Tom Schotte wins Ghent Easter tournament 2017

Tom Schotte wins Ghent Easter tournament 2017 17 April 2017

No less than 18 players gathered in the Outpost of Ghent for the traditional Easter tournament. It was a quite exceptional tournament as half of the players were female. This happened only once before and not very surprisingly this was also during a Ghent Easter tournament. Also we were very happy to see so many young players: Anouk, Wendy, Eline, Jasmijn, Jana, Sander and Wout.

There were three clear favorites for the tournament victory: Tom Schotte, Jan de Graaf and Nick Reunes. These are also the only players who have won a Belgian tournament before. Tough Brecht Van Damme proved to be a decent contendor defeating Jan de Graaf in de first round. But losses in round 4 against Tom Schotte and Nick Reunes in round 6 pulled him back. Unfortunately he played a draw against Marcel Sneek in round 5 which put him at 4th position at the end.

Jan de Graaf from his side recoved well from his loss in the first round and still had a decent chance winning the tournament until round 6. In this round he lost against Tom Schotte. Nick Reunes faced the same issue after losing against Tom Schotte in round 5. In an equal game he finally lost after making some mistakes at the end. Surprisingly Nick Reunes and Jan de Graaf did not play each other in round 7, which left them at positions 2 and 3.

Tom Schotte remained undefeated. As mentioned before, his most difficult game was against Nick Reunes in round 5. With this victory he adds a 4th Ghent Easter tournament trophy to his collection. Only Jan de Graaf (in 2015) and Nicky van den Biggelaar (in 2014) were able to win a similar event.
Anouk de Vries was the best promising players. Notable result is the draw that debutant Wout Schotte made against Eline Verstuyft. With this result he will appear in the World Othello Rating List at the age of 5.

Nick Reunes and Tom Schotte are still jointly leading the Belgian Grand Prix, while Jan de Graaf consolidated his lead in the Foreigners Grand Prix.