EUROPEAN PINBALL CHAMPIONSHIP 2016

The European Pinball Championship (or EPC) is the continents biggest competitive event and it is held in a different country each year. Last year we were in Belgium and the year before that in Italy, but for 2016 we headed to the Polish city of Łódź and the Port Łódź shopping centre.

Port Łódź is an out-of-town shopping centre a few miles south-west of the centre of Łódź. It is a large complex with DIY stores, a supermarket, computer and electrical outlets, plenty of ice cream and coffee shops, and a food court.

Unfortunately there are no good-quality hotels in the immediate neighbourhood of Port Łódź. We stayed at a pleasant guest house which was around a 20-minute walk away which proved to be no problem given the lovely weather. We also spent one night at the nearest hotel which is the Willa Marina, located just across the street from the shopping centre. We could say it has seen better days, but in truth it probably hasn’t.

In the middle of the shopping centre is a circular courtyard with more food and drink stalls, and some outside seating. It was in a former Marks & Spencer unit that the Polish organisers had set up the tournament and free play machines for this year’s EPC.

Being a former clothing and housewares store the interior was brightly lit, with a large open-plan layout which made the whole unit feel very spacious.

As players entered through the main set of doors, the registration desk was on the right. It was here that the 149 registered entrants signed-in and collected their commemorative bags containing promotional fliers, their player badge, a pair of lanyards and a guide to the city of Łódź.

The rest of the unit was split into five areas.

The first of these was the free-play machine zone. This is where the twenty practice machines were set up for people to play before and after their qualifying round.

The free-play machines were:

Bad Cats Batman Forever Batman Forever Big Guns Doctor Who* Elvira & the Party Monsters* F-14 Tomcat F-14 Tomcat* Funhouse Hot Tip* Indiana Jones (WMS) Jurassic Park: The Lost World* NBA Fastbreak Secret Service* Shadow, The Shaq Attaq Space Shuttle (Zac) Spirit of ’76 Star Trek: The Next Generation Time Machine (DE)

*machine was turned off or otherwise not playable

 

Sadly, with one or two notable exceptions, the condition of these free-play machines was not great. Some never seemed to work all weekend, while others had problems such as missing parts, weak flippers, reset issues or simply had no credits for much of the time.

There were also two more free-play games. One was an Indiana Jones which was demonstrating the PinSound customisable sound board and was part of the PinSound stand. The other was a Bride of Pinbot 2.0 which was only available to play at certain times.

Behind the PinSound stand was the area used for the ’80s Tournament which was the ‘classics’ tournament at this year’s EPC.

Eight machines were used for the ’80s Tournament, although one of them was actually a ’90s machine. The machines were:

Earthshaker! Comet Funhouse Fire!

Black Knight 2000 Pinbot Road Kings Swords of Fury

 

Competitors could play one game on any four of the eight machines. Those scores were ranked alongside all the other scores on those machines and points awarded. The top 16 scorers would qualify for the play-offs on Saturday night.

To the right of the PinSound stand was the organisers’ desk which is where the trophies and the current standings were on display.

The scores and standings were shown on projector screens at the organisers’ desk.

Guests could buy commemorative EPC mugs or T-shirts. The mugs were 25 Zloty ($6.48/€5.80/£5.00) and the T-shirts twice that price.

In addition to the main EPC, Team Tournament and ’80s Tournament, there were three single-machine side tournaments taking place.

The Lorneta Challenge and Crossroads Show were held on a High Speed 2 and a Roadshow respectively.

Those two machines were positioned to the right of the organisers’ desk.

A High Speed 2: The Getaway machine was used for the Lorneta Challenge but players had to wear distorting goggles while playing.

The left and right flipper buttons were swapped on the Crossroads Show Roadshow game, with players forbidden from crossing their arms while playing it. EPC competitors could have one entry in both tournaments, and the highest scorers on each machine would win the trophies.

There was another high score tournament. This one was the Whoa Nellie! Challenge. No prizes for guessing which machine was used for this one.

The game cost 2 Polish Zloty ($0.50/€0.46/£0.40) to play, with unlimited attempts allowed during show hours. At the end of the EPC the player with the highest score would win.

The right side of the main room was where the EPC tournament machines were set up. The 27 games were divided into three pools of nine, with each pool containing eight tournament machines and one reserve.

