Who is the fattest of them all?

What do you think?

The answer is in the video below! 

So did you guess correctly?

My free pickleball paddle

A few weeks ago, I joined a free pickleball session organized by Fila. It also gave me the opportunity to check out Pickle by the Sea, a pickleball court opposite Gurney Plaza.

We each received a pickleball paddle upon arriving!

Well, as you can see from the video, it isn’t a real pickleball paddle… but it’s a cute miniature. It seems more proportional to a ping pong ball. :P

They also had a lucky draw at the end of the session, with three tumblers up for grabs, but I didn’t win any of them.

People had told me that Pickle by the Sea provides Clinique products in their washroom, so I specifically looked out for that, but it turned out that Clinique was just written on their bathroom mirrors (and maybe some other parts of the bathroom?) Their hand wash was from Plant Origins, which is a brand by Signature Market.

Either people were misled by the fact that “Clinique” was written in the bathroom, or the court really provided Clinique products in the beginning…until they ran out.

One nice thing about this session was that we were playing in the VIP courts. (or was it super VIP?) The space around the court was bigger, so we didn’t have to worry about running into walls. As my friend (who informed me about this session) said, it’s so luxurious!

The Chord Cup and Minesweeper Royale

After the official MSWCH had ended, they continued with the Chord Cup. As mentioned in the previous post, it was new to me.

So here’s what I learned: Chord Cup is a 1vs1 elimination Minesweeper competition where players race to solve a series of Minesweeper boards faster than their opponent. The series of boards are identical for both players, and they are all no-guess boards. Each board has a starting point indicated to the players, so that the competition is fair with neither player needing to make any guesses. (Because depending on where you start a board, you might or might not have to guess.)

I snapped a few photos while they were playing. 

solving the same boards

this was the finals; it's neck and neck!

this is a case where the two players were on different boards, because either one of them was one board (or more) faster, or someone had blasted a board (if we blast a board, we move to the next board)

Here are a couple of videos where you can see the players in action.

Halfway through the Chord Cup, we had a late tea break (merienda in Spanish). I snapped a quick discreet photo of the food they had prepared.

fruit, bread (soft baguette-like slices that are used for canapes), ham, cheese (I think), guacamole, potato chips, and maybe some stuff I don't remember

After the tea break and the finals of the Chord Cup, we had the prize presentation.

our organizer, with prizes on the table

joined by his co-organize, who is actually from Madrid

The next day, we had the Minesweeper Royale.

We played this on minesweeper.online, which seems to be where most people play these days (not on their personal computer). We would play whatever boards we wanted, and the scores (and stats) would be logged. Then we would see our best scores in each category like speed, efficiency, win streak, and density. On the official website for MSWCH 2025, you can see two other categories which are arena and mobile. I can’t remember what arena was, but the other is where you play on a mobile device instead of using a mouse on PC.

I did not take part in the Chord Cup, but I did participate in the Minesweeper Royale. I knew my speed would not be up to par, so I just tried to play for efficiency.

You know what? I believe I was the one who kickstarted the interest in efficiency, because for the longest time I had been trying to minimize the number of clicks I used, and use flags as efficiently as possible (only place flags when I need them for double-clicking). Indirectly, using less clicks also means we can move faster, right? I remember feeling extremely accomplished the first time I managed to finish a board using fewer clicks than its 3bv (the 3bv of a board is the minimum number of left-clicks needed to finish the board). After I shared that, interest in efficiency started and the IOE (index of efficiency) was added to the Minesweeper stats.

Anyway, I was no match for these new players who seemed to have been working on efficiency since they started playing. Damien Moore (our veteran and owner of the Authoritative Mineweeper website) was at the session and was also playing for efficiency, but he fared just a little better than me.

initial ranking at 3rd place (because no one had started for efficiency yet? :P )

Note that the prizes for Minesweeper Royale are cryptocurrency. First three spots in each category win some money!

But of course my ranking had dropped by the time the tournament ended.

12th place, with Damien right above me

A newer player had shared with us the previous day that there were modes on their new websites to allow practising for efficiency. It seems that it is easier to get better efficiency scores on denser boards, so the algorithm would only generate higher density boards when they were practising for efficiency. (Note: In these situations where boards are not generated fully randomly, I think high scores are not valid for true rankings.) Then while playing normally, they would be able to recognize which boards they might play more slowly on to optimize efficiency, and which boards they should speed up on to play for time.

It is worth mentioning that there were three or four website developers at the event…they had great discussions about website design and maintenance, while I mostly listened in. 

