Scotland 1 - Netherlands 0
by Gareth J M Saunders
During
the final few days of June (28-30) Jane and I were delighted to welcome
Martin and Dicky Rep to stay
with us in our new house in Edinburgh.
This was the first time we had met in person, having only communicated for about two or three years by e-mail.
Introductions made, gifts exchanged (did we give them anything? other than our love and hospitality) we began a marathon of a game that lasted 2 days. None of this 90 minutes limit nonsense!
Official
Rules
It was the first time too that Jane and I had played using the new Official
Chinese rules, as were used during the World Championships in 2002 and
are to be employed in Nijmegen at the European Championships next year.
Booklets propped open in front of us, a puzzled look permanently etched on my face, and at one point half a glass of red wine on our new cream dining room carpet (oops!) we got to grips with this whole new way of playing.
Chinese
Official rules are not at all like playing Classical Chinese or British
rules, not only is the scoring different, but many of the hands are
too, and crucially you cannot go 'out' until you have a score of at
least 8 points.
A simple win
Despite being pure amateurs at this new way of playing Jane soon got
the hang of things and sprinted ahead to a convincing win. While Martin,
Dicky and myself were looking for elegant, beautiful hands Jane went
for simple, 8 point or more combinations are we were well and truly
trounced!
You can see Martin's photographs of this historic game at http://members.chello.nl/~m.rep03/