The pools were:

POOL A	POOL B	POOL C
Metallica Pro Scared Stiff Kiss Pro Corvette Tales of the Arabian Nights Batman: Dark Knight Whitewater Demolition Man Reserve: Dirty Harry	World Cup Soccer Game of Thrones Pro The Addams Family Star Trek Pro AC/DC Pro Creature from the Black Lagoon Dirty Harry Bram Stoker’s Dracula Reserve: The Flintstones	The Walking Dead Pro Terminator 2 World Cup Soccer Scared Stiff AC/DC Pro Metallica Pro Lethal Weapon 3 The Lord of the Rings Reserve: Twilight Zone

 

Each player was put into a group of 12 and played a single game against each of the other players in the group.

Players were allocated to one of the pools – A, B or C – and played all their matches in that zone. The list of matches and the machines to be played were shown on the reverse of each player’s badge and also on a board next to the entrance to the pool.

Some groups played their matches on the Friday, but the majority played during the three time slots on Saturday.

A win in a match earned a player 1 point while a loss earned them a zero. Once all eleven rounds had been played the four players with the most wins progressed to the play-off rounds on Sunday.

If there were ties for any of the qualifying positions, the number of wins each tied player had over the other tied players was used to determine who qualified. If that still failed to break the tie, a single play-off match was played.

Beyond the EPC zones was a ‘chill-out’ area – a darkened room with soft seating and two table football (foosball) games. There was also a Demolition Man game set up in there, but this never seemed to be powered-up.

The final zone was behind one of the banks of free-play practice machines, and it contained the four machines used for the Team Tournament: Mustang Pro, Roadshow, Johnny Mnemonic and WWE Wrestlemania Pro.

These machines were also used on Sunday for the main EPC play-offs as a ‘Zone D’ area.

Here’s a chance to look around the EPC venue during qualifying on Saturday afternoon in our exclusive Six Minute Tour.

 

In the main EPC tournament, each round was given 3.5 hours to complete their eleven matches before the following round began. Although that didn’t leave much time for machine maintenance or adjustments, this seemed to generally work well with only around a 15-20 minute delay in some areas by the time the last round began at 4pm on Saturday.

When the final round was completed, the 52 qualifiers who would play in Sunday’s play-offs were known along with the 12 players with the most wins who would get a bye through the first round. They were all listed on the projector screen.

Because the type is rather small and indistinct on the screen, here’s the list.

EPC 2016 Qualifiers

Name Wins Erwin Deutschländer 11 Sandor Varga 10 Konrad Masłowski 10 Jorian Engelbrektsson 10 Franck Bona 10 Daniele Acciari 10 Marcus Hugosson 9 Roberto Pedroni 9 Jan Anders Nilsson 9 Stefan Karlhuber 9 Kim Günther Hansen 9 Philipp Unger 9 Bye through first round Benjamin Gräbeldinger 9 Gabriel Gavrilita 9 Daniel Nowak 8 Paweł Nowak 8 Marcin Jaśkiewicz 8 Tamas Odler 8 Johan Genberg 8 Linus Persson 8 Linus Jorenbo 8 Daniele Baldan 8 John van der Wulp 8 Fabio Francescato 8 Jörgen Holm 8 Anders Carlsson 8 Cayle George 8 Helena Walter 8 Mariusz Tkacz 8 Rafael Masedo 8 Peter Andersen 8 Cesare d’Atri 8 David Dahl-Hansson 8 Reiner Pfeiffer 7 Kevin Kuhn 7 Martin Janczyk 7 Ari Sovijärvi 7 Antti Peltonen 7 Daniel Kaczmarek 7 Jakub Ciepliński 7 Lukasz Wawryka 7 Kirsten Adam 7 Marcin Kisiel 7 Carlos Javier Parra 7 Hartmut Besigk 7 Lukasz Romanowski 7 Stefan Schichtl 7 Philippe Bocquet 7 Stefan Herold 7 Karyn Kiser 7 Marco Suvanto 7 Pontus Qvarfordh 6

 

In cases where players were tied for a bye position, their IFPA ranking was used as the deciding factor rather than having any kind of play-off.

The final tournament event on Saturday evening was the final of the EPC Team Tournament.

Twenty-nine teams of three took part and they were mostly – but not entirely – groups of players with the same nationality. Each team played one game on the four Team Tournament machines, with every player playing one ball of the game. Games could be played at any time from 3pm on Friday until 6pm on Saturday. The scores were ranked with the top eight teams qualifying for the play-offs.

