1996 World Championship

Australasian Regional

Eight players entered the Australasian Regional Tournament. Each person played each of the others one game. A few of the games were played live across the table, but most were played over the Internet using Wintrax. In the latter case analysis was permitted (to avoid the need for a referee) but standard tournament times of 30 minutes per 10 moves were used.

The results were:

Player	W	L
Donald Bailey	7	0
David Smith	6	1
Tom Siegenthaler	4	3
Tim Jefferies	4	3
Michael Sargent	2	5
Andrew Jefferies	2	5
Guy Mortlock	2	5
Tim Preston	1	6

In the following game records, the winner is underlined, and black's moves are shown in bold.

Candidate's Tournament

The format of the Candidate's Tournament was a little different this year from past tournaments. There was a total of 6 candidates, 2 coming forward from each of 3 regional tournaments. Each candidate played each of the others a best of 3 match, with the winner of the match scoring a point. The candidate with the most points then became the challenger.

The results:

Player	Region	Points
Donald Bailey	Australasia	5
Mel Nicholson	North America	3
David Smith	Australasia	3
Dave Lunn	Europe	2
Karl Heuer	North America	2
Chris Lusby-Taylor	Europe	0

Donald Bailey was therefore the 1996 challenger.

In the following game records, the winner is underlined, and black's moves are shown in bold.

Challenge Match

The Trax Challenge Match for 1996-1997 between Dan Pless (current Trax World Champion) of the United States and Donald Bailey (former Trax World Champion) of New Zealand was played from July 7th to July 10th, 1996.

Qualifications for the right to challenge Dan began in February with a series of local and regional tournaments which culminated with the candiates tournament which started in May. Donald defeated each of the other regional candiates to advance to the Trax Challenge Match (a best of 11 series).

Donald won the series 6-4 in a hard fought battle between the two people many consider to be the foremost players of Trax.

Game Listings

In the following game records, the winner is underlined, and black's moves are shown in bold.

World Championship Past Champions

• 1986-1990: Andrew Butterfield
• 1990-1994: Donald Bailey
• 1994-1996: Dan Pless