World Tafl Federation

[Adam]

Adam: I live in Horten, Do you know if theres Hnefatafl tournaments at the "viking marked" (Viking festival") at Borre? Perhaps we could try to start a club in Tønsberg?

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying. Finally a local player!

There is no hnefatafl at the viking market at Borre that I've seen. I've thought about doing it, but my free time energies have been used up presenting hnefatafl at the tønsberg middelaldersfestival. I have donated a large outdoor board to Midgard historisk senter, though its probably fallen apart by now. They also have a couple of sets I designed for them in the museum, but they may not be on display any longer.

A tønsberg club would be great, 'norges eldste by' and all that ; )

I'm sure the library would happily host us. They have an outdoor chess set, maybe they would be up for an outdoor tafl set too?

[Adam]

Hello all, I've noticed that the name 'world tafl forum' seems to have gotten lodged into our consciousnesses, though we had in fact moved on from that in the poll to decide on a name, for good reasons discussed in the poll thread, and settled for World Tafl Federation. It sounds stronger, more official and is more correct in terms of what we are aiming to do as a group.

Is it possible for people with thread titles containing the world tafl forum name to go in and edit so it reads federation? This will help to avoid confusion for all. We are after all setting about creating an identity now, with a proposed publication, so it's important to get this right.

[cyningstan]

I ask you if we can create a sort of team and define 2 or 3 basic ideas for this magazine.
I'd like riorganize some ideas.

I like these! Particularly the narrative, which I hadn't thought of. This year we've had the Cthulhu vs. the Vikings magazine whose story has been inspired by the game. And I keep seeing on-line fan fiction come up in searches for hnefatafl.

When I first came up with the idea, I had a some things in mind which I probably didn't explain very well in my original post. I'm very much wedded to the idea of timely articles. General articles about rules, strategy and history would form part of the publication but these are things that would be just as well hosted on a normal web site. The purpose of a regular publication would be to highlight things new: new research, new products, new archaeological finds, new variants. I think that at about half of the space (or half of the articles) should deal with new material, possibly including the puzzles, to prevent the publication being no more than an ossified version of the countless web sites we can already look at.

Examples of timely stuff I can think of from 2013 include:

• The first English hnefatafl championships, in Sutton Hoo.
• The dicovery of the world's oldest smiley, a hnefatafl king piece (can't find this now, feels like I dreamt it or something).
• Cthulhu vs. the Vikings kickstarter project.
• Copenhagen hnefatafl - was this year's tournament the first real test of the rules?
• The first publications exclusively about hnefatafl: Jesse Robinson's e-book, and a 20-page booklet by some other guy...
• New clubs: Tromsø Tafl Laug and the Formby Hnefatafl Club
• Product releases, including computer/mobile games

This, along with product reviews, puzzles, the coming year's calendar of events and similar was what I really had in mind as taking up the bulk of the publication. There are other things that could be added even though they didn't necessarily originate in 2013: possible wider acceptance of Cartier's tablut interpretation, a growing disbelief in the authenticity (and playability) of "ard ri".

[Adam]

Press Release about the World Hnefatafl Federation.

October 21st 2014 Adam Bartley wrote this Press Release about the World Hnefatafl Federation on the occasion of the Hnefatafl Tournament 2014. The paper was sent to major newspapers and magazines in UK, USA, Germany, Norway and Denmark.
http://aagenielsen.dk/WorldTaflFed_2014 ... easeB.docx

[Hagbard]

Copied from the small forum:

2018-12-04 22:32:36 Adam: Speaking as Adam: Hello tafl community. I want to put an idea out there for folks to think about. The Tafl Federation facebook page has been woefully inoperative for a long time now. It does still serve as a signpost to this site of course, but it can have a life of its own given the input. At present Crust and myself have editing access. Crust has been absent for a long while and shows no signs of returning any time soon, and I am largely removed from online life. So I propose that people are nominated and two voted in by the regulars here to act as chairman/vice chairman. It's as much or little work as you want it to be, and the only thing I would say is that one should be as objective as possible, and wherever possible promote the rules played on this site. This after all is where the federation is in reality, its us playing hnefatafl. Lets see what people think. If we get enough willing nominees we can set up a voting post on the forum.

As for the future World Tafl Federation chairman and vice-chairman.

Perhaps it should be also considered, which course the Federation should go.

I see as automatically members of the federation all players of this site, of the Play Tafl Online and Damian Walker sites and of the IRL physical tafl sites in UK, Norway, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia, Germany, USA etc.

In the community of all these players, I see two different attitudes to the game (which also has been mentioned before by others):
Some players see tafl as just another random, abstract board game which can at any time be radically changed in whatever way for the only purpose of getting a random, playable game.
Other players see tafl as an important game from prehistorical time, which by sheer luck and round-about ways is handed down to us.

The first many years of the present website were spent searching for the historical tafl game.
Now it is, in my opinion, important to preserve the historical foundation of the game.


For chairman/vice-chairman I'd suggest fx. these names:

Adam Bartley ("Adam").
Adam is the ideal candidate. Very serious about the game and its historical background, been part of the work searching for and discussing the game since 2010 and played it even longer. By profession working at museums in this very area (Viking Age), for years actively participating in Medieval and Viking Festivals etc. etc.

Mario Aluizo ("casshern").
Mario is a common sense man, been very valuable in the teamwork organizing the present WTF champ. tourn. A great talent for the secrets of all flavours of tafl.

Konstantin Jaehne ("sqAree").
Konstantin is a common sense man, a strong player, did a fine overhaul of the rules descriptions and been with us for many years.

David Lonsdale ("Animals") and Steve Lonsdale ("xerxes").
The same can be said for David and Steve. Both English National Champions.

