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Notes from the organizer: Last year, Innis Carson and Jack Worsley played out an epic contest, on which they drew under every single tie-break rule that had been established. Therefore, both of them became the very first champions of the Apto-tude Cup. And now it's back!

For those who were unaware, the idea of the Apto-tude Cup was to find the players who could take on people at any variant and come out victorious. It works like so:

A totally randomised draw is made, and draws pairings. In each of these pairs, each player picks a variant for their "home" leg. A 15 round game of that variant is played under stepdown scoring. The players play in each choice, and the highest combined score is declared the winner.

Both players must declare their choice before the start of the 1st game. This is to ensure that no advantage is gained by the 2nd player picking after the 1st result.

In the event of a tie, then the first tie-breaker is the player with the highest score on their opponent's home leg. If that remains a tie, then the player with the most maxes across the 2 games will be declared victorious. In the event that it's still a tie, the fixture should be replayed, except in the final, where the finalists may choose to share the title if both players so wish.

Any high-score variant that isn't foreign (inc. CSW), and features a combination of letters, numbers and conundrums (i.e. no blitzes) may be chosen.

Last time, this event was restricted purely to Apto-tude players, but this time, the event is open to all. There is no upper restriction on numbers, indeed the more the merrier, but in the event of a preliminary round being required, this will be seeded on the basis of current Apto-tude level at the time of the draw being made.

Each round will last for 1 month, and so I envisage the tournament lasting around 6 months, meandering along at a gentle pace :) Please do try to play fixtures as soon as possible though, as I will gladly move the tournament on quicker if possible.

Hope to see as many of you as involved as possible!

Z

Ran from: 1 – 30 April 2015. Format: Deepdown Letters Attack. Matches: Best-of-2. Approved.

Signed up: Jon Stitcher, Ian Volante, James Hurrell, Tom Cappleman, Innis Carson, Tom Rowell, Matthew Tassier, Transude Transude, Phil Collinge, Jason Turner, Scott Gillies, Chris Marshall, Amie Bateen, Jordan F, Chris Hare, Tracey Mills, Michelle N, Thomas Carey, Matt OC, Jen Steadman, Jack Worsley, Michael Cullen, James Rowan, Heather Styles, Zarte Siempre, Dave Noble, Jack Slane, Alex Fish, Callum Todd, Alan Young, Adam Finlay, Brett Davids, Jamie M, Ben Hocking, Bojack Horseman, Sean Fletcher, Cake Tiger, James C, Matty Artell, Andy SC.

Fixtures: 8. Completed: 8.

Results and fixtures

Key. Green: winner. Red: loser. Grey: tie. (Stripes: provisional, match in progress.)