The organizers printed a t-shirt for the event, and I bought one for 12€.

They also printed a bunch of stickers. They said they had estimated that each person could have 5 of each sticker. I wasn't going to take so many at the beginning, but then I thought it might be a good souvenir/advertisement back in Malaysia, so I took my allocation (what would they do with the leftovers anyway?) and offered the excess to the people at work.

Props to those who designed these...I like some of them more than others, but they all look pretty good and professional.

The Minesweeper World Championships 2025

I’m writing about this almost a whole year after the event…the championships were held on the 27th and 28th of September last year.

It was the whole reason why I planned a trip to Portugal and Spain, ticking off Portugal from my bucket list, and postponing Japan which was previously the next place I had planned to visit.

Since I was practically retired from Minesweeper by then, just playing a few games every month, there was not much to hope for in terms of results. I was there to play and have fun.

The scene has changed a lot since years back when I was an active player. We used to simply have one event where we would play and have our final scores tabulated to see who scored the fastest times out of a certain number of games. This time, they still had that, which was the “official” Minesweeper World Championships (MSWCH), but they had side events like Chord Cup and Minesweeper Royale, both of which I had never heard of before.

The event was held at 42 Madrid. They had tight security; we registered with our passport and even went through a bag scan before being allowed to enter with an access card. 

someone drew this on a whiteboard outside the computer room

more decorations on the windows inside the room

setting up my mouse

I brought a mousepad, but theirs seemed fine...maybe because I am no longer an active player; it doesn't make much difference. :P 

ready to play!

(See all those additional icons on the screen after setting up? :P )

I took a few photos of the rankings after finishing some games, to see what the highest point was. (I knew my ranking would drop once everyone started completing all the necessary games…) My highest ranking was 17, right after finishing all the intermediates and one expert. 

my high scores of the day

Here are the final results after the session ended:

our organizer and old-timer Thomas Kolar was at 2nd place!

Everyone else before number 15th (Damien) were newer players that I didn't know.

I came in at number 39

there were a total of 47 players

For old times' sake, we actually took a photo with all the old-timers.

the only people I knew there; from left (after me): Damien, Tommy, Eduard, and Stevan

We had all met each other before, except for Stevan whom we were all meeting for the first time. He had been on the scene but never managed to make it to a physical meet.

When we arrived at the event, we were given different-coloured wristbands to indicate whether we allowed others to photograph us, whether we wanted them to ask for permission first, and a few other indicators that I don’t remember. Anyway, because of this, I won’t post general photos of the room, because I don’t know whether the face of someone who doesn’t want to be photographed might be clear enough in them. 

Since this post is getting long, I'll continue about the side events in a separate post.

Spanish(?) tacos

Tacos are Mexican, not Spanish. But this taco place called Wacamole Food & Drink, also not far from our hotel, caught the eye of my mother.

I also missed the tacos that I had had in Mexico, so off we went to try some tacos!

the menu (this is a screenshot from Google Maps that I took before I went there)

translating the menu in the restaurant

The place is also pretty dark, probably even darker than Taberna El Sur. My photos without flash came up really dark; we can't see the food properly at all.

If I remember correctly, these are the flavours in the photo above, clockwise from top-left: arrachera (I had to order this because this was my favourite in Mexico), campechano (I recognize this from the chunks of chorizo), carnitas (pork topped with onion and cilantro), and cochinita (shredded marinated pork topped with red onion, which is how I recognize it). I believe we selected the last two because they were the cheapest.

Then we ordered another two. One is arrachera (still my favourite), and we tried another flavour: birria (stewed marinated beef topped with onion and cilantro).

The tacos are small and cheap, making this our cheapest dine-in meal in Spain. As you can see in the first photo, we ordered a beer to share, which was also cheap. (2 euros, maybe?) This was enough for us since we are small eaters...for those who eat a lot, six tacos may not be enough for one person!

So how was the taste? Good! And compared to the ones I had in Mexico, frankly I feel it's authentic. I would go again if I visit Madrid! 

Spanish churros

Another specialty of Spain is churros!

There are many shops selling churros in Madrid, and I had looked up a few recommended ones before we went there. But then we saw this Maestro Churrero near our hotel, with good reviews, and decided to try it. (We didn’t try any other churro shop, which may be a bit of a pity…but our stomachs cannot take so much food!)

different kinds of churros

The fatter ones at the bottom are called porras.

porras in the making

We sat right beside their fryer (separated by a pane of glass), so I managed to take a video of the frying taking place.