In the play-offs the teams were paired-up and played the machines again. The first team to get two wins moved on to the semi-finals.

The Team Tournament also gave the Polish repair team a chance to work on the games which would be used for the main EPC play-offs the next day, fixing any faults and cleaning them up.

The two teams who then contested the final were Hungary 2 (Sandor Varga, Tamas Odler & Balázs Pálfi) and Sweden (Jorian Engelbrektsson, Jörgen Holm & Marcus Hugosson). The final was played as a single two-player match on Bride of Pinbot 2.0.

In the end it was a victory for the Swedes, leaving Hungary 2 in second place and Team France (Franck Bona, Willy Sachet & Philippe Bocquet) in third.

Here are the results for all 29 teams taking part:

EPC Team Tournament Results

1 Team Sweden 2 Team Hungary 2 3 Team France 4 Team Sweden 2 5 Team Hungary 6 Team Spain 2 7 Team Austria 8 Team Finland 9 Team Denmark 10 Team Poland 11 Team Finland 12 Team Poland 5 13 Team Italy 14 Team Netherlands 15 Team UK/Sweden 16 Team Slovenia 2 17 Team Poland 3 18 Team Spain 19 Team Germany 2 20 Team Finland 21 Team Sweden 3 22 Team Poland 2 23 Team Slovenia 24 Team Germany 25 Team Germany 3 26 Team Finland 3 27 Team Romania 28 Team Poland 6 29 Team Poland 4

 

The fun wasn’t over though, because the EPC organisers had arranged an evening at a music club in the centre of Łódź. A bus was also booked to ferry everyone from Port Łódź to the New York Music Club.

The twenty minute ride took us to Piotrkowska in the centre of Łódź.

Entry to New York Music Club was 10 PLN (or roughly $/€/£ 2). A raised seating area had been reserved for EPC guests with a great view of the stage where an excellent covers band was performing AC/DC, Tom Petty and Neil Young songs along with many other classic tracks.

Not surprisingly we weren’t out of bed too early on Sunday morning and so missed the first rounds of the ’80s Tournament play-offs which began at 8:30am.

EPC ’80s Tournament Qualifiers

1 Ernö Rotter 2 Tobias Wagemann 3 Sandor Varga 4 Fabio Francescato 5 Cezary Głowala 6 Roberto Pedroni 7 Julio Vicario Soriano 8 Johan Genberg 9 Jorian Engelbrektsson 10 Rafael Masedo 11 Daniel Nowak 12 Daniele Baldan 13 Javier Núñez Pérez 14 Giuseppe Violante 15 Patrik Jönsson 16 Karyn Kiser

 

The format saw the sixteen qualifiers split into four groups of four players. It was a harsh cut with the four in each group playing a single match on one machine where only the top scorer continued to the final. The remaining players were ranked according to their qualifying position.

The four who made it to the final were Julio Vicario Soriano, Jorian Engelbrektsson, Daniele Baldan and Giuseppe Violante. They played on three machines: Fire!, Cyclone and Earthshaker! using a 7-5-3-0 scoring system.

Julio won on Fire!, with Daniele second, Jorian third, and Giuseppe fourth.

The order of the top two were swapped on game two, Cyclone, with Daniele winning and Julio second.

With Jorian on six points and Giuseppe yet to score, only Daniele or Julio could win. If Jorian won game three on Earthshaker! he could take second if either Daniele or Julio failed to score a point.

It was an incredibly tight final game, with all the scores between 1.47M and 2.94M, but it was Giuseppe who won it to give himself a total of 7 points. Jorian’s game was interrupted by a tournament official standing too close, and with no possibility of winning the tournament he walked away from his third ball mid-game to end on 6 points.

Between the two contenders to be the overall winner, Daniele took second place on Earthshaker! with his 2.347M narrowly beating Julio’s 2.161M, thus earning him first place in the tournament. Julio was second, Giuseppe third and Jorian fourth.

