 diagrams,
and so on. The first round we had to tackle 13 puzzles that frequently appear
in Breinbrekers.
I took a wrong choice in my pick and finished the round with 99 out of a
possible 200 points. Freaky fact: Four puzzlers got the perfect score of 200
points. The scores of the other three were not so good as well. So we started
of with a bad team score.
Second round: Team round.
Thirteen assorted puzzles. We solved all, no problems here.
Part 3: Individual medley.
A nice
piece of work from the puzzlemakers. A puzzle in
four steps. You need to solve the first to get (all) the
clues of the second puzzle and so on. This type of puzzle was introduced last
year in Papendal
(guess who was the puzzlemaker back than,…
☺). Points increase for every step you solve. I solved the third step
just in time: 60 points (out of the possible 100).
4th Part:
“Memories, memories”. The past few years it has also become a tradition that
puzzles of past WPC’s are recycled. These 13 puzzles brought me 114 out of a
possible 200.
Part 5: An individual
bonus round. The first of a few rounds this WPC in which the first twelve
puzzles give you clues for the thirteenth. In this case twelve math puzzles had
to be solved which gave you clues for the thirteenth. I solved them with only
the first and second bonus called, so I decided to claim my “third” place and
didn’t check my solutions. I solved the thirteenth correctly, but made a
mistake in one of the other puzzles. No bonus,… 72
instead of 91 points (out of a possible 100). Rick, who claimed 4th,
moved up to 2nd place for this round and scored 95 points.
Round 6: Team bonus round
with 8 head-tail puzzles. We solved them all, just in time, but not before we
recognized that six (!) puzzles had the same solution. (The other two also
seemed to have the same solution).
And
thus ended competition day one.
The team was in a somewhat disappointing 3rd place. Individual Niels
and Rick (after a filed complaint) were in the top 13. My 18th place
gave me some hope for the top 13, since a made a few stupid mistakes in rounds
1 and 5. Jan was very disappointed with himself, he just made the first half of
the ranking.
Rick
and Niels
in the hotel lounge
The evening was spend
in the hotel lounge, as always, playing The Great Dahlmuti.
Friday, second (and for
most puzzlers last) competition day.
View
from our room.
Part 7: Pentominoes
& arrows. Again 13 puzzles and again the first twelve give you clues for
the thirteenth. Bad start for me, only 85/200. Bye, bye top 13,…
Part 8: Optimizers. Three
optimisation puzzles. Results for these three puzzles were added, and the best
score would get 100 points, second best score 99 and so on. I got 86 points for
this round.
Round 9: Team round with
assorted puzzles (like round 2); But this time we lost most of our capacity on
two puzzles. Rick spent all his time on the “balancing act” which he didn’t
solve. Niels
lost half of his time on the “always the same sum” puzzle. Also no solution there.
Only
376/800 points. Bye, bye podium,…
Part 10: Mastermind. 13
mastermind puzzles, with numbers and characters and bonuses for the first five
puzzlers with correct solutions. Not my cup of tea 48/100.
But still there was part
11. With
a possible 300 points to score on “new” puzzles that had to be my round.
Part 11: Innovative. New puzzles.
Yippy! I needed a good score (more than 50%) to move up the ranking. After 7
times 13 minutes I scored 170/300. I still had some hopes for the top 13.
12th part: last
team round, “card trick”. Place 49 out of a 52-card deck in a 7 by 7 grid with
respect to some rules. We overlooked one option and didn’t solve the puzzle. In
the end only
It was a “long” wait for
the results. When they were published we learn that the team finished 4th,
again. (It was the 5th time in the last 9 WPCs).
In the individual ranking there
was some confusion about the 13th place. Laszlo Osvalt
puzzled for a UN-team and finished 13th. Because he was the “fifth”
Hungarian some team captains wanted him excluded from the top 13. But the rules
of the WPF state that the organizers may decide how to handle in such cases.
