The 14^th Portuguese Tournament of Mathematical Games

During March 16, 2018, around 2000 students (aging 7 to 17) from all Portugal joined at Póvoa de Penafirme near Torres Vedras to play six different abstract games. The event was organized locally by Externato de Penafirme, namely by Carla Teles, Cidália Miranda, Jorge Henriques, Nuno Cruz, Paulo Pereira, Susana Alves and Miguel Neto. More information here.

The event occurred at Externato de Penafirme:

The tournament during the morning!

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 following:

• Traffic Lights - the 3x4 variant from Alan Parr's original game
• Cats & Dogs - A 1970s game from Simon Norton
• Slimetrail - 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
• Product - Nick Bentley's game with some adaptations
• Flume - A scoring/territory game by Mark Steere

The games were divided by students' age:

• First cycle (7-10 years) students played Traffic Lights, Cats & Dogs or Slimetrail
• Second Cycle (10-12 years) students played Cats & Dogs, Slimetrail or Product
• Third Cycle (12-15 years) students played  Slimetrail, Product or Breakthrough
• Secondary (15-17 years) students played Product, Breakthrough or Flume

This meant 12 independent tournaments (a tournament per age per game). More information can be found at ludicum.org (in Portuguese).

Some pictures:

Two minutes during the tournament

More photos here.

The best student of each tournament was selected to the afternoon's final. This last tournament decided the winners. There were 158 students in this phase.

The winners

1º Ciclo	Semáforo	1	Tiago Dias, JI Sobral de M.Agraço e S.Quintino
		2	Mateus Santos, EB1 de Boucinha
		3	Duarte Pereira, Colégio dos Plátanos
1º Ciclo	Gatos e Cães	1	João Salgueiro, EB de Solum
		2	Gustavo Fernandes, Madeira - EB1/PE do Lombo do Canhas
		3	Maria David Lopes, 2º J.Esc.João de Deus
1º Ciclo	Rastros	1	Diogo Nunes, 2º J. Esc. João de Deus
		2	João Figueira, Madeira - EB1/PE/C Engº Luís Santos Costa
		3	Marta Bento, EB Francisco Veríssimo
2º Ciclo	Gatos e Cães	1	Beatriz Bettencourt, Colégio de São João de Brito
		2	Ana Alfaiate, EB André de Resende
		3	Martim Mendes, EB e Sec. Dr. Manuel Fernandes, Abrantes
2º Ciclo	Rastros	1	Duarte Almeira, Colégio de São João de Brito
		2	Ricardo Torres, Açores - EBI Roberto Ivens
		3	Inês Rodrigues, EB nº2, de Castro Daire
2º Ciclo	Produto	1	Miguel Sousa, Colégio Pedro Arrupe
		2	Bruno Monteiro, EB nº2 de Castro Daire
		3	Inês Braga, EB 2/3/S de Arcos de Valdevez
3º Ciclo	Rastros	1	Simão, EB de Campo de Besteiros
		2	Nuno Silva, Colégio de São João de Brito
		3	Rafael Santos, Esc. 3º ciclo de Moimenta da Beira
3º Ciclo	Produto	1	Rafael Almeida, Esc. Engº Acácio Calazans Duarte
		2	Lourenço Roehnen, Esc.Sec/3 Camilo Castelo Branco - Vila Real
		3	André Duarte, Salesianos do Estoril
3º Ciclo	Avanço	1	Simão Moreira, EB 2/3 D.Filipa Lencastre
		2	Estêvão Gomes, EB 2/3 Drª Maria Alice Gouveia
		3	Miguel Primo, EB 2/3 de D.João II
Secundário	Produto	1	João Rosado, Colégio Pedro Arrupe
		2	Luís Gonçalves, Esc.Sec. José Estevão
		3	Eva Melo, Esc.Sec/3 Camilo Castelo Branco - Vila Real
Secundário	Avanço	1	João Fernandes, Esc.Sec. Infanta D.Maria
		2	Gheorge Ciolpan, Esc.Sec.de São Lourenço
		3	José Lopes, Esc.Sec. Ferreira Dias
Secundário	Flume	1	Francisco Reis, Externato de Penafirme
		2	Luís Silva, Esc.Sec. de Maximinos
		3	Rafael Lourenço, Esc.Sec.Ramada

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all the organizations that made this possible and also the wonderful people that work really hard to make this possible. Also, to the usual suspects: Alda Carvalho, Ana Fraga, Carlos Santos, João Pedro Neto, Jorge Nuno Silva, Luís Malheiro, Teresa Santos and all the great professors and assistants that volunteer to help us with this wonderful event. A special thanks to Carlota Brazileiro for her tireless work helping low-vision and blind students playing these great games!