The Portuguese Mathematical Games Competition
http://ludicum.org

During the day of November, 26, 2004, almost 500 students (aging 7 to 17) from all Portugal joined in Lisbon to play six different abstract games.

The Portuguese Tournament of Mathematical Games (CNJM in Portuguese) started months before in more than 200 schools, scattered throughout all Portugal, with local tournaments to select the best players.

The games were:

	Dots'n'Boxes - the combinatorial game studied by Berlekamp
	Polyhedrons [1,2,3,] - a puzzle to build three polyhedrons as fast as possible
	Wari - a Mancala variant
	Amazons - two armies of eight queens trying to stalemate each other.
	Pawns - a game to promote one of your eight chess pawns
	Hex - the famous connection game.

The games were divided by students' age:

	First cycle (7-10 years) students played Dots'n'boxes, Polyhedrons or Wari
	Second Cycle (10-12 years) students played Polyhedrons, Wari or Pawns
	Third Cycle (12-15 years) students played Wari, Amazons or Pawns
	Secondary (15-17 years) students played Amazons, Pawns or Hex

This meant 12 independent tournaments (one per age per game). The finals happened at the "Knowledge Pavilion" situated at Expo'98 old site. More information can be found at ludicum.org (in Portuguese).

Polyhedrons 

Polyhedrons had 45 students (here are some pictures from the second cycle finals).

The second cycle final

The winning moment

Wari

Wari (also known as Ouri in Portuguese) had a total of 142 students.

very tidy in the beginning	the initial games
students playing	the final games

Amazons

Amazonshad a total of 94 students.

Pawns

Pawns had a total of 152 students.

before the battle	facing armies
during the initial phase	one of the finals

Hex

Hexhad a total of 37 students from the last cycle (15-17 year old students).

The finalists

the first and second best players

Everybody received books. The second places received a scientific calculator. The first prizes were personal computers. In this era of videogames, brainless TV and light reading, it's refreshing to know that some kids returned home with a computer just because they were good abstract game players. Their names are: 

Game	Cycle	Finalist Names	School
Dots'n'Boxes	1st cycle	Winner: Pedro Duarte Finalist: João Borralho	Colégio Sagrado Coração de Maria - Lisboa EB1 Carvalhal de Turquel - Alcobaça
Polyhedrons	1st cycle 2nd cycle	Winner: Daniel Miranda Finalist: Francisca Salgado Winner: Margarida Reis Finalist: Wu WeiQing	2º Jardim-Escola João de Deus - Coimbra Colégio Nossa Senhora da Assunção - Anadia Colégio Sagrado Coração de Maria - Lisboa Visconde Juromenha – Tapada das Mercês
Wari	1st cycle 2nd cycle 3rd cycle	Winner: Pedro Carvalho Finalist: André Santos  Winner: Beatriz Ferreira  Finalist: Ana Carvalho  Winner: Daniel Filipe  Finalist: Paulo César Leitão	2º Jardim-Escola João de Deus - Coimbra Externato Champagnat EB 2,3 Padre Francisco Soares EB 2,3 de Matosinhos EB 2,3 de Santana EB 2,3 de Atouguia da Baleia
Pawns	2nd cycle 3rd cycle Secondary	Winner: Luís Maduro  Finalist: Rui Machado  Winner: Vladimir Melnik  Finalist: Hélder César  Winner: António Pereira  Finalist: Filipe Brandão	Agrupamento de Escolas Eugénio de Castro EB 2, 3 de Tondela Externato Cooperativo da Benedita EB 2,3 de Santana ES/3 Augusto Gomes - Matosinhos ES/3 Oliveira do Douro
Amazons	3rd cycle Secondary	Winner: Diogo Oliveira  Finalist: João Loureiro  Winner: Cláudio Pinto  Finalist: Edgar Lopes	ES/3 Oliveira do Douro Colégio Sagrado Coração de Maria - Lisboa ES/3 de Valbom ES Viriato - Viseu
Hex	Secondary	Winner: Tiago Azevedo  Finalist: Filipe Marques	Colégio Sagrado Coração de Maria - Lisboa ES/3 de Valbom

The organizing committee

This would not be possible without the help of hundreds of persons, from all math teachers across Portugal to all of those who helped at the finals. Here are the main people that worked in this great event .

João Almiro	Jorge Nuno Silva, João Pedro Neto, Maria Teresa Santos and Ana Fraga
Luís Reis	Jorge Rezende
António Costa	Jorge Luz

World Traditional Games

In the same space, it was exposed a beautiful exposition of traditional board games. I'm sure you are able to recognize most of them.

	all together now!

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