I participated in a small World Cup betting pool with my friends this year. I really enjoyed it, and it got me really involved in matches I would otherwise not have cared as much about.


The final ranking:

1. Richard Hogetoorn
2. Gerlof Pielage
3. Marc Kramps
4. Guus Bosman

Of the 24 participants I managed to end on the fourth place. I am rather proud. Honestly, I did not predict the game results too well, but I scored a lot of points on the daily questions. I predicted correctly that Mr. Kingston would be goal keeper for Ghana for example.


Daniel and Jerry -- thanks a lot for your efforts, it was great fun participating in the pool.

Mieke is now at the Spellenspektakel, an annual board game event.

She's participating in a tournament for Kolonisten, and Daniël just told me on the phone she's doing quite well: twice a second and once a first place! Due to a technical problem with the train she was almost late this morning, but she arrived right on time for the start of the tournament.

Jaap and I had an easy morning; we talked, had coffee and went for a walk. I talked to Sasha in the morning, and in the U.S. the wintertime has started as well. This is convenient because the time difference will remain exactly six hours. In the afternoon we went to Velsen-Noord, to drop something at my uncle's place, and then we visited my grandmother for five minutes to say hi. My father dropped me in Haarlem, and after his appointment in Amsterdam we'll have dinner together.

Saturday we had our yearly 99 tournament. Ninety-nine is a short card-game for three players.

My friends Daniël and Gerlof organized this tournament, which consisted of 12 players and had four rounds.

It was a very pleasant day, and I enjoyed the game and seeing my friends very much. The result of the tournament itself was disappointing as I ended last. The weather was very good. Gerlof and Ellen's apartment has two balconies, so we could play the game in the sun, which was excellent.

When I went home there a huge thunderstorm started. Luckily enough I was just at the trainstation. For about an hour it was storming like crazy but in the evening the weather came nice and fresh again.

I went running for 4,5 kilometers.

I liked the game Diplomacy that we played today a lot. I'm a big fan of this type of games: the emphasis is on negotiations, and there is (hardly) any luck involved.

We had a great day, which is of course the most important, but I'm also quite satisfied with the end result. I share a third position with Evert (out of seven players). The results:

It's a very easy day today. In the morning (after sleeping in till 10:30) I started with reading the paper, and then we played Steden & Ridders. In the afternoon I spent some time on my Bulgarian. It has been a long time since I've really studied the language. Especially my knowledge of the grammar is a bit shaky.

Now we've just played the 4th game of this weekend. It was more difficult than the previous one, but I won again, hah. This implies of course that more games will played.

Yesterday we were in Rotterdam. Stella Maris, a scouting club, celebrated the official start of its sail-season and we went to explain games. We were with three people; Joana came with us.

In the morning we were uncertain about the weather, as the event would be outside. It turned out to be a really beautiful day, just a bit windy now and then. Last year we were there too, and we definitely wanted to come back because of the friendly atmosphere. Due to some holidays it wasn't as busy as last year. Still, we played quite some games. There was time for Sasha and Joana to explore sailing in a real sailboat! Well, there were people sailing the boats and they went for a short trip. A very interesting experience I've been told. We had hamburgers from the BBQ for lunch.

At the end of the day we made a short walk through Rotterdam. Remarkable how different this city is from most other Dutch cities.

This morning we woke up 5 our later than when we left to Groningen. We were at the Noorderspel, a game fair in Groningen organized by a group of game-lovers. It was the 3rd year we were there. It's pretty cool to see how big an event these volunteers created.


We were with Jerry demonstrating games. There was also a Kolonisten tournament but this was organized by the Noorderspel crew itself.

I learned 4 new games (see the updated game list): Tyros, Jagers & Verzamelaars, De Strijd and a new game, de Ballonrace. I like Tyros and De Strijd the best, which is nice because Daniël gave me the latter one for my birthday. At the fair there were many other game companies too. One of thee most interesting ones was Minifun, a company founded by a few students for a school-assignment. Their target is to found a company and run it for a year. The game they created wasn't very original but I'm impressed by all the work they've done.

When I had a break I made a walk through the center of Groningen, it's a very pretty city. Almost as nice as Haarlem.

Home at 22:30 o'clock.

Today we had a game-demo in Alkmaar, in a shop "Boekers en Strippers".

It was a very easy day, not in the least because we started at 12:00 o'clock. To our surprise Jaap and Mieke also came by; they wanted to learn Carcassonne.

The first half hour we learned 'Piramides van de Jaguar', a simple but nice game for two players. Later we explained it quite often; many people liked it. Together with 2 customers I learned Magellaen, I liked it. The last new game was 'Zeus and Hera', not bad but not very exciting.

Although we already knew from the tournament agenda today the dates of the Spellenspektakel 2003 were officially announced: October 31st and November 1st and 2nd. So reserve days off from work now :)

Too bad the weekend is 'broken' between October and November this year: it just doesn't sound as nice as "1, 2 and 3 November" like last year.

(Thank you Mirjam).