QUALIFIERS FOR MONTE CARLO WORLD BACKGAMMON CHAMPIONSHIPS
Report of Week 5

The 8 Player Online Qualifier Final.

The winner : prusoms16
who wins a package worth €3500 to attend The 34th Monte Carlo World Championships 13th -18th July sponsored by Casinorip.com



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After 4 weeks worth of Qualifiers we had at last come to the Final Qualifier. 8 players would take part; 4 had qualified via tournament play and 4 via the Probot Series.

I'm pleased to be able to report that at least 3 of the players are known Bg in London players - they had all qualified via tournament play. zoeandsean was obviously either Zoe Cunningham or Sean Williams, actually it was Zoe, the one who specialises in Qualifiers. simonbarget was likewise obviously Simon Barget, a semi-regular Bg in London player but often a winner when he comes along. It's no secret that branco1304 is actually Catalin Bucur our very keen Romanian  player.

Actually Bg in London could claim damndawgs as a Bg in London player for he won the Intermediate Flight at The Casinorip London Open this year having already won his seat in that via a Casinorip Online Qualifier. 

I have no knowledge of who poni1970, Troyah and Nevianda293 actually are in real life so I thought of them as the dark horses of Troy looking for Nirvana. The name prusoms16 rang a bell in my head but I was having trouble (therein lies another Mike Story) putting a real name to it.

At 8.45pm I logged on to Casinorip.com backgammon. Into the Exclusive Room. I checked to see if all the players were actually online. Missing: zoeandsean, Nevianda293 and Troyah. After 5 minutes zoeandsean were flagged as now being online and Nevianda293 came online shortly after. But this still left Troyah missing and the clock getting closer and closer to the 9.00pm start time. If you are not online for Casinorip tournaments at the appointed time you time out within a minute or two.
 

Zoe v Branco was the first match to get underway. What seemed a good while later, though it was less than a minute, Poni v Nevianda kicked in.

I was expecting Simon v Dawgs to be the next match to kick in but it was taking its time and better hurry. However I was more concerned for Troyah who was still showing as offline. My Casinorip clock was showing 21.01 and still we had two matches to kick in. Surely Troyah couldn't have forgotten about this match? And why was the Barget v Dawgs match not starting? How could we be having so much drama so soon?

Then two flags fell. "Match completed" said the screen against the two matches. Troyah was still not online so obviously s/he had defaulted and prusoms16 would advance to the Semis.

But which of Barget and Dawgs had defaulted? Both were online and had been for some time. Could they both have defaulted? Which was the first named player? simonbarget. If they both defaulted does the top or bottom named player go though? Presumably the top. Or was it, more likely, only one of the two who defaulted? My desperate questions were answered moments later when the first Semi-Final match flagged up. damndawgs versus prusoms16. Simon Barget had for some reason defaulted.

I turned my attention to watching the Zoe versus Branco match - we'd lose another Bg in Londoner here I realised - we'll be two down before the Semis are played. I also opened the Poni versus Nevianda match as well as the Dawgs v Prusoms Semi hence I was trying to watch three matches at once. Zoe seemed to be playing well and Branco played some moves that suggested great wisdom was with him this evening and I got enthralled.

Then suddenly I lost the Poni v Nev match. I thought I must have been kicked out so I went back to the Exclusive Lobby to rejoin the match. But instead I found a "match completed" notice next to the match. I gathered from chat in one of the other matches that one of the two players had reached 8 points (7 point matches.) But I didn't know who and I didn't want to ask in another match chat-box for fear of kibitzing. So I lived in another agony of not knowing who had gone though. 

Back to the Zoe versus Branco match and they were still going hard at it. One moment it looked like Zoe would pull away, then a little while later Branco was very much back in it. But in a flourish Zoe got her way and soon after the match completed with the score Zoe 8, Branco 5. Zoe through, hard luck Catalin.

And so our second Semi kicked in and I would find out if it was Poni or Nevianda who had won their 1st Round match. It had been Poni for this Semi was Zoe v Poni.

Meanwhile our 1st Semi was moving along nicely. prusoms was taking great care with his moves to the extent that I worried, on more occasion than once, if he might time out. But the more often he did so, the more confident I became that here was a player that is comfortable on clocks and knows how to use his time. His patience play paid off - calculated play that gave his opponent little room to manoeuvre saw Prusoms arrival at the winning post ahead of Dawgs. Prusoms is a Finalist, the dog is damned.

