Nici is the winner of the opening tournament of the 2026 Season after converting her first championship point after only 74 minutes of play in Game 3 of the 2026 Winter Masters.

Exactly 10 months after winning her first “Major” at the 2025 World Masters, Nici not only ended her title drought but is also now the holder of all three Masters titles.

After Harry and Nici shared the wins in Game 1 and 2 the previous weekend, it was expected they would both endorse Sissy to make sure the respective other would not carry away the title in Game 3.

This expectation did hold true but Nici still got her pawns around the track very effectively while also disrupting Harry’s play.

In the early stages of the game, all three players saved 1-&-1 before Harry struggled more and more to get his pawns around the track. He would not save another pawn before Nici and Sissy both had gone 4-&-3.

Nici started her first PCL after 65 minutes of play with GRN4 a third around the track. Harry, who had long realized that he would not pull out the win, managed to cut short Nici’s first PCL but she got to start her second one quickly.

Sissy, meanwhile, had completed her yellow team and had BLK3 on home field (a) and BLK 4 two fields in front of the house. It took her quite a number of turns to finally open the house while Harry refused to kick BLK4 from the track.

When she finally opened the house in match-point situation, she missed out on five opportunities to finish the game while Nici moved GRN4 around the track, withstood pressure from two of Harry’s pawns and converted her first match point on a “4”.

Thanks to Harry not winning the Winter Masters, Sissy is mathematically guaranteed to still be on top of the World Rankings going into the Grand-Prix sub-season come April.

Nici is the first leader in the 2026 Medal Race but, as she will have to defend tournament-winning points in both the Holiday Masters and the World Masters, she is highly unlikely to move up from third place in the World Rankings.

The XMädn action is scheduled to continue next weekend with the first two of up to seven games of the first-to-3 Holiday Masters.