We ordered a set of churros and a set of porras. For the churros, we can add on a pot of chocolate. They call it hot chocolate but it is basically a warm chocolate syrup. We saw people drinking it...but I feel it is too thick to drink! Scooping it up with the churros was really good, and we used the spoon to finish up the rest.

porras

The inside is all puffed up; basically the Spanish version of you tiao!

They have a lot more items in their display. (and also on the counter)

sugar packets (it's a franchise!)

take-away paper bag

We bought a ham-cheese croissant for take-away, if I remember correctly. They even toasted the croissant for us, but unfortunately we weren't eating it immediately after our breakfast. It was still good, though.

We went back another day for breakfast. I think we were aiming for the croissant, but they had run out (or they didn't make it that day?) Anyway, the portion the other day was too much for us, so this time we scaled down our order.

just one churros set without the chocolate sauce, and three short thicker churros sprinkled with sugar

Spanish pastries

A famous pastry shop near our hotel is Casa Mira, which is known for its polvorones.

My research had told me that a polvorón is a type of spanish shortbread from Andalusia. They say it’s really good, so we had to try it.

We went to the shop, and saw people buying polvorones by the bag (it is sold by weight). And we bought just one. :P 

this is about an inch and a half long

The shop has a lovely turning display in its window.

We also selected a few pastries from the turning display. 

the palmier is the size of a large hand

just to show the layers of the pastry

We also bought these other pastries in another shop near our hotel.

these are doughnut ball-sized, just like they look

Basically we weren't impressed by the polvorón (luckily we only bought one). But the other pastries were fine.

One morning, we visited a rather popular place near our hotel, called La Rollerie, for breakfast. It specializes in cinnamon rolls, and has other pastries as well.

I ordered a cinnamon roll, and my mother got a croissant. I think one of these came in a set with black coffee. I asked for a glass of milk, which I remember was not on the menu. I’m not sure why I didn’t order hot chocolate; maybe I didn’t trust that it would be good. :P 

the cinnamon roll comes with icing and whipped cream

size comparison

our drinks

They unexpectedly gave a pack of chocolate drink mix with my milk. I guess they have this prepared for children? Or is this actually their hot chocolate? Anyway, I didn't mix in the cocoa powder at that time, but brought it back home before reading the instructions.

after that, we realized their mugs have their restaurant name on them!

They are actually a franchise; there are multiple locations.

The cinnamon roll was the best I had ever tried. I remember it was soft and fluffy, and the icing cream on it was not too sweet or cloying. After that, I tried the cinnamon rolls from The Founders, which reminded me of this. Not sure which is better; I would like to try them side by side to compare them!

Spanish paella

Another Spanish food that we have to try is paella. I had tried this before, and I like it. So it's one of my must-eat dishes in Spain!

We first found paella in Taberna El Sur, which is a tapas place that my mother found on Google Maps. She saw a photo of a nice dish in the reviews, but we didn’t know what it was. When we were unable to figure it out from the menu, we asked the waiter and he told us which item to order.

our white wine came first

I think every other customer had a glass each; we were the only ones sharing a glass between us. (as with every other restaurant we went to in this trip to Europe...)

beef sirloins with tartar sauce and fried potatoes

This was the item that my mother had spotted. It looks so good, another customer actually asked us what that was. It tasted very good as well. From Google, I saw that both this dish and the paella below cost 15€50 each. At this price and this portion, I guess it's not cheap, but it's good!

The other dish we ordered was seafood paella. 

The place is rather dark, so I did try to take photos with flash as well. The beef sirloins didn't turn out well with flash, but the paella was better, though I'm not sure it's better than the photo without flash.

brighter paella with flash

There was squid, prawn, mussels, and clams.

I felt that this paella was slightly soggy, even though the taste was fine. It wasn’t what I remembered, which was a drier and more fragrant rice.

On our last day, since we had already tried all the different dishes we were aiming for, we tried another paella at Chiquita Restaurante, on the way from Plaza Mayor to our hotel.

ordering rosé wine for a change

seafood paella again

This had less soggy grains, more like I remembered. It was served in the signature Spanish paella wok-like dish.

Taste-wise, I think both paellas were good. In this one, the clams were not present; instead there was a langoustine.

We also ordered a side dish of sausages and fries. 

The sausages were grilled (or pan-fried?) till crispy on the outside. 

I can't remember the name of this dish, but looking back at the menu on Google, I think it was chistorra con patatas (red spicy sausage with potatoes).