Internationals

Another reason I need to play more othello, which I forgot to mention in my blog yesterday (to be fair, I wrote it after coming back from the traditional Saturday night Indian meal, which I also forgot to mention, but was very nice and came with booze) is that talking with Emmanuel and Matthias over lunch, we established that they've been to more countries for othello reasons than I've been to for memory-related things.

I think my total is 14, including the UK - Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Turkey, USA, Brazil, China, Japan, Malaysia, Bahrain. Are there any others I've forgotten? I bet there are. So I should definitely try to play the other EGP tournaments and add places like Poland and the Netherlands to my mind-sports passport-stamp collection.

In any case, today wasn't very spectacular for me, although it started out okay with a very fun and complicated game against Benkt which I was probably losing all the way through but felt like it could have gone either way and ended up 33-31 to him. I then beat Remi Tastet, son of Marc, and lost not too heavily to Tom, leaving me on five points and hopeful of getting to six and beating the 50% target I always aim for at these things. But then I made a complete pig's ear of my final game against Bruce, and was completely slaughtered, to finish on only five, and well below the half-way mark.

1:  10.  pts [903]   TASTET Marc (2) {FRA}

  2:   8.  pts [911]   BERG Matthias (5301) {DEU}

               [855]   WETTERGREN Niklas (150009) {SWE}

               [831]   LEADER Imre (79) {GBR}

  5:   7.5 pts [840]   KORTENDIJK Albert (5012) {NLD}

  6:   7.  pts [874]   EKLUND Oskar (150016) {SWE}

               [840]   SCHOTTE Tom (2795) {BEL}

               [825]   PLOWMAN Guy (320) {GBR}

               [814]   LAZARD Emmanuel (11) {FRA}

 10:   6.5 pts [862]   KASHIWABARA Takuji (839) {FRA}

               [727]   FREIBURGHAUS Kim (150060) {SWE}

 12:   6.  pts [838]   LEVY-ABEGNOLI Thierry (3598) {FRA}

               [805]   PRASEPTYO Linda (5159) {NLD}

               [792]   ROSSLER Daniel (70002) {DEU}

               [762]   KYTE Bruce (2078) {GBR}

               [759]   STEENTOFT Benkt (1301) {SWE}

               [751]   SNEEK Marcel (5083) {NLD}

               [680]   MURAWSKI Stefan (5324) {DEU}

 19:   5.5 pts [818]   DE GRAAF Jan C. (4012) {NLD}

 20:   5.  pts [734]   JOHANSSON Erik (1493) {SWE}

               [729]   PRIDMORE Ben (4019) {GBR}

               [669]   TASTET Remi (50053) {FRA}

               [661]   BRAND Richard (2341) {GBR}

               [646]   WIDMAN Linnea (150055) {SWE}

               [642]   PLOWMAN Luke (2069) {GBR}

               [610]   PLOWMAN Mark (100027) {GBR}

 27:   4.  pts [682]  -JORDAN Yvette (2093) {GBR}

               [599]   KLATTEN Linda (120116) {NLD}

               [586]   TASTET Sophie (50081) {FRA}

               [559]   BRAND Sophie (100026) {GBR}

               [547]   PLOWMAN Jessie (100029) {GBR}

 32:   3.  pts [539]   BRAND Henry (100023) {GBR}

 33:   2.  pts [500]  -JORDAN David (100040) {GBR}

               [483]  -PLOWMAN Anya (100037) {GBR}

 35:   1.  pt  [466]   BRAND Lucy (100025) {GBR}

That gave us a final between Marc and Matthias, a third-place playoff between Niklas and Imre, and a children's final (new innovation!) between Remi and Mark (Luke doesn't count as a child any more; I forget what the age limit is but he's all grown up nowadays). I'm sure these games have happened by now, but I had to leave to get the train (and rail-replacement-bus between Leicester and Nuneaton) back here.

But there'll be more othello to come this year! It's my latest resolution!