Rummikub
The 2000 World Championships will be held at the Eiffel Tower, Paris from 27-30 October. National champions from 28 countries are expected to take part.
p>This event is held every three years. The current world champion is Peter Mentzij of the Netherlands, who won the tournament in England in 1997. The previous winners were Nehad Zahran of Egypt and Masata Kuwahara of Japan. The competition won by Zahran in 1994 was on a boat on the Rhine, and so it took place in four different countries! Kuwahara won the first title, which was contested in Jerusalem in 1991.
The second and third places in the previous championships have included players from Canada, New Zealand and Brazil. This means that in only three world championships, there have been medallists from six different continents! Few mind sports can claim to have such a worldwide spread of players at the top level.
Rummikub has clearly come a long way since it was invented in the 1930s. In the early days, the game was sold door-to-door, now it is on sale in shops in 48 countries and 30 million sets have been sold.
