An the end it was a home game: Berlin’s Philippe Rathunde won this year’s world championship in the game of “Mensch ärgere Dich nicht”. The thirty-four-year-old prevailed in the final against seven-year-old Mia and 77-year-old Annemarie Fabian from Berlin and Ralf Oertel from Harzgerode (Saxony-Anhalt). A total of 209 players from all over Germany took part, as organizer Udo Schmitz reported on Sunday. The age range of the participants ranged from 6 to 83 years.
Strategically prepared or with more luck than expected, children and seniors fought for the world championship title on Saturday into the evening. “Especially in tournaments like this, you can see that many people take part just for the fun of it,” said Schmitz. “But of course there are also some who take a more dogged and serious view of it. You have to say: “Now calm down and don’t get too angry.”
The players sat at more than 50 tables in a hotel on Potsdamer Platz. Under the eyes of the referees, four of them then drew the figures in a bet.
A rule was introduced so that the game doesn’t last forever: Within four preliminary round games, the participants must score as many points as possible in order to reach the final of the four best. “If a game isn’t over after 30 minutes, it’s stopped and counted how many steps I need to get into the house with my characters,” Schmitz explained in advance.
The next World Cup is expected to take place in Berlin in 2024. The German championship is already coming up in January, as Schmitz reported. This is scheduled to start on January 14 in Dohna, Saxony.
The game “Mensch ärgere Dich nicht” was invented more than 100 years ago by Josef Friedrich Schmidt and has been in production since 1914. More than 90 million copies have been sold so far.
