WOF Annual Meeting Nominated 2024 Berg

Matthias Berg

Application for Chairman of the European WOF Council

Dear Members of the European WOF Confederation!

Most of you know me or have heard of me. I've played tournaments since 2000 and except for 2020/2021 when I only played one tournament each, I usually played at least two tournaments a year, including every WOC. I played in many European tournaments and will likely play at least 7 tournaments this year (EOC, WOC, German Championship, Swiss Championship, Swiss Open, Swiss EGP, Cambridge EGP) hosting at least the Swiss EGP. I hosted many tournaments in Germany including several EGPs.

I already know about many differences in European Federations, different qualification process, tournament numbers and sizes, but mostly about the established EGP-Countries. As part of the European Council, I hope to learn more about the Othello-countries that I don't know much about yet and try to figure out if our experience can help them.

I am glad that the EOC with already three successful tournaments has been established as THE major tournament to go to, especially for those that either cannot afford to travel to a non-Europe WOC or cannot qualify for WOC. As expected, EGPs have suffered a bit in attendance, but EGPs in general have been suffering anyway with only a hand full of players going to several EGPs per year. EOCs even in somewhat "remote" locations like Rome and Helsinki were tournaments with big attendance.

I don't know where the next few EOCs should be held. I could imagine countries with a decently sized local base having an advantage in hosting an attractive tournament. Off the top of my head, I see NL, FR, SE and maybe PL as good candidates for EOCs in the near future, but I'm open to work with anyone interested to make it work. Türkiye as one of the latest EGP-Countries now even hosting this year's WOC is certainly also a good candidate. A bit "remote" for the European perspective, but they have a big local player base already and travel there can be quite affordable for most Europeans.

One thing I liked about recent WOCs is the live coverage. As I have played at all the WOCs, I have not experienced firsthand the coverage watching from the distance, but I have joined the live stream commentary in most of the years and enjoyed that people watching from home were able to be very engaged during all three days, get live updates and follow the games closely. I consider that a big success of the WOCs in the recent years.

I would like to help improving the viewer-experience for all European tournaments, especially EOC. At least most of the Swiss and German tournaments in recent years have had ALL (admittedly few) games live broadcasted on liveothello.org and/or flipthedisc.com at least partly because of my endeavor. Every single tournament game that I play and am allowed to live broadcast, I have live broadcasted for several years now.

For me as a competitive Othello player, it would help me personally, if my games where not broadcasted or transcribed, so that I can keep my opening knowledge secret for a bit longer. I most likely am among the European players with the most work put into such opening knowledge. Despite my clear personal interest to keep it secret, I put all games that I can into live broadcasting or at least make sure they end up in the Thor database. Why? Because I seriously think it helps the Othello world if Thor gets more games. Not that my few games matter, but I have to make a good example if I want to ask other federations or other players to do the same.

I hope in the future we can have all WOC, EOC and many of the tournament games being live broadcasted to a growing viewership. One way could be having a phone with tripod at every table. Software that could transfer the video and/or the transcript to a live broadcast website is already being developed.

For me all Othello tournaments are about "social experience". Despite being a top contender in many of the tournaments, so naturally people might think I want the tournament to be about competitiveness and prestige for the winner, I actually want the tournaments to be a place to meet old and new friends. A place where your kids or partners can enjoy Othello even if they don't have a chance to be in the top of the field. For me an important part of the tournament is actually outside of the tournament, the time before/after or even the lunch time together. For WOC I would hope there would be more events outside of the actual WOC. In Japan that is quite easy as the general population already knows the game, but we should still strive to organize events in public spaces for most of the WOCs if possible. A tournament where the locals can play with the WOC players like at WOC in Rome is also quite a good idea.

When I think back about tournaments, some images or stories pop up in my memory. Yes of course some of those include games I played or watched. But many are about the time outside the actual tournament. To name some examples:

·       Early memory from Paris EGPs with Romy and I playing fun games in Stephane's kitchen with Graham watching and explaining.

·       I think at Mariehamn EGP I clearly picture the table/corner we were having dinner in and realized just how many of the players there actually work as math teachers.

·       Mariehamm had several more remarkable memories like escape room with Imre, Marc, Takuji, Stephane, or 4 adult players riding home on two bikes, or my overall experience of staying with Lari&Katie and their children for a week. 

·       Playing Othello on a giant board in WOC 2017 and WOC 2016 (also playing 1vs6 Simu-games)

·       Playing table tennis at Warshaw EGP with many different participants but also especially with all of the Tastet family.

·       An ad hoc snow ball fight in Warshaw.

·       Playing some huge boardgame with the dutchies in a Cambridge in the old guest room.

Actually I have plenty of memories that pop up in my mind every now and then about specific situations in restaurants, may it be Japan, UK, France, The Netherlands.

It took my dad 15 years to realize that Othello is for me not the way to compete and win tournaments. In 2015 he joined me for the Cambridge EGP and in 2016 he also joined for WOC in Japan. In Cambridge already he saw how we interacted as Othello players already at the dinner before the tournament. A lot of the players I have met before, some of them I had met way more than 10 times and many I even have specific 1-on-1 memories outside of the tournaments. We do have friends all around the world. This is what Othello is all about for me, and I would like for more people to experience it like that.

Thank you for considering me for the position as Chairman of the European WOF council.

Kind regards,

Matthias Berg