The 18^th Portuguese Tournament of Mathematical Games

On March 14, 2025, Pi Day (!), around 1800 students (aged 7 to 17) from all over Portugal joined in University of Aveiro to play six abstract games. The event was organized locally by Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro, and the Math Department of the University of  Aveiro. More information here.

The event occurred at the University campus:

The tournament preparation

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:

• Cats & Dogs - A 1970s game from Simon Norton
• Slimetrail - the Bill Taylor's 7x7 square variant for faster plays during the tournament.
• Product - Nick Bentley's game with some adaptations
• Domineering, aka, Stop-Gate, invented by John Conway in the 1970s
• Atari-Go - A variant of Go where the player that makes the first capture, wins.
• Nex - A variant of Hex using neutral pieces in the mix

The games were divided by students' age:

• First cycle (7-10 years) students played Cats & Dogs, Slimetrail or Domineering
• Second Cycle (10-12 years) students played Slimetrail, Domineering or Product
• Third Cycle (12-15 years) students played  Domineering, Product or Atari Go
• Secondary (15-17 years) students played Product, Atari Go, Nex

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

Some pictures:

Cats and Dogs                                              Domineering                                               Slimetrail        
 

Product                                                       Atari-Go                                               Nex    

 

The best student of each tournament was selected to the afternoon's final. This last tournament decided the national winners.

The winners

1º Ciclo	Gatos e Cães	1	Lucas Daniel, EB/PE do Porto da Cruz
		2	Alice Reis, EB integrada com J.I. Ana Maria Ferreira Gordo, Crato
		3	Safira Portela, EB de Azóia
1º Ciclo	Rastros	1	Sofia Aleixo, EB/PE Bartolomeu Perestrelo
		2	Francisco Albuquerque, Colégio de Santa Maria
		3	João Santos, Colégio de S. João de Brito
1º Ciclo	Dominório	1	Lucas Neves, EB1/PE da Assomada
		2	Ivo Costa, Colégio do Vale
		3	Dinis Garcia, EB da Horta das Figueiras
2º Ciclo	Rastros	1	José, Colégio de S. João de Brito
		2	Diogo Ribeiro, Esc. EB 2,3 Martim de Freitas
		3	Irina Amorim, EB 2,3/S de Arcos de Valdevez
2º Ciclo	Dominório	1	Xavier Pinto, Colégio de Santa Maria
		2	Filipe Graça, EB André de Resende
		3	Leonor Reis, Eb do 2º ciclo do Sabugal
2º Ciclo	Produto	1	Klaus Izidoro, EB D. Dinis, Leiria
		2	Gonçalo Rodrigues, Colégio de S. João de Brito
		3	Francisco Pereira, EB André de Resende
3º Ciclo	Dominório	1	Rafael Freitas, EB 2,3 Júlio Brandão
		2	Martim Salvado, EB Dom Manuel Martins
		3	Daniela Pinto, EB de Lamego
3º Ciclo	Produto	1	Maria Teixeira, EB 2,3 do Caniço
		2	Ricardo Sousa, ES da Lixa
		3	Xavier Anes, Colégio S. João de Brito
3º Ciclo	Atari-Go	1	Miguel Aleixo, Esc. Básica Pe. Bartolomeu Perestrelo
		2	Guilherme Pereira, Colégio S. João de Brito
		3	João Cruz, EB e Sec à Beira Douro, Medas
Secundário	Produto	1	Marta Jorge, Colégio S. João de Brito
		2	Inês Braga, EB 2,3/S de Arcos de Valdevez
		3	Petra Batista, Escola da Apel
Secundário	Atari-Go	1	Matilde Moreira, ES José Estevão
		2	Manuel Cunha, Colégio de Santa Doroteia
		3	Marco Oliveira, ES Júlio Dinis
Secundário	Nex	1	Cristiano Ribeiro, ES Caldas das Taipas
		2	Laura Ribeiro, ES de Bocage
		3	João Reis, Colégio S. João de Brito

Inventa o Teu Jogo ('Create Your Game', a board game design contest)

The winner of the best board game design was Rodrigo Gonçalves Pereira dos Santos (7ºA, EB Barbosa du Bocage, Setúbal) with his game Maxima.

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: Alda Carvalho, Ana Fraga, Jorge Nuno Silva, Luís Malheiro, Pedro Pombo, Isabel Correia, Miguel Cardoso, Carmen Marques, Teresa Pereira, Jorge Costa, Sofia Simões, Cíntia Alves, Marta Condesso, Paulo Tavares, Regina Sousa, Nuno Gomes, Paulo Nunes, Carolina Magalhães, 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!