One hundred and counting…
CIAO to everybody!
I’m resting for a month at home (well, actually I’m working a lot on translations and Magic activities behind the scenes, and also training a lot), I am pleased to write about a real milestone in my career as a Magic judge: my Grand Prix number ONE HUNDRED.
I will use it as an opportunity to take a look into the past and tell you some stories about the Grand Prix events that have been the most special for me.
🙂
Happy reading.
One Hundred GPs
Yes, I made it, my count of Grand Prix has three digits, and this is a very important milestone for me.
Thinking about all these events, from 2002 until today, I can surely say that it has been a life full of experiences, a life touched by a huge amount of people, a long path of professional and personal growth, and I can say that it has been a life worth living.
In case these words make you think that the next sentence might be “… and now I can die happy”, well, no, not at all! The next sentence is “… and now I’m ready for the next one hundred!!!”.
Today, I would like to offer you some short stories about the Grand Prix that I still keep in my memory.
Naples 2002
The first one, the smallest one, with final standings with only 295 players… we will never forget our “first time”; the first day at school, the first kiss, the first holiday with friends…
May you keep a great memory of all your first times.
I had been a L1 judge for only six months, and I had the chance of… well, no, I want to take some merits! I had the initiative of being active in my national community, of wanting to discover how organized play worked, and of doing my best to learn all the needed skills. This new, young judge from the north of Italy looked promising and was selected for GP Naples; well, after 13 years, I can say that it was a very good investment!
Euros 2002
This event was actually the European Championship (I want to count it as equivalent to a Grand Prix, just like I put the Pro Tour and Worlds in the same category), and it was also the last European Championship, a very nice competition with a great atmosphere… very similar to the current World Magic Cup.
The championship took place in London, in the very fascinating quarter of Kensington (which has become my favorite area of London for its architecture), and it was another HUGE tournament with 305 participants… how times change and how much we evolve!!
(I have no photos from that event, so here you have a funny one)
Bologna 2005
Fast forward three years, after a dozen of GPs and a few Pro Tours, I had the honor of head judging my first event of international level. 651 participants, more than double the number of players in Naples three years before, the game is growing so quickly!
Great emotions, intense preparation, many mistakes of inexperience, but all went well.
The funny memory of the event: during that precise weekend, I was moving from Turin to Rome (Bologna is in between); I went there with my motorbike, while my wife was driving the car, completely full with bags. Since the day after GP Bologna 2005, I’ve been living next to Rome.
Comparing the size of the judge staff of Bologna 2005 and the one at the end of this page, Chiba 2015… we can imagine how our tournaments have evolved!
Dortmund 2006
As far as I know, Paris 2004 was the first Grand Prix that got split into two parts (there might have been others, but I wasn’t travelling much at that time).
One year and a few months later, I was head judge of my first split event, together with a famous judge from Germany (Justus Ronnau), who actually had been one of the three members of the panel that tested me for level three a few years earlier. It was also my first event as head judge with more than 1000 participants.
It’s always fun to take a look at old photos… and videos!
Denver 2008
Fast forward two years, and it was time to become even more international; Denver 2008 was my first Grand Prix outside of Europe, in the city of the famous Scott Marshall, one of the current L5 judges.
Looking at my old photos on Facebook, look what I found! Are you able to recognize this kid? 😉
Paris 2008
This was a special one, which I now only call “GP Disneyland”.
Yes, the tournament took place in one of the hotels of the theme park, in a wonderfully looking ballroom.
When I arrived at the hotel on Thursday night, I saw a sign that said something like “Sleep in this hotel and you can enter the Disney park two hours in advance”; the next day, I had already planned to visit the entertainment park and, well, being able to enter at 8AM when the gates open to the public at 10AM really helps you enjoy the day much more!
The Grand Prix was expected to be special, as we had to prepare for the possibility of reaching the incredible number of 2000 participants, which was at that time an impossible number.
The preparation was very thorough and we worked on the logistics for several weeks.
This photo (with Nick Sephton, a great judge from the UK) tells you the result:
Shanghai 2011
2011 was the year when the Grand Prix circuit returned to China, after many years of absence.
It was an extraordinary experience, which opened to me a new world (if you have been reading my articles, you should know by now that I am very fond of Asia), and I’ve been going to all GPs in China since 2011, earning a few years later this wonderful gift from the Chinese judges:
If you want to read more about the logistics of the first Grand Prix in two languages, here you have “Judging on Another Continent”.
Kuala Lumpur 2014
Year after year, the adventures in Asia have become a pillar of my life. The interactions between people are so different from Europe that it’s difficult not to fall in love.
This is probably the most representative of the judge staff photos, and should give you an idea about how much we feel “at home and welcomed” when we work hard to make GPs on that continent the best experience for all people involved.
If you want to read more, here you have “Another Exotic Location”.
A special dedication to one of the “Asian” judges who joined me for almost all the events in Asia and Japan, and who contributes immensely to the quality of his GPs: the scorekeeper from Spain/Belgium and globetrotter Niko Glik!
Manila 2015
And so we get to this year, with a special “GP New Year’s Eve”, an amazing life experience and a really international party! Travelling means living…
Chiba 2015
Thirteen years later, we get to 2015 and we have the Grand Prix that was likely the most difficult, the most stressful and the most logistically successful of all 100: Chiba 2015, with the incredibly successful Modern Masters 2015 edition.
4000 tickets sold online in ten hours, a planetary success, if you want to read more about its challenges, here you have “BIG in Japan”.
It was such a special event, that I will call it GP wedding, with a very special GP priest ^__^.
… and these are only a few memories from those 100 events.
If you have never travelled abroad, I recommend doing it, tasting it, living it; you will be a different person!
Before going to plan the next Grand Prix events (Beijing, the first Team GP in non-Japan Asia takes place in a few days, a new challenge!), I would like to say goodbye with a special dedication to the five level fives of the Magic judge program, the five very different “symbols” of the Magic judges.
If you want a parallel between us and the colors of Magic, I am definitely the RED one: passion, action, disrespect of rules and (self ^__^) destruction!
This photo has just been taken at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar…
This time I stayed home to prepare for a streak of SIX weekends dedicated to Magic tournaments and conferences, so they had to find my kor avatar ^__^
Great Judges of the World: Matteo Callegari
Matteo Callegari is an Italian judge who came to his level 1 test with a Yu-Gi-Oh! t-shirt, who has a great passion for Guinness beer and for New Zealand, who works as a book editor and in a pharmaceutical company, who travelled to all continents of Magic to judge Grand Prix and Pro Tours… wow, now that I’m writing about some of his activities, I should say that I am even more impressed!
A great companion and very skilled professional, he also had judges use his traits for a stamp of approval.
Goodbye Prague
… and another awesome adventure has come to an end.
Grand Prix Prague 2015, a milestone in my adventures as a judge, and a great opportunity to think about what I’ve done so far, and about what I will want to do in the future…
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I’m looking forward to reading your comments.
See you in a couple weeks, with the first travel of autumn 2015, to the crowded city of Beijing, for the very first team sealed GP in Asia (excluding Japan, which, as I often say, is kind of a continent of its own, for both Magic and culture); logistics and language barriers will be very challenging, and we will be ready to make it a great event.
May Ulamog be with us!
Riccardo
Contact Riccardo 
