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3rd June 2008
56 Entries, 8 Tournaments, 41 Players, £1590 Prize Fund,
Peter Bennet wins Jackpot. |
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Ah, June at long last – play upon the terrace of The Lockside
Lounge for sure was the plan. Nan, not on a wet London evening;
all play happened inside. But that made for a busy atmosphere with
20 active backgammon tables by 7.45pm. 6 players were first timers
to a Bg in London event and they all played in the two new Bg in
London Swiss format Tournaments – by chance newbies 3 in each. We
kicked the evening off with the T.D. (yours truly) nearly blind as
a bat because I’d misplaced my glasses en route (I think) to the
venue. There as a frantic scramble as we tried to find them,
Chrissi checked the top of my head but to no avail this time, we
checked bag, pockets, bags, boards, bags and more pockets. Gone.
Disparu. Vanished. Ok. I thought, how well do I know my way around
my own spreadsheets? Finding names of present players from the
drop down menu of all known Bg in London players was the hardest
part but I was aided in this by many people. The 1st Auction
happened and raised to £120 to find the 8 players required. Next
we did Auction 2 and entry became £30 to find the 8 players.
Instead of then moving to the £10 Knockouts we moved to the new
£10 Swiss Tournaments. These need a perfect number of entries – 8,
16 or 24 and after a bit of horse trading we came up with 16 so we
had 2 Swiss Tournaments. Players paid up, the draw was done and
off players went to play. Next we moved to the £10 Knockouts and
had 6 players in situ – they paid, started and were joined a few
minutes later by another 2. Shortly after another 2 players
arrived to make a total of 42 active players.
So what this new Swiss format I hear some ask and how did it go?
It is Swiss in that winners play winners and losers play losers
and players are guaranteed at least 3 matches (in a knockout only
1 match is guaranteed) but I’ve played around with the prize fund
split to make it attractive to those who expect to win 2 out of 3
matches. Those 3 players get their entry fee back. The 1 player
that wins 3 out of 3 gets 5/8th of the prize fund and those that
win 1 or less matches pay for the other 4 players evening
(expecting their £5 evening registration fee, drinks and food as
required.) For all 8 players it’s a full evening of backgammon
tournament play without the danger of maybe having to dip back
into their pocket to enter another tournament if and when they
lose. So it’s good value for money. I think as players cotton onto
this fact more and more will like it. My hope is that it will
attract more bums on seats. More bums on seats means more players
means we grow. And the growth of Bg in London is my target. I
realize that the format could encourage mediocrity rather than
perfection in players play but let’s build with a greater number
of players which should in the long term result in more winners.
For those that prefer the all or nothing ethos Knockout
Tournaments, with prize funds set at “Winner takes all,” will
still be run.
16 players signed up for this tester Swiss session. That’s a good
healthy start and gave me two examples of how these might pan out
in reality. There were some cries for Camden Auction to precede
the draw but these were fewer than I thought might work well so I
kept entry at £10 and drew the 16 players into two 8 player Swiss
Tournaments. For this new format I have of course written a new
set of spreadsheets. This, sans glasses, caused me a bit of angst
but everybody got started within good time so no real problem, but
my eyes were working harder than they are used to!
Both Tournaments moved along nicely. 5 pointers were played and
proved to be the perfect maximum lengths that should be played in
the 4 hour span of a Bg in Camden evening. Every hour or so I
would get a flurry of reports which meant matches were proceeding
at the similar pace and players were not hanging about. Good, this
works I thought. By the end of Round 2 we have two players who
have won both – they then play for the £50, the loser will take
£10 (the entry fee figure) and 4 players will be on 1 win, 1 loss.
2 of those 4 players will get their entry fee back so both those
matches have a meaning. The last match is a dead rubber in that
neither player can win their entry fee back so it’s a
semi-optional match - if one player wishes to play it it shall be
played, if both don’t wish to play it then it doesn’t have to be
played.
The two “finals” were contested by 1 established Bg in London
player and 3 of the 6 newbies. Bravo Bromley Oldfield, Athina
Kafetsiou and Michael Ross. Bromley won ST1 and Dave Moon won ST2.
6 of 16 players were happy to received a £10 note and 6 fell short
of a hand-back. Of the two dead rubbers one was played and the
other not – both to the satisfaction of all but Vicky Gilbart who
lost all 3 of her matches. For this Vicky gets no sympathy from I
– her attendance of late has been woeful, she’s been busy going to
various social functions around Town which I’m sure have been very
pleasurable but they seem to be doing nothing whatsoever for her
backgammon! Good for you girl!
So are Bg in London Swiss Tournaments going to feature in future
evenings? Yes, so far so good. However the acid test will I think
only come with time. Players gave themselves to try it out this
evening but it remains to be seen if they choose to play this
format again. I’m pretty sure it’s good for first time tournament
players because of the three match guarantee so I envisage (with
or without glasses) Swiss running at about 1-2 to Knockouts.
At Bg in The City on Monday 23rd June we’re going to run a Swiss
Doubles Tournament. We’re long overdue a Doubles Tournament, The
City is the perfect venue for Doubles and Swiss will mean lots of
play for 16 players. I’ll Camden Auction the seats if there are
more than 16 but less than 32.
In the Knockouts Peter Bennet carried on his winning way from the
Magic of Persia Tournament, Phil Churton won T2, Martin Barkwill
won T3, and at last Rod Hanreck won a Bg in London tournament. In
the two Mini-Jackpots (4 player Knockouts) it was Mourad and Brian
Walker who were the winners.
We also had the launch of a new backgammon book this evening.
Read
all about that here.
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