Hull's First Hnefatafl Tournament Has a Winner!

Saturday, 17th June 2017

The Hull Hnefatafl Tournament 2017 took place earlier today. With the hot weather, footfall in the museum was minimal, but the tournament managed to start with six participants. In addition to that, quite a good number of people wandered in to look at the games on display, and some to play casual games of hnefatafl.

Six isn't a suitable number for a knockout tournament, so we had a Swiss-style tournament instead. Everyone played every round, and scores of wins were tracked till we had a winner and runner-up for a final match.  After three rounds, we had David Lonsdale in first place for the final, but two players in joint second place. That tie was broken by having a single semi-final match between Steve Lonsdale and Kevin Alty. A semi-final win put Steve Lonsdale into the final, which was won by David.

The final match was a tense battle that appeared to go first one way, then another. Full details and final position are here, but a compact run-down on the match is as follows: 1. E2-G2 C5-C8; 2. A4-C4 D5-D4; 3. D1-D3 E5-D5; 4. D9-D8 F5-F3; 5. F9-F5xG5 E4-G4; 6. I6-G6 E3-E2; 7. D3-D2 F3-F2; 8. F5-F7 D5-F5; 9. H5-H3 F5-F3; 10. B5-B3 F3-F5; 11. B3-B8xC8 E6-B6; 12. D8-D7xE7 B6-B4xC4; 13. A5-C5 F5-F3; 14. C5-C3 B4-B2; 15. C3-E3xE2 D4-D3xE3; 16. F7-F4 D3-D4; 17. E1-E3 D4-D3xE3; 18. E8-E3 resigned.

Further information will be posted over the coming weeks: every match was recorded on paper by the players, so there are plenty of games to analyse. The final was also filmed, so you'll soon be able to watch it yourself.

Related Images