Jason Oliver (17) has just retained his New Zealand Tantrix title, and now he's in the final of the world team's championship.

The New Plymouth Boys' High School student went through an eight game round robin competition unbeaten at Nelson at the weekend to retain his national title. In doing so, he not only beat the game's creator, Mike McManaway (Nelson), but also world online Tantrix champion Matt Peek of Auckland.

But there is no time to bask in glory. The trio and two other New Zealand players are busy competing in the world online championship against a team from Great Britain.

"We're doing all right too," he said yesterday.

"We're about halfway through the final and I think things are pretty even. We should know who the winner is by the end of the week."

Tantrix -- and abbreviation of tangled tracks -- is a game of skill and strategy that involves a total of 56 hexagonal tiles each painted with red, blue, green, and yellow lines.

No two lines on the one tile have the same colour and no two tiles are identical. The aim of the game is to create the longest track or loop in the player's chosen colour.