Preliminary remarks:
In this post I talk about Canada, My Blog, the World Cup and my personal World Cup experiences. They don't build on each other. So you can jump back and forth between the topics.
My Conclusions...
… on Canada
"Land! Always just the land!"
Spending two weeks in Canada felt like coming home to me. If I had been blindfolded and told we had abandoned you somewhere on the North American continent, I would have immediately tapped an American city. Roads that were so wide that every time I crossed, I accelerated the step so that I could make the 20-second countdown at the traffic lights. Public buses in which I already sat 20 years ago and pulled the yellow cables when I had a stop request - "Stop requested!" Curbs that transitioned to fenceless front gardens that made you feel like a paperboy from "Back to the Future." People who constantly greet you with the inflationary question "How are you?". On the one hand, it is allowed to smoke weed on the street, but on the other hand, it is forbidden to consume alcohol in public.
You get the idea.
For me, it will always be something special to travel to a country that I got to know as a young boy from film and television and learned to love in the 11th grade (Alaska). The latter I can say wholeheartedly, especially about the versatile nature of this beautiful continent.
Speaking of: Boy, this country is huge. Obviously. In my mind, the province of Alberta must be the largest patchwork in the world. Brandenburg to the power of ten. Imagine a commercial chessboard and scale it to the size of a larger Canadian city. Let's say Edmonton.
On this 600km² (Berlin approx. 860km²) chessboard the roads are now laid out. Nicely arranged. Easy orientation. Parallel streets, square blocks. It feels like they only know right angles. And now we enlarge this to the area (about 2x Germany) of this pot-flat Alberta, where the roads, it seems, lead like a line from horizon to horizon. Must be fun driving there.
Or as a Canadian Robinson Crusoe would say: "Land! Always just the land!"
… on the World-Cup-Blog
First of all, I want to show you what you have done:
As of today, almost 1500 people (according to my web provider, we could fill a Broadway theater 2.9 times with it.) have visited the blog at least once and spent an average of 7.5 minutes. 85% of the visitors came from Germany. This is not particularly surprising. The 40 visits from Singapore or a few from Egypt and New Zealand, on the other hand, I find astonishing. With over 900 views, the article about the 16 finalists was the most successful. The blog had received a certain boost from the mentions on the pages of ISPA, DSKV and Euroskat. After all, almost 100 readers "came over" from Facebook.
Writing this blog allows me to develop creatively, to bring you closer to the multifaceted world of skat and to contribute to the preservation of our intangible cultural heritage. At the same time, I delved deeper into the tournament, was closer to the participants and got in touch with you more closely than I could without the blog. Again and again players came to me and approached me about the blog.
At this point I would like to thank the board and organizational team of ISPA for the great support and privileges that were granted to me during the tournament. It had the nice feeling to be there as a journalist.
I would also like to thank the players who agreed to be photographed, filmed and interviewed by me. The closeness to you has made this World Cup even more special for me.
Even before my departure, it was clear to me that I would continue the blog after the World Cup. So let yourself be surprised which topics will await you in the near future. So much is said: There will be new categories within the blog. One of them is called "Lehrmeister Skat", in which I describe surprising concepts that can be found in the Skat.
Another may deal with the creation of an ISPA section. Because plans were forged with the "Irish delegation", consisting of my tandem partner, Andreas Träm, and his sons, to found a section Ireland and to build up a national team.
… on the World Cup
„The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Spock
Take part in a European Championship or World Championship once in your skat career! If possible, abroad. Think about it: How many world championships of other sports can you think of that you could participate in "just like that" without having to qualify?
I have already competed abroad in three other sports (table tennis, running, triathlon) and it has always been one of the highlights of my sporting "career". And so it was with the Skat World Championships in Edmonton. Just the stimulation in Denglisch from the mouths of Canadians and Americans was simply heavenly. And how many times have you played Skat against non-Germans? A reunion with familiar faces and (Skat) friends outside your own home country also awakens the nice feeling of being part of a sporting community and the microcosm Skat.
I was particularly impressed by the cheerful, communal, almost familiar atmosphere during and off the tournament. Above all, the always cheerful Canadians, who constantly created a good atmosphere. The victory in the nations ranking did not detract from this. On home soil. A Canadian with bronze in the singles. Four finalists from their own country. And a finalist at the first participation. With announcement! #ArnoVonHacht
An unknown tradition of the Canadians was to stand up loudly after you had returned to positive territory with your points.
