The 8th Portuguese Tournament of Mathematical Games
During March 9, 2012, more than 2500 students (aging 7 to 17) from all Portugal joined at Coimbra to play six different abstract games. The event was organized by the University of Coimbra at its Sport Stadium.
(and a zoom out)
The Portuguese Tournament of Mathematical Games started months before in several hundreds of schools, scattered thru all Portugal, with local tournaments to find what students were the best players.
The games were the same of the previous edition:
- Traffic Lights - the 3x4 variant from Alan Parr's original game
- Cats & Dogs - A 1970s game from Simon Norton
- Wari - a Mancala variant
- Hex - the famous connection game.
- Slimetrail - we used the Bill Taylor's 7x7 square variant for faster plays during the tournament.
- Breakthrough - The Dan Troyka game, winner of the 2001 8x8 Game Design Competition
The games were divided by students' age:
- First cycle (7-10 years) students played Traffic Lights, Cats & Dogs or Wari
- Second Cycle (10-12 years) students played Konane, Wari or Hex
- Third Cycle (12-15 years) students played Wari, Hex or Slimetrail
- Secondary (15-17 years) students played Hex, Slimetrail or Breakthrough
This meant 12 independent tournaments (a tournament per age per game). More information can be found at ludicum.org (in Portuguese) and more photos here.
Here's a video from a public broadcast TV (in Portuguese...):
Here are some pictures just before the event started:
And then the games began:
a set of slimetrail for blind students
The best student of each tournament was selected to the afternoon's final. This last tournament decided the winners. There were about 200 students. The next picture shows how many people were at the awards:
More photos here.
The finalists
Check this document with the finalist names.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the University of Coimbra, namely, all the wonderful people that work hard to make this possible: Marta Pascoal, Ana Paula Escada, Carlota Simões, Daniel Pinto, Gonçalo Conceição, Jaime Silva, Manuel Vicente, Ricardo Mamede, Silvia Barbeiro. Also, to the usual suspects: Alda Carvalho, Ana Fraga, Carlos Santos, João Neto, Jorge Nuno Silva, Luís Malheiro, Teresa Santos and all the great professors that volunteer to help us with this wonderful event.