Zoe had taken a big lead. 5-1 I think it was at one stage. 2 away. But Poni righted him/herself in the saddle and came cantering back. Back to 5-4. Until this position happened:

Poni (red) played 7-1, 5-3. With the pip count at 82-42 there was no point running; Poni's best option was to hope and pray that Zoe roll a 6-1, 5-1 or 4-1. But would Zoe cube this? I thought she should but what do I know? She didn't, but she did roll a 6-5 to jump the Poni, Poni roll something dreary and Zoe shipped over the cube to go to crawford. 1 away, 3 away.
 

Poni won the crawford. 1 away, 2 away. Poni open the next game with a 6-1, Zoe replied with a 3-1, Poni shipped the cube, Zoe dropped. 1 away, 1 away, it had come to double match point. The front of my seat was overloaded, the back unloaded.

Zoe opened with a 4-2. As things progressed I was uncertain as to who might win this. It was a real "it could go either wayer." Zoe was looking good but then a roll or two later dark clouds had arrived. Now Poni was putting on a canter while Zoe's rolling was faltering. Next, a glimmer of the finishing line revealed itself upon Zoe's horizon but moments later this was countered by Poni's now walloping gallop. Oh it was all going pear shaped for our last known Bg in London horse - Ms. Z. Cunningham. The damage was surely done, there could be little chance of a revival. There wasn't and Poni1970 only needed to trot home to win. 

Prusom laid out his stall from the start. He bashed, he battered and he abused poni's checkers without shame. The tactic paid off. This became a one sided final. But prusom must have been aware of poni's ability to come back from the starting gate because prusom had had time to watch Poni's previous match. Maybe because of this prusom again used his time well and thus gave no quarter which, try as he might, left poni with just too many hurdles to surmount. In the quickly arrived at crawford game (score 6-0) poni did his level best to canter home and off to stay in the match but his legs were now failing him and he still had 5 hooves in his home board when prusoms threw a 6-1 with just two checkers left. The match would be prusoms.

The crowd, as all crowds are wont to do, could not all contain themselves and congratulations were extended to Prusoms as well as a hard lucks for Poni. Other players left while others who had left shortly before came back. The activity was now all in the match chat-box. My eyes moved to the clock. White (prusoms) hadn't actually yet played his 1 off. He was now accepting the bravos in the chat-box. Surely? Surely he couldn't have forgotten to have played it. This was online backgammon, not live off clock play backgammon. If he didn't move his last remaining checker he would time out and default the match despite the fact that he was leading 6-0 with just one sole checker to play to win. My heart was in my mouth as the seconds, those precious seconds, seconds worth €3500, ticked away seemingly more rapidly with every passing second. Prusoms time got down to less than 10 seconds to play.

It however remains to become common knowledge of who prusoms16 actually is. He, and yes prusoms is a he, will not be able to hide behind an aka name at a live event; wash time is a coming and it's gonna come out in the wash! Players in Monte Carlo will are entered as family name then first name. Aka names are not accepted at registration. I know that. I'll be doing it this year!

I freely admit that it was my hope that the seat be won by a Backgammon in London player. 2 fell in Round 1. Damndawgs fell in the Semis as did Zoe. 4 down. As far as I'm aware Troyah and Nevianda are not Bg in L players, nor do I think that Poni is one of our horses. That leaves 1. prusoms16. Now who that is is another matter.  Yes, I do know who this is.  However I have certain a Privacy Policy Pledge to uphold and some months ago I had it in writing from the Gentleman concerned that he would prefer if his aka name not to be in the public domain. Hence I would rather seek this persons permission to publish his actual name in conjunction with this Prusom name before I might do so.

Meanwhile a large thank you to Casinorip.com for laying on these Online Qualifiers. This series has been well attended and, given the number of players that watched matches, is evidently something of a good spectator sport too. Casinorip set up their Exclusive Room for Online Qualifiers only about 3 months ago prior to the London Open which resulted in 8 seats won for that event. An announcement will shortly be made by Casinorip about Online Qualifiers for the Bristol Open 2009. I've others in mind as well.

A year or two ago Richard Biddle wrote an article in "Backgammon in London - The Book" about the future of backgammon in which he clearly stated that he considered cooperation between online and live play is essential: "Now is the time for online sites to work hand in hand with live tournament organisers and each should support the other." Richard even went on to mention Monte Carlo in his musings. 

The ball is now rolling. Your organisations are working in a co-ordinated fashion to the benefit of players. This will however be of no avail unless the opportunities are taken up upon. The signs are good, we just need to collectively stick to the path.