Laszlo was allowed to compete in finals. Although he wanted to step down
himself, just minutes before the start of the quarter finals, he was convinced
to compete by the number 14 and his team captain. Which were Hans and me.
Yes, after two days I
finished 14th. Niels (9th) and
Rick (12th) did better and made the quarter finals. Jan (50th)
still could not impress.
We were not pleased with
the general results of our team. Hans was even afraid that we would leave
Saturday: Finals day.
Best 13 puzzlers of the
past two days competed in the finals. Ulrich Voigt, best puzzler after two
days, had a bye in the quarter finals. The others played in 4 groups of three
puzzlers. Best puzzler of each group and best second puzzler in the quarterfinals
earned their place in the semi finals along with Ulrich. Winner in any group
was the puzzler who had solved most puzzles in set time and had the best
ranking before the finals.
The top 10 seeds from
Ulrich Voigt till Pal Madarassy (Niels 2nd from the
left).
First
quarter final saw Rick Uppelschoten (seeded 12th),
Štefan Gašpar (8) and Michael Ley (2). Rick made a tiny mistake on one of his puzzles and
only solved one correctly. The other two solved 2. Michael advanced to the
semis.
Rick
at the start of his quarter final.
Second quarterfinal: Roger
Barkan
(4), Pal Madarassy
(10) and Byron Calver (6) all finished 2 puzzles. Roger
advanced to the semis.
In the waiting area
puzzlers could here how many puzzles the others had solved. So by this time Niels
knew that he had to solve all three puzzles to make a realistic chance to reach
the semis. And so he did. He won his quarter final, Zoltan
Horvath (3) and Laszlo Osvalt (13) “only” solved two.
In the fourth QF Sebastičn
Leroy (7) also solved all puzzles and he advanced to the semis. Wei-Hwa
Huang (5) only solved two and Jun Ito (11) only one.
So in the end Zoltan
Horvath advanced as best second placed quarterfinalist.
The semis were very
exciting as well. Now there were 4 puzzles to pick from. The first semi saw the
puzzlers ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th after two
days competing
each other. Zoltan Horvath made a stupid mistake (he forgot
to draw a circle in one of the puzzles. Whole the audience saw it, but the
unfortunate Zoltan didn’t). The first semi ended in a win
for Roger Barkan
he solved three, Zoltan correctly solved two and Michael Ley
only one.
The second semi final was
Ulrich Voigt’s first appearance on stage. He fought himself past the two “surprises”
of the quarterfinals. He solved three as well as Niels, but
Ulrich was higher ranked. Sebastičn only solved one.
Niels in the final
The final was very nerve
wrecking. Ulrich and Roger lost time on the magicsqure.
Niels
didn’t even try that one. With only one minute to go Ulrich and Niels
had both solved four and were looking at a logic pentomino
sequence. Both drew a solution, but didn’t understand the logic. I think most
of the viewers thought that Ulrich had won. But it appeared that Niels
had drawn the correct pentomino and took his second
title after Oulu 2002.
All well ends well. Hans got
his podium finish, and what a finish!
Sunday departure day:
We left Opatija
at 4:30 AM and headed for
The Results:
Individual:
1. Niels
Roest (NLD, 9)
2. Ulrich Voigt (GER,
1)
3. Roger Barkan (USA, 4)
4. Zoltan Horvath
(HUN, 3)
5. Michael Ley (GER, 2)
6. Sebastičn Leroy (BEL, 7)
7. Wei-Hwa Huang (
8. Byron Calver (CAN, 6)
9. Štefan
Gašpar
(SVK,
8)
10. Pal Madarassy (HUN, 10)
11. Laszlo Osvalt
(UN-B, 13)
12. Jun Ito (JAP, 11)
13. Rick Uppelschoten
(NED, 12)
14. Tim Peeters (NED)
50. Jan Beelen
(NED)
Team:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.