Issue 12 Contents

Editorial

Happy 20th birthday Trax! It is hard to imagine that Trax is already 20 years old. To most readers, it will seem like you have only just learned about the game. In his article, inventor David Smith plots some of the highlights of Trax from over the last 20 years. Trax has come a long way, but it is still a little known game. The MSN Gaming Zone has helped a lot more people learn about this game, with over 45000 games played on the Zone in the last year.

The other main feature of this issue is the World Championship. This year has seen a very strong contingent enter from North America. Sufficiently strong that the current geographical zone system is going to be abandoned for the next tournament.

One of the highlights of this years Championship has been the live and public viewing of the games in the Candidate's Touranment and Challenge Match. True, in the past few years, the Challenge Matches have been relayed live over the internet, but in the past this has been in text format, using IRC. This year, the games were played on the MSN Gaming Zone, enabling spectators from around the world to connect and actually view the games as they have been played. For the Challenge Match, this has been extended further, with live commentaries being provided to the spectators by David Smith and Carole Plante. Some interesting questions to ponder: Has the internet taken over? Will future Challenge Matches ever be played over the table again? We shall have to see.

Prior to the start of the Challenge Match, both the defending champion and the challenger had agreed to allow the tournament to revert to being held every year (rather than every 2 years). This gives all the budding world champions less time to wait before they have another crack at the title. So over the next 3 months let those Trax tiles (or is it the computer keyboards) clatter!

Upcoming Tourneys

Entries are currently open for two tournaments starting next year:

9th Annual E-mail Tournament

This will again be hosted on Richard's PBMServer, and will start on February 1st. Signup with Donald Bailey (Donald@traxgame.com).

2001 World Championship

Yes, that is right, the 2001 World Championship. The World Championship series is going back to being held every year again, starting in 2001. That's not the only change either. The preliminary rounds are moving to a pooled round robin system similar to the e-mail tournament, rather than the geographical zone system. The top players will be seeded amongst the different pools, with the top 2 players from each pool proceeding to the next round. The final round will effectively be the equivalent of the current Candidate's Tournament, and the Challenge Match is unchanged.

Tournament director for 2001 will be Carole Plante (francaro.plante@sympatico.ca) who is currently taking signups. Games in the first round will start on March 1st.