Here’s the full result of the ’80s Tournament:

EPC ’80s Tournament Results

1  Daniele Baldan 2  Julio Vicario Soriano 3  Giuseppe Violante 4  Jorian Engelbrektsson 5  Ernö Rotter 6  Tobias Wagemann 7  Sandor Varga 8  Fabio Francescato 9  Cezary Głowala 10  Roberto Pedroni 11  Johan Genberg 12  Rafael Masedo 13  Daniel Nowak 14  Javier Núñez pérez 15  Patrik Jönsson 16  Karyn Kiser 17  Joel Wozniak 18  Antti Peltonen 19  Jörgen Holm 20  Sebastian Gwizdała 21  Andrej Bukovšek 22  Stefan Karlhuber 23  Olli-mikko Ojamies 24  Reiner Pfeiffer 25  Stefan Herold 26  Radosław Słotwiński 27  László Horn 28  Andrzej Cieślik 29  David Dahl-hansson 30  Roland Schwarz 31  Gabriel Ortiz 32  Janek Nietrzebka 33  Martin Ayub 34  Peter Blakemore 35  Marcin Kisiel 36  Dirk Elzholz 37  Michał Mazurkiewicz 38  Konrad Maslowski 39  Benjamin Gräbeldinger 40  Daniel Bengtsson 41  Anders Karlsson 42  Andrej Demsar 43  Tamás Odler 44  Juan antonio Martin 45  Kevin Kuhn 46  Devis Pierantozzi 47  Rich Mallett 48  Mattias Jeppsson 49  Mika Arvela 50  Perttu Pesä 51  Artur Natorski 52  Fredrik Mellberg 53  Carlos javier Parra 54  Hartmut Besigk 55  Juha Lijalainen 56  Flavio Baddaria 57  Ari Sovijärvi 58  David Mainwaring 59  John Van der wulp 60  Nikodem Kaczmarek 61  Jerzy Węglarz 62  Juha Viitanen 63  Pontus Qvarfordh 64  Balázs Pálfi 65  Philippe Bocquet 66  Marcus Hugosson 67  Milan Caranovic 68  Joonas Haverinen 69  Boldizsar Botka 70  Andrzej Olszewski 71  Pablo Crespo García 72  Jakub Tkacz 73  Linus Persson 74  Cayle George 75  Marco Suvanto 76  Julian Klotz 77  Tommi Koski 78  Vid Kuklec 79  Peter Andersen 80  Teemu Vinnikka 81  Rafal Bytomski 82  Rafał Jodełko 83  Lukasz Romanowski 84  Mirko Lundén 85  Piotr Czubkowski 86  Willy Sachet 87  Jani Saari 88  Anja Nielsen 89  Petri Taurio 90  Jakub Ciepliński 91  Morten Petersen 92  Erwin Deutschländer 93  Kirsten Adam 94  Olle Strandh 95  Lukasz Wawryka 96  Philipp Unger 97  Erno Lahdenperä 98  Marcin Jaśkiewicz 99  Wolfgang Haid 100  Andreas Nirven 101  Jakub Józefczyk 102  Helena Walter 103  Marcin Dylewski 104  Lukasz Dziewulski 105  Ovidiu Cacina 106  Kim günther Hansen 107  Daniel Kaczmarek 108  Lars Ovinder 109  Kornél Kosdi 110  Jasmijn De jong 111  Vesa Sovijärvi 112  Daniele Acciari 113  Simo Rimmi 114  Stefan Schichtl 115  Pilvi Salonen 116  Jarosław Rupiewicz 117  Mathias Jäger 118  Piotr Andrzejewski 119  Jaroslaw Nietrzebka 120  Linus Jorenbo 121  Olli Paloheimo 122  Bartosz Nowak 123  Zeljko Vasic 124  Tobias Löfstedt 125  Roni Valkonen 126  Aleš Rebec 127  Mariusz Tkacz 128  Patrik Gräntz 129  Mats sahlberg Mats 130  Marcin Brodziak 131  Mateusz Leja 132  Enrico giorgio De stefani 133  Mateusz Gwizdala 134  Piotr Kochański 135  Sandra Katic 136  Sebastian Sołtys 137  Marek Szymborski 138  Franck Bona 139  Admir Peco 140  Dariusz Mazurkiewicz 141  Jan Anders Nilsson 142  Martin Janczyk 143  Cesare D’atri 144  Gabriel Gavrilita

 

All eyes were then on the final rounds of the main EPC tournament.

The 52 qualifiers included 12 who skipped the first round of play-offs, leaving 40 players to play head-to-head best-of-three pairs matches.

The 20 winners from the first round were joined the 12 players with a bye for round two which was played in the same way.

The 20 losers from round one entered the loser bracket where they played head-to-head single games to determine who continued in the loser bracket and who went out of the tournament.

This system continued as the thirty-two players in the main winners’ bracket were reduced to sixteen, then eight, then four, and then two.

