World Tafl Federation Championship Evaluation 2025

Evaluation of the World Tafl Federation Championship 2025

Here is the admin’s (Hagbard’s) evaluation of the Championship Tournament 2025.

The tournament followed largely the same structure as last year, with a few adjustments.
The format was unchanged and is described here: Diagonal Tournament Format.

Changes from last year

No Sea Tafl tournament; only Copenhagen, Historical, and Race.
The three tournaments did not start simultaneously but were staggered.
A nightly pause was introduced, as well as a Christmas/New Year break.
The overall timing was more relaxed than in the previous four years.
Round 2 used the Whisk setup, as intended.
Subsequent rounds began as soon as players were ready, without waiting for all games in the previous round to finish.
A dedicated page displayed the current, detailed status of the tournaments.

Timing

The winner was determined after 176 days (March 9) and 5 rounds. The final games of the tournament finished after 197 days.

In WTF 2020, the winner was not determined until March 19, after 3 rounds.
At the time, it felt disproportionate that only three rounds took that long.
As a result, the timing in the following four years was tightened, which proved inconvenient for many players.

In 2025, however, the timing appears to have reached a good balance.
It gave players the calm needed to perform at their best, while still ensuring steady progress of the tournament.

It also helps that strong players have only two opponents at a time throughout the tournament, and the opponents are always evenly matched. This allows the players to focus their efforts effectively.

Cyber attack

Additionally, there was a major cyber attack, peaking in August and October 2025 as the diagram shows, but it had no impact on anything.
DDoS

Next year

We've come a long way with Historical Hnefatafl and have tested it thoroughly over the past 14 years.
Perhaps the time has come to place the historical weak-king variant more on equal footing with the modern strong-king variant.
In the sense that the World Champion in Historical Hnefatafl would also be recognized (if there are many and strong participants) as a "Hnefatafl Grandmaster" (if a max rating above 2100) or a "Hnefatafl International Master" (if a max rating above 1900), just as has been the tradition for s trong-king tournaments ever since the Fetlar Island championship 18 years ago.
This year's two finalists in the Historical Hnefatafl tournament were both top players with max ratings above 2100.
(Hat tip: Alex Hnefatafl)

Perhaps elimination after 4 games could be tried again instead of 5.
This would save one round and about a month, reduce the burden on the players, and the winner would be determined almost as accurately.

The winner was determined after 176 days (last year: 116 days), and the entire tournament was completed after 197 days (last year: 116 days).
34 players participated, with 708 games, 33,136 moves, and 15,928 captured pieces.
Tournament page 2025

Congratulations to World Tafl Federation Champion 2025, Mario Aluizo ("Casshern"), Los Angeles, USA!
Mario Aluizo also won the Historical Hnefatafl tournament!
Aage Nielsen ("Hagbard"), Copenhagen, Denmark, won the Race Games.

Many thanks to the five umpires Jilles Tjoelker, Hamish Lawson, Adam Bartley, Steve Lonsdale, and Mike Coveny!
And to the 34 players who took part!

A special thanks again to Mikkel Berg-Nordlie for creating the Tablut game pieces,
and to Luk Martens for creating the pieces for all the other variants!