The Norges Othelloforbund had for the second time the opportunity to organise a tournament counting for the European Grand Prix. The first time this occured was in 2009, where Martin Ødegård outplayed Miłosz Cupiał with 2-0 in the final. Then there were eleven players present. This tournament was held again in Moss. The location was a culture and relaxation center outside the city. The organisation was led by Tor Birger Skogen (tournament director) and the Sawala family (kitchen and cleaning crew). The stay for two nights, tournament fee and food/drinks for the whole weekend was only 60€. A recommendation for a next EGP visit. That there were "only" 23 players is a pity.

The tournament: amongst the subscription several top and subtop players from seven European countries. The Netherlands delivered ten player, while the Norwegians were only with four. Such a large number of top players led to a first big game in the first round: Nicky van den Biggelaar was too stong for Imre Leader; Roel Hobo was in the opening better than Takuji Kashiwabara. Round after round nice battles were fought; but at the end of day one a rather unexpected name was on pole position: Erwin van den Berg with six victories. He was too strong for Arnaud Delaunay, Marc Tastet, Roman Kraczyk and Imre Leader (pic) Only Takuji Kashiwabara managed to beat him. A nice streak and an option for at least a playoff. At second position was Takuji Kashiwabara with 5,5 points. Just behind him were Roel Hobo and Marc Tastet with five wins. A very devastating action took place in the seventh round between Takuji Kashiwabara, who played a memorised draw within three minutes. A rather rare phenomenon in the world of Othello and absolutely not good publicity for this beautiful game of mind sports.

The leader of day one had a hard time the second day. three countrymen were too strong round after round: consecutively Roel Hobo, Jan de Graaf an Nicky van den Biggelaar caused Erwin van den Berg missing the final. In the meanwhile Takuji Kashiwabara got in the lead and was even 1,5 points lose from the competition after round nine and nothing seemed to be in the way getting him into another final. But then in round ten a "classico" was played: Imre Leader against Takuji Kashiwabara was won by the British champion. In the last round the Frenchman had to beat Jan de Graaf or he would miss the final. Luckily he managed to win. In the same last round Nicky van den Biggelaar lost a tight game against Marc Tastet (34-30) causing him missing the final, but still managed to get into the playoffs. Also Roel Hobo missed eight points losing to Martin Ødegård. Imre Leader did win and was awarded the final against Takuji Kashiwabara. Several players got seven points and amongst them was also Erwin van den Berg who won his last round against another countryman: Marcel Sneek. He missed some disks in the late midgame and endgame by which he just missed the playoff with three BQ points behind Marc Tastet.


The finals were less exciting than the main tournaments: both games ended 2-0 in the advantage of Imre Leade (21-43 and 46-18) and Nicky van den Biggelaar (40-24 and 25-39). Thanks to this victory Imre Leader is winning his 17th European Grand Prix tournament and is taking again the sole lead in this statistic. His opponent in the final, Takuji Kashiwabara had also won sixteen tournaments. This final was not only a battle for victory, but also a battle for the lead in one of the main European Grand Prix statistics.

Thanks to this victory Imre leader is becoming joined third in the standings of the European Grand Prix 2011. Takuji Kashiwabara and Marc Tastet are on one and two.