In the loser bracket the single game matches eventually reduced the number of players remaining to two. These two joined the two from the winners’ bracket to make a four-player final.

The four finalists were Jorian Engelbrektsson and Konrad Masłowski from the winners’ bracket, and Daniele Acciari and Cesare d’Atri from the losers’.

The final would be played on four machines. These were brought into the open so everyone could crowd around and watch.

The machines would be played from left to right, starting with The Walking Dead. This was followed by World Cup Soccer, Terminator 2, and finishing with the newest game, a Ghostbusters Limited Edition.

Points would be awarded for position on each game, with nine points for a win, five points for second and two points for third. The player with the most points after Ghostbusters would be the overall winner.

The Walking Dead worked out well for Daniele as he took first place and nine points on game one. Jorian was second to score five points, while Konrad was third.

So the scores after the first game were:

	TWD	WCS	T2	GB	Total
Jorian Engelbrektsson	5	–	–	–	5
Konrad Masłowski	2	–	–	–	2
Daniele Acciari	9	–	–	–	9
Cesare d’Atri	0	–	–	–	0

 

Game two on World Cup Soccer mixed things up a bit as Jorian put up a huge 2 billion score early on which sealed the win. The remaining three were all close together around the 500 million mark, with Cesare leading the pack ahead of Daniele, with Konrad in fourth.

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	TWD	WCS	T2	GB	Total
Jorian Engelbrektsson	5	9	–	–	14
Konrad Masłowski	2	0	–	–	2
Daniele Acciari	9	2	–	–	11
Cesare d’Atri	0	5	–	–	5

 

The third game was Terminator 2 and Cesare built on his previous second place to win this game.

Jorian continued his record of always being in the top two by coming second, while Konrad gathered the remaining two points in third place.

Going into the last game of the final, Jorian was five points ahead of Cesare who in turn was three points up on Daniele. The best Konrad could hope for now was third, and that relied on him winning game four and Daniele getting no points.

	TWD	WCS	T2	GB	Total
Jorian Engelbrektsson	5	9	5	–	19
Konrad Masłowski	2	0	2	–	4
Daniele Acciari	9	2	0	–	11
Cesare d’Atri	0	5	9	–	14

 

The current leader, Jorian, played first.

Although none of the scores were exceptional, Jorian’s 69.1 million was more than double his nearest rival and gave him the win on Ghostbusters.

Daniele is often a master of the last-minute comeback, but it eluded him this time as Konrad’s 25.9 million was enough for second place ahead of Daniele’s 20.9 million.

Cesare meanwhile had an unhappy time and only scored 5.8 million on the last game and no points.

With two wins and two second places in the final, Jorian was the clear winner of the EPC 2016.

	TWD	WCS	T2	GB	Total
Jorian Engelbrektsson	5	9	5	9	28
Konrad Masłowski	2	0	2	5	9
Daniele Acciari	9	2	0	2	13
Cesare d’Atri	0	5	9	0	14

 

Daniele’s third place on Ghostbusters meant Cesare kept second overall, while Konrad couldn’t quite get the first place he would have needed to take third and ended up fourth.

Then it was time for the presentations of trophies and cash prizes.

Here are the full results of the main EPC tournament.

