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11th February 2008
34 Entries, 5 Tournaments, 25 Players, £600 Prize Fund,
Shino wins Jackpot. |
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“You’re being too ambitious Mike – trying to grow too quickly too
soon” is a comment that has been made to me by a number of
concerned people recently. They may well be right but how does one
know ones limits unless one tries to push them?
25 players came to Bg in The City this evening – that’s one of the
lowest number of players that we have catered for at a Bg in
London event since we started over a couple of years ago. But
that’s possibly 25 more people than would have played backgammon
had we not put the evening on so at least we did them a good turn.
The fact is that Bg in The City needs more City players. There
might be some excellent news in this department – it’s possible
that a City company would like an in house backgammon lesson. It’s
too early to count our chickens but should it happen this should
give us the injection of players that we need to make Bg in The
City kick off. If it does happen we’ll be looking to some current
Bg in London players to lend a hand; to come down to The City one
evening and teach City Gents this game of ours. About 10 of you
should do the trick. Given that the intended backgammon students
are by nature number crunchers I imagine it won’t take them long
to pick up the game. Interested in investing some time in aiding
new players into the game? If you would like to join the 7 or so
players who have already agreed to it should it happen please let us know
here.
We got the £10ers and £5ers kicked off before 7.00 pm then got the
minimum £25 entry Auction going which went up to £50 with 8
players. Another few players arrived and soon we had 4 tournaments
on the go.
The match of the evening was Michael Michael versus Murray Sharp
in the Semi-Final of T1. Michael stormed to a 6-0 lead to 7
points. But Murray has been playing this game for years and years
and is not one by nature to curl up his toes and die. He might well
look as if he’s been though rough times in his life, I’m sure he’s
lead an interesting life, but living on the edge and survival is
second nature to Murray. And so back he came; first to 1-6, then
to 3-6, another win and it was 5-6, cube shipped over again and it
was effectively Double Match Point. Murray got hit and proceeded
to dance on what started off as a 2 point home board no less than
10 times. Michael closed his board and started bearing off. This
didn’t look good for Murray. Michael got 5 checkers off but got a
checker hit and back it went. Murray’s home board wasn’t in great
shape but had potential and if Michael would dance a couple of
times Murray could bring his trailing checkers round to improve
his home board. But Michael decided dancing was not on his menu
and repeatedly came back in on his first attempt. Murray had
checkers strewn about the board like confetti but large doubled
were blocked. Michael came back in on Murray’s 4 point and Murray
hit lose as he had to. Michael rolled and of course up popped
another 4. Murray’s potential builders were miles away but passive
play is not Murray’s way so he elected to hit loose leaving two
blots in board. Was it the correct play? I’m not 100% sure but I’m
think the radical option was the correct option if you’ve the guts
and Murray has got plenty of those. Would Michael dance – would he
heck. Back in he came and Murray had to come round again. A couple
of rolls later Murray faced the same situation – hit loose and
leave two blots in board or hope Michael didn’t roll large
doubles. Murray could still hear the fat lady singing and hit
loose leaving two blots in board again. Michael still refused to
dance - this was like the chorus of a song. Slowly Murray closed his board to five points re-covered,
the tide was turning but it was still a touch and go situation
that could change in one roll. Meanwhile Michael’s home board was
crunching and he had a blot in board that Murray knew was more
than just a desirable target. But try as he might, and he did so
with all his might, he just couldn’t gather it in and on the bar.
Michael had all his remaining in play checkers stacked on his 1
and 2 point. Over on the other side of the board Murray at long
long last closed out his home quarter. End of radical play?
Michael had 5 checkers off and good racing chances should he
escape so Murray has to bear off a quickly as he could rather than
more safely from the back. It paid off – by the time Michael got
back on and had rolled a couple of weak numbers Murray had the cat
in the bag. The fat lady eventually came to the end of her long
song and both players shook hands. It was a tremendous match;
worthy of a grand final and one which both players and the
spectators thoroughly enjoyed. Michael commented to me afterwards
that “I don’t mind that I didn’t win; it was worth paying £50 to
play in such a great match.”
The match having taken so long now left very little time for the
Murray versus Shino final but they were happy to play a 3 pointer
and do a deal over the pot. If life was Hollywood I would be
reporting that Murray won the final too, but this was life and
Shino is another highly respected player (Semi-Finalist of the
WSOB UK Masters 2007 and well as similar success at Monte Carlo)
and it was Shino who name now occupies the winner’s box.
T2 finished much earlier. Stewart Pemberton had progressed to the
final in quick time beating John Reddington in Round 1 and his
wife Vicki Ondis in Round 2. He patiently waiting for the other
half of the draw to catch up and was eventually to play Steve
Prior in the final. This match took no more than 5 minutes due to
an early double 5 blitz, cube and drop making it 1-0 to Stewart
followed by another early cube by Stewart after which he blitzed
and won a gammon. Steve was shell shocked, Stewart and Vicki left
for home to care for a sickly dog.
T3 got off to a stuttering start with just two players but built
up to 8 over 45 or so minutes. Dave Moon has become a regular a Bg
in London events over these last 2-3 months and yet again won here
this evening. Will he move up to playing in the 7 pointers next
event? That’s for him to decide but if I were him I would.
T4 was our £5er in which both Graham R and Christian Thrussell
entered twice. Graham progressed to the final but Christian
(having already lost in T2) lost both first matches. But it was
Simon G who, having lost in T1 round 1 to Murray Sharp, was our
last entrant in T4 and it was he who won it.
This was Christian’s first evening with us and he had lost three
on the trot. Before the evening commenced he had been informed
that the standard of play might be a good deal better than his but
even so I was worried that he might never come back again despite
his obvious interest in the game. So I offered him the “Win Two,
Win a Board” and, good chap that he is, he accepted the challenge.
Zoe was his opponent but the best Christian could manage was 1 win
out of 4 so I had to bring the board back to base camp again. Time
to download GNUBG Christian, set it to tutor mode and you’ll learn
a lot. If you’d like a live lesson, just say the word and it’ll be
organised for you.
T5 was a small one. Alan versus Simon M. There were no other
takers so the first match turned out to be the final. Should a one
match tournament be classified as a tournament? Yes, because we
are keeping a record of all results for our ratings system that
should be published sometime over the next few weeks when number
cruncher John Reddington (who volunteered for this daunting task)
had typed his keyboard about 10,000 times! Alan and Simon entered
a tournament in all good faith that others would join and as such
played a tournament match. Therefore their match remains recorded.
Alan won.
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