In order to enable even more players to participate in a European Championship or World Cup, I think it will be necessary, especially in view of the sad trend of membership decline, to hold a major event in Europe. It will never be possible to please all sections and their members. How? But the majority of skat players live in Central Europe.
Even if you can only win and lose against the people who compete, the more participants a tournament had, the more meaningful the rankings are.
Despite all the sensitivities (for example, doubts about the players quality of this World Cup) that arise naturally when people meet, I would like to remind you how privileged we are to even think about it, let alone travel nationally to skat events and to be able to practice our beloved hobby Skat. How many people are denied the right to hold playing cards in their hands!?
At this point, on behalf of the World Cup participants, I would like to say thank you to
Rosita "the chief" Rodehüser,
Erwin "el Capitan" Kröhle,
Thomas "el Presidente" Munzert,
Sven-Oliver "announcing secretary" Krack,
Gerd "up here-is-the-bird" Reiner,
and Sebastian "edv" Schlüter
for the professional implementation of the Skat World Championships!
My optimization suggestions for the implementation of a European Championship or World Cup:
Although transporting tablets for an overseas tournament is expensive, the advantages of the Skat guru and electronic list management are well known and highly desirable in the future. (Editor's note: Euro 2023 is planned with tablets.)
I missed the daily ratings in the context of the results services. Certainly, information about the results of the day would be of interest to all involved.
I find the payment of the losing game money at the end of a tournament extremely useful and trend-setting.
Subject to the agreement of all parties involved, I propose the creation of a "Feature Table", similar to poker tournaments, which viewers worldwide can follow live and afterwards.
… on "my" World Cup
First, let's state the facts:
Individual ranking: 67 of 122 (four did not finish the tournament)
Ranking tandem: 18 of 22
Team ranking: 7 out of 10
G V G Schnitt Spielanteil Gewinnquote Summe
Platz 122: 78/42/68 5/2,8/4,5 22,22% 65,00% 87,22 (last place)
Platz 100: 148/33/71 10/2,2/4,7 33,52% 81,77% 115,29
Platz 67: 134/19/82 9/1,3/5,5 28,33% 87,58% 115,92 (me)
Platz 32: 154/24/68 10/1,6/4,5 32,96% 86,52% 119,48 (last place ITM)
Platz 16: 166/20/85 11/1,3/5,7 34,44% 89,25% 123,69 (Arno von Hacht)
Platz 10: 177/32/81 12/2,1/5,4 38,70% 84,70% 123,39 (Ron Link)
Platz 3: 169/16/72 11/1,1/4,8 34,26% 91,35% 125,61 (Angelika Pullig)
Platz 1: 174/13/75 12/0,9/5,0 34,63% 93,63% 127,68 (Deni Lazicic)
Zessionar at Euroskat: 44,80% 80,90% 125,70 (over 95700 games)
With this statistic of the World Cup participants, I assumed 24 matches for the calculation of the game share. Of course, the actual number cannot be read from the results. Also about the actual participation in Beetspiele (because four-person tables) no statement can be made, which is why I have not paid attention to them here.
From the values it can be seen that a high game share or a high win rate alone is not important for a successful performance, but only in combination. The higher the sum of both quotients, the better the placement. This connection can be shown in particular by the example of 10th place. Compared to me, he won almost 5 games more per series, but also lost almost twice as many games, with a similar number of dead games.
I conclude for myself that I have acted too defensively throughout the tournament and will have to be more willing to take risks in the future if it is to be enough for top positions. Whether it was perhaps due to a lack of material in the end would probably come closer to a justification than to reality. Ultimately, this is probably difficult to assess.
On the emotional level, it can certainly be said for many tournament participants that one rides on such a long distance on a rollercoaster of emotional worlds: games believed to be safe and lost; games being won against all odds; self-inflicted defeats; externally determined victories; pleasing results are followed by disappointing lists; Frustrations, pride and happiness come together; concentration also needs to be kept high permanently.
The mental exhaustion after six times six hours of daily concentration was clearly felt by me at the end. In addition, there was the additional work on this blog for me.
Even if I am not satisfied with my performance, I can at least say that I have always done my best. I consider the experience gained both on the skill-level, competitively and interpersonally to be remarkable.
Skat is and remains a brutal game, which with its colorful bouquet of human emotions can rightly be described as a mental competitive sport.
And so in the end I can only summarize:
How can you not love this beautiful card game!?
See you soon,
yours Jörg
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