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Chapter 1 – Before the Event
One of the reasons every mayor city of the world is considered as
such is that they all host major events. Backgammon in London was
set up in early 2008 and it was my intention to run a London Open
in our first year. However as the year wore on we clearly were not
ready to lay on a good enough event to meet expectations so I
simply and quietly put the idea on a back-burner rather than lay
on a poor quality event.
In January 2009 things looked better as talks with an interested
sponsor developed. I considered sponsorship a key element to the
event because it would bring in an online side before the event as
well as an Added Prize Fund at the event. By late February talks
had progressed further and draft2 of the website to promote the
event was written. March saw me running around London signing
contracts with the venue, deciding exactly what the format of the
event should be and finalising details with our sponsors –
Casinorip.com. The event was launched to the public in early
April.
I saw no reason to churn out a “same as others have done for eons”
event; rather I wanted to run a thoroughly modern backgammon event
that would set a benchmark for future events. So I elected to go
for a 3 Flight event with the “best of 3 matches” format per
round. Clock play would be obligatory in the Championship Flight,
optional in the Intermediate Flight and non-existent in the
Casuals Flight. The Added Prize Fund would be split between the 3
Flights - £500, £250 and £250. In order to encourage sociability
at the event the Last Chance would be a combined event of all 3
Flights. Entry fees were set at £100, £25 and £10 with a Variable
Optional Pool for those that wished to play for more. A Group
Auction would be included in The Championship Flight. The rake for
the entire event was set at zero% thereby making this an excellent
(positive) equity event and only possible for me to do because of
the involvement of our sponsors. To ensure future use of the venue
meals and tea and coffee on both full days of the weekend were
built into the registration fee. No particular tournaments were
set for the Friday evening because I wanted to be able to lay on
whatever was required by those that came for the first section of
the weekend. Computerised Tournament Charts, suitable for use in
future years, were written for all possible events. The venue had
to showcase some key sights of London Town and did so by
overlooking the River Thames with St Paul’s Cathedral and The City
of London in the background. Our sponsor would run Online
Qualifiers, re-brand our 32 Hector-Saxe tournament boards and
promote the event via their marketing company while we promoted
the event to our mailing list, via online bulletin boards, emails,
phone calls and meeting potential players. Hence the groundwork
was done and all we needed was my target of 100 players. |