EPC 2016 Final Results

1 Jorian Engelbrektsson 2 Cesare d’Atri 3 Daniele Acciari 4 Konrad Masłowski 5 Daniel Nowak 5 Cayle George 7 Ari Sovijärvi 7 Daniel Kaczmarek 10 Franck Bona 10 Linus Persson 10 Sandor Varga 10 Stefan Karlhuber 14 Benjamin Gräbeldinger 14 Helena Walter 14 Johan Genberg 14 Marco Suvanto 20 Daniele Baldan 20 Erwin Deutschländer 20 Hartmut Besigk 20 Jan Anders Nilsson 20 Jörgen Holm 20 Marcin Kisiel 20 Philipp Unger 20 Roberto Pedroni 28 Jakub Ciepliński 28 Fabio Francescato 28 Kim Günther Hansen 28 Kirsten Adam 28 Marcin Jaśkiewicz 28 Marcus Hugosson 28 Peter Andersen 28 Reiner Pfeiffer 40 Anders Carlsson 40 Carlos Javier Parra 40 David Dahl-Hansson 40 Gabriel Gavrilita 40 John van der Wulp 40 Linus Jorenbo 40 Lukasz Romanowski 40 Lukasz Wawryka 40 Mariusz Tkacz 40 Martin Janczyk 40 Paweł Nowak 40 Philippe Bocquet 40 Rafael Masedo 40 Stefan Herold 40 Stefan Schichtl 40 Tamas Odler 50 Antti Peltonen 50 Karyn Kiser 50 Kevin Kuhn 50 Pontus Qvarfordh 57 Sebastian Sołtys 57 Cezary Głowala 57 Jakub Józefczyk 57 MortenPetersen 57 Piotr Andrzejewski 57 Peter Blakemore 57 Tobias Wagemann 57 Erno Lahdenperä 57 Joonas Haverinen 72 Balázs Pálfi 72 Willy Sachet 72 Joel Wozniak 72 Lars Ovinder 72 Andrej Demsar 72 Roland Schwarz 72 Jani Saari 72 Enrico Giorgio De Stefani 72 Marcin Dylewski 72 Daniel Bengtsson 72 Zeljko Vasic 72 Patrik Gräntz 72 Juha Iijalainen 72 Flavio Baddaria 72 Jasmijn de Jong 72 Devis Pierantozzi 72 Fredrik Mellberg 72 Juan Antonio Martin 72 Mats Sahlberg Mats 72 Rich Mallet 72 Olli-Mikko Ojamies 91 Olli Paloheimo 91 Mathias Jäger 91 Marta Ścibisz 91 Mateusz Leja 91 Jacek Wenda 91 Jarosław Rupiewicz 91 Armand Maculewicz 91 Jarosław Nietrzebka 91 Giuseppe Violante 91 Boldizsar Botka 91 Horn László 91 David Mainwaring 91 Mattias Jeppsson 91 Roni Valkonen 91 Andrej Bukovšek 91 Martin Ayub 91 Andreas Nirven 111 Rafał Bytomski 111 Admir Peco 111 Simo Rimmi 111 Marek Szymborski 111 Mirko Lundén 111 Juha Viitanen 111 Teemu Vinnika 111 Marcin Brodziak 111 Ernö Rotter 111 Tobias Löfstedt 111 Andrzej Cieślik 111 Wolfgang Haid 111 Olle Strandh 111 Javier Núñez Pérez 111 Kornél Kosdi 111 Nikodem Kaczmarek 111 Janek Nietrzebka 111 Piotr Czubkowki 111 Piotr Kochański 111 Vid Kuklec 111 Jerzy Węglarz 111 Tommi Koski 111 Aleš Rebec 130 Sebastian Gwizdała 130 Mika Arvela 130 Andrzej Olszewski 130 Daniel Górecki 130 Pilvi Salonen 130 Patrik Jönsson 130 Bartosz Radomyski 130 Michał Mazurkiewicz 130 Artur Natorski 130 Ovidu Cacina 130 Pablo Crespo Garcia 130 Petri Taurio 130 Dirk Elzholz 130 Jakub Tkacz 130 Milan Caranovic 130 Gabriel Ortiz 142 Julian Klotz 142 Radosław Słotwiński 142 Dariusz Mazurkiewicz 142 Rafał Jodełko 142 Perrtu Pesä 142 Łukasz Dziewulski 142 Anja Nielsen 142 Bartosz Nowak 147 Sandra Katic 147 Vesa Sovijärvi 149 Mateusz Gwizdała

 

Jorian also won €500 ($560/£430) for taking first place, while Cesare took home €300 for second. Daniele collected €200 for his third place. Daniele also won the Fair Play award and topped the table of scores on Whoa Nellie! to win that tournament too.

The Lorneta Challenge side tournament played using distorting goggles on the Getaway machine was won by Morten Petersen.

The other side tournament, the Crossroads Show using a reverse-flipper Roadshow machine was won by Marcin Jaśkiewicz who wasn’t present to collect his trophy.

Thanks to all the organisers and players who made this year’s EPC a very special time.

We rounded-off this trip with a return visit to the centre of Łódź to get some late Sunday night dinner.

We headed to an area called Manufaktura – a renovated industrial area which as been turned into large open plaza fronted by a large glass shopping mall and surrounded by long brick building housing shops, restaurants, art galleries, clubs and bars.

Although the plaza was largely deserted late on Sunday night, you can easily imagine this being a lively and vibrant place on Friday and Saturday evenings.

We returned home the next day after an enjoyable, entertaining and enlightening visit to Łódź.