UK pre-WTC Training Camp

The UK pre-WTC training camp (aka Rick's barbecue) provided some of the UK entrants with the chance to get together for some serious pre-tournament practice. They also swapped secret details of foolproof methods for beating Matt Peek (i.e. catch him when he's about to fall asleep and then win on time penalties) and selected other players.

	The author (Steven) playing while Mauro tries to figure out how the electronic clock works.

Rick kindly provided lots of the kind of food that highly-trained Tantrix stars on their special pre-tournament diets need at times like this, but everyone was so intent on getting into training (having fun playing games) that the poor guy has probably been living on the burgers and sausages ever since :-)

Steven Trezise and Julia Schwarz did their best to give people experience of beating former World and European Champions too (any excuse), though Malcolm Wotton may regret not taking his chance against one of them now that he has to play the other in R1 of the real thing.

Rick even let those who wanted to support Marion Scott in her game against Matt in GBR B's WTTC QF view the 'big match' on a 21-inch screen, so what more could one ask! The cheers when Marion ran last year's World Champion close could be heard on the other side of London ... well, the other side of the room at least.

It is alleged that a German spy infiltrated the training camp along with some Dutch associates, but surely that can't be true, can it? ;-)

Getting a bit more serious. it's always great to find out that the other Tantrix players (and their friends) are such a nice bunch of people. The best thing we've noticed both at the Cambridge tournament and at the 'training camp' is that Tantrix players seem to give a really genuine impression of themselves on the Net, so you can pretty much tell who's who even before they introduce themselves. That makes it possible to feel at ease with them straightaway because you really do feel like you already know them well! Those who haven't met up with other players yet may find that hard to believe, but it's true."