Leo Kolassa ("Herjan").
Leo is heading the vivid viking milieu in Formby with great success, and a strong player.

Plus names such as OdinHimself, Agmundr, Kratzer, AreVidar and Trygve.


I would send a big thank you to Tim Millar ("crust") for the great work he's done for the tafl game since 2009 or more. Tim has with a great success and effort through many years disseminated the game to all parts of England. He has also through many years since 2010 been a most valuable contributor to the discussions and experiments at this site.


Aage Nielsen ("Hagbard")

[Xerxes]

Aage, thankyou for mentioning me, but I have no wish to be Chairman. I'm happy to support anybody else on your list who would like to take it on, and I think you should add yourself to the list of those would would make good a good chair/vice-chair.

Perhaps we should define the parameters of the role, including the period for which somebody may serve without standing for re-election (a year ?), and then hold a ballot of those who would like to stand for one of the positions.

[Hagbard]

I think you should add yourself to the list of those who would make a good chair/vice-chair.

In the past there have been long periods with kind of a troika - chairman Tim, vice chairman Adam and the webadmin, and it has been a very fruitful collaboration. When themes could be discussed in the forum with a lot of players, it was always the best, but if a theme evoked sparse reaction in the forum, you could always have it discussed in the "troika".

If the webadmin also had another position, it would be too much under one hat, in my opinion, and the troika would become a bicycle...

Perhaps we should define the parameters of the role, including the period for which somebody may serve without standing for re-election (a year ?)

The Tafl Federation facebook page ... At present Crust and myself have editing access.

I support a period of a year, perhaps with election every December?
Adam mentions that the chairman/vice-chairman have editing access to the Facebook page.

[Adam]

I second everything Hagbard wrote.

Tim and I agreed to keep the Wtf open and simple. The only thing that ever gets stipulated is that if people want to affiliate to the Wtf and use its logo, they should promote the official rules used on Aagenielsen.dk. This does not shut out the promotion of other variants, but for the Wtf to act as a tournament gaming body, one needs to agree on competition rules.

We agreed with Aage that the Wtf would remain separate to his site, but that we would work together promoting the game and each other. And as mentioned, all tafl players and tafl sites are automatically affiliates and members should they wish to be so.

The whole thing is of course voluntary, unless anyone out there can see ways to get things official and supported by cultural funding bodies around the world. I suspect we need to drum up a lot more regular players first.

People are always asking about where to buy boards, so a cheap, mass produced Wtf board and pieces could be a good way to go if anyone has a business head. Though again, I suspect a greater density of Tafl players is probably required for such a venture to bear fruit.

I think 12 month tenure is a great idea.

[Hagbard]

Some considerations on the Hnefatafl Grandmaster title.

At present there is but one route to the Hnefatafl Grandmaster title: to win one of the annual World Championship tournaments.

Gradually it will therefore become more and more difficult for new players to win the title, as every year an existing grandmaster might win the tournament.

Inspired from the chess grandmaster system, we could also have an alternative route to the title.

For example:
A player can be appointed a grandmaster if
- He is on the ratinglist with at least 500 games and at least rating 1800.
- And he during at least three of the latest four years was in the World Championship final and there each time won at least half of the points available.

The above is for special tournaments with at least two rounds.


The counting could be extended to special tournaments with one round, i.e. the Berserk, Hist. and Sea master tournaments, and perhaps the quadrathlon and the Europe tournaments:

A player can be appointed a grandmaster if
- He is on the ratinglist with at least 500 games and at least rating 1800.
- And he during at least three of the latest four years won at least 3/4 of the points available.

In this case there are more tournaments in the counting, and so the limit backwards could be reduced to three years instead of four.


Example.
To show how it works, also by this route Casshern would be a Grandmaster.

Casshern played 752 games and is rated 2109, which both meet the criteria.

Special tournaments counted the latest three years.
Special tournaments 2016: none
Special tournaments 2017:
American Championship Tournament in February: Casshern won 13 out of 16 points. Limit 3/4 x 16 = 12 pt.
World Championship Tournament final in October: Casshern won 8 out of 10 points. Limit 1/2 x 10 = 5 pt.
Special tournaments 2018:
Berserk Master Tournament in January: Casshern won 14 out of 14 points. Limit 3/4 x 14 = 10.5 pt.
Sea Master Tournament in February: Casshern won 12 out of 12 points. Limit 3/4 x 12 = 9 pt.
Hist. Master Tournament in March: Casshern won 18 out of 20 points. Limit 3/4 x 20 = 15 pt.
Quadrathlon: Casshern 4 pt. which is best. Worst was 25 pt. Limit 1/4 x 25 = 6.25 pt.
American Championship Tournament in April: only 5 players.
World Championship Tournament final in November: Casshern won 12 out of 12 points. Limit 1/2 x 12 = 6 pt.

So from special tournaments Casshern met the criteria 7 times, where 3 would be enough.

[Hagbard]

Cleaning up the Grandmaster list?

Everything has a start. If you are the only player in the world to play a certain game, logically you are the best player in the world and the World Champion. Later with hundreds of players it's not so easy.

The very first World Championship tournament 2008 on the Shetland island Fetlar was won by a player on holidays who learnt about the game one week before the tournament:
https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2008/08 ... oard-game

Then came two Fetlar years 2009 and 2010 with a visiting Tim Millar who beat the other players to pieces.

And last a Fetlar year 2013 with only 4 adult players in the tournament and won by a local player from the village; possibly all 4 were locals from the village.

Maybe we should keep on the Grandmaster list only the players who met a suitable opposition?

Kelly would be Honorable Grandmaster, also a concept from chess.