I start a new thread for tournaments, as vol. 2 has again 27 subsites of posts.

The last T is it worth to send a post due to this result:
1 Lutz Guenther 74.83 sec 2015-12-03 8 pts
2 EWQMinesweeper 74.83 sec 2015-12-04 6 pts

It was one of the few tournaments in which the earlier submission of a time decided on the winner of the T. Of course, a 15x15/116 board wasn't likely to be one with tied times for #1 and #2. But Lutz and EWQM. did it and both submitted exactly the same 74.83 !

@Lutz: Congrats on winning T4. What was your strategy for that board? I couldn't really figure out how to play it as fast as I would have wanted to. Starting with a solvable edge, playing FL for the most part and then switching to NF or Blue Face near the end seemed to be promising but after the 74 I had too much else to do.

@hexx: Congrats on winning T3 (and thanks for "stealing" a point from Stephan). Nymike and I usually refer to the way you seemed to have played T3 as "half hexx" as the main focus is on clearing the outer rows or columns first whereas "hexx strategy" on int means starting by solving the whole outer circle.

@hexx: It's always frustrating when I finally manage to beat EWQM. and Lutz (what is a very rare event, indeed), and then, you come along out of nowhere and beat me . And even worse, this nice board was to be played in a week where I was on vacation from Friday, so I needed to play in less comfortable environment than I do usually . But anyway, congratulations to a famous time! Your 5.97 video is almost too fast for me to follow .

@EWQM.: No fear, you will easily win the season as long as you seriously play. There are too few boards out there on which I am still competitive.

@EWQM.: I was really surprised () when I got the T results and saw you ending in #4 (besides the large surprise that hexx didn't beat my latest submission ).

81 top3 finishes in a row is an awesome performance. But you had only 7 of 16 submissions in S67+S68, so this statistics is a bit incomplete . My current streak is 94 submissions in a row, without having missed any tournament, and always ended at least top5 (even in vacation weeks ).

Of course, 94 submissions is still ridiculously low, by the way. So far, the most continuous submissions achieved:
382      Nikolaj (from S3/T8 till S51/T5 (!))
369      Qetuth
354      Caren
307      Maruda
297      EWQMinesweeper
218      Dragon
172      Manuel Heider
168      BoBo
165      Lutz Guenther
152      Stephan Bechtel

We should do even more statistics, shouldn't we?!

@hexx: As always amazing. Why no more playing for you this week? I think 45ish times might be possible on this board.

Stephan my friend, i have a different opinion!?

The EWQM.'s "large gap" you are talking about is the result of intense and compulsive use of "steroids" . That's why EWQM. can built "large gaps", "sub-45s" and "whatever he wants" so easily .

Otherwise it you be much harder, if not impossible, for him to fulfill his "whatever he wants" goals, and you would have a few more T seasons and many more T wins in your portfolio....

@EWQM.: An intense race will be an advantage for Lutz. I for my own person don't think I can compete. With 1-2 hours of playing each week, I'm just too less trained to compete with the times of Lutz, hexx, and you (at least on bigger boards).

Even if you won't "play (as) much (as usual)", I guess, S71 will be the season where you manage to get #1 in all-time T podiums. After S70, the ranking looks like this:
1. Stephan 127-162-115
2. EWQM. 125-73-52
3. hexx 112-49-14
4. Maruda 77-97-102

So, you only need a 3-0, 4-1 or 5-2 result vs. myself to jump onto #1.

7 points finally IS a large gap. Why? After six Ts in S70, I had been back only 2 points (that would have been a tight final gap), but unfortunately, the Christmas T (where I needed to play during vacation) had a large grid, bad for me and no chance to win this T.

@hexx: I am happy with my situation and won't complain . EWQM. is much younger than I am, and - with one well-known Portuguese exception - mostly youngers beat the older ones.

@hexx:
- This game is all about motivation, you might be right. But when I was student, my motivation to play PC games was definitely higher than nowadays .
- Thank you for 3.99 being your final score, this helped myself a lot. I tried to reach your presumption, but failed with a final 3.51. Luckily, EWQM. did obviously not find as much time as usually .
- About all-time bests: I first try to reach my own all-time bests, but mostly do not get them. Last appearance of T2 grid was about six years ago, so with my current mouse and laptop equipment, I'm not capable to beat my own times (and not even yours, of course).
- You had never submitted a time for T3 grid by now, in four appearances. I presume you'll beat Harryck's 3.70 with a sub-3 .

PS: Thank you, EWQM., for not submitting a faster time in T2 .