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The biggest fall of snow in London in 18 years on the Sunday
night, no buses running on the Monday, snow and slush still on the
ground on Tuesday – how many would come out to play backgammon on
the Tuesday evening? 26 brave souls proved their addiction to this
game of ours.
Ordinarily I would be disappointed with such a turn out but not
this time – I’m sure I’d have thought twice (well maybe just the
once) about going out – so I’ll be kind – I’ll let those that
didn’t make it this evening off on the condition that yous come
along next month. Well, somebody told me a few years back that a
T.D. should be part Dictator, I’m not sure I agree with that even
now but I’m using it this time!
The evening kicked off with an 8 player Bg in London Swiss
Tournament. I’m pleased to say these have become a stable diet of
players – it’s the guarantee of 3 matches for an investment of
just £10 with the 50% chance of winning at least your tenner back
that is the key here.
9 players expressed interest in the minimum £25 entry, maximum 8
player, 7 pointer Knockout. How high would the “Camden Auction” go
before we reduced to the required 8 players? I went up in tenners.
£30, nobody twitched. £40, all were as still as sleeping birds.
£50, no change. £60, steely faces. £70, I sensed they were getting
bored by me. £80, I’m looking for a quiver upon just one face but
find none. £90 and I’m already thinking of how much higher than
£100 they will go, but I’m wrong; “Out” comes a call. The
remaining 8 stepped it up a further £5 to make it (with the £5
evening registration fee) a round £100 to pay over. Draw done, off
they went to play.
Next up I’ve 2 interested in a £10 Knockout, another 4 up for a
£10 Swiss followed by a slightly late arrival for an over £25er
plus, our player that dropped out at £90 and 1 player that has
never used to doubling cube before, oh, and here comes another
player that is usually a £10 Knockout preferred player. What can I
do with this combo of players? Right, a 4 player Swiss can get
underway, if we have another 4 Swiss players walk in the door
we’ll make it an 8 player. This leaves me with 5 Knockout players
that like differing entry fees + 1 non doubling cuber. What to do,
what to do? Ok Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Variable Optional Pool
Time. I kick of an 8 player tournament of 7 point matches. Throw
into the pool pot whatever you like and Prize Fund will be dished
out accordingly. There will be 3 vacant seats to be filled by
others as they arrive or get knocked out of other tournaments.
Who’s in and who’s put what in is a state secret before players
decide to take the vacant seats or not. Of the 5 starters two went
in at £50 and three at £10. This would later build up to 5 at £50
and remain at 3 at £10. It worked a treat. Well not quite if I’m
honest. I should have made this tournament 5 pointers because the
final never got played due to time constraints. Not that anybody concerned was unhappy
about this so no big disaster there.
Meanwhile back to our 1 non doubling cuber. Well, he drew the short
straw – a doubling cube lesson / match against yours truly. He
beat me 3-0, took on board the basic concepts of doubling,
Crawford and post-crawford (not that we played it) all in pretty
quick time while I bobbed up and down from the T.D. desk taking
reports as I must. He was then either horrified by the idea of
playing a second match with me or inspired to give a 5 point
Knockout a go. He certainly did the latter and played a long match
but it didn’t quite go his way. We hope to see you again Noel but
before we do here is the link to the backgammon programs we took a
look at:
BG PROGRAMS It's GNUBg that you
want to download and set to tutor mode. The program will then
inform you if it thinks you make a less than best move and advise
you on your doubling cube handling.
Some years ago a chap called Elphie kicked off a Bg Club in Fulham
at The Camel Pub. He got along about 30 of his 20something year
olds chums and ran a few tournaments. I was invited along and felt
quite ancient by comparison. 20something year olds try many
different things and most of them, quite naturally, moved on to
other things. However a few of them have remained interested in
backgammon and we've had a trickle of "Camel" players along to Bg
in London events over the years. There's a simple rule with them;
if in doubt as to any of their names call them Charlie! This
evening we had two Charlies and 1 Fergus. Elphie himself is
nowadays living in Brazil where I gather he has a wife and child.
Fergus played in the 8 player Swiss which he won and Charlie and
Charlie played in the 4 player Swiss which Charlie M won while
Charlie B didn't and looked a shattered wreck of a man as a
result.
My next point here is that these chaps are more people who have
keyed into these Swiss Tournaments. We've been running at least 1
8 player Bg in London Swiss Tournament every month since we
started them and sometimes getting up to 2 of them. This evening,
despite a low turnout due to the snow all around we ran 1 1/2 of
them. I fully expect this format to grow in popularity over the
next few months simply because it gives players 3 matches for a
"risk" of just a tenner and a good chance of a cheap yet active
evening out. However there is an inherent problem with these 8
player Swiss Tournaments in that they need a perfect 8 players to
operate properly and finding those perfect 8 has not always been
easy to do on the evenings. True, we're run a couple of 4 player
Bg in London Swiss Tournaments but they have been, as far as the
computerisation of them, slightly "stuck together with selotape"
affairs. So I'm now writing 4 and 6 player versions which will be
ready for our next event. It's a call to arms for those who like
Swiss.
Over in Tournament 1 Edward Leighton played Raj Jansari in the
Final. Apart from what they were up to here this evening both are
active within backgammon. Edward is one of our Bg in London
players who is on the Committee of the
MacMillan (formerly CancerBackup) Backgammon
and Bridge Annual Tournament. This years event, the
10th, is coming up on Sunday 8th March. It's nowadays held at The
Reform Club in Pall Mall. The backgammon is a Main and Consolation
affair preceded by brunch with afternoon tea served later on. It's
a wonderful way of spending a Sunday while raising money for an
excellent cause. Entry is £100 and registration is now open to
this limited to 64 player event. Last year the Main was won by
Sean Williams, Sue Keeble won the Consolation a couple of years
ago and if you come along you're bound to see a number of other Bg
in London players. Yours truly and Chrissi will be there to run
the backgammon as we did last year.
Raj Jansari has qualified for the PartoucheGammon Grand Finale to
be held in Cannes next week. His hotel and registration fees have
been paid for by Partouche and we're hoping, very realistically we
think, he can do us proud by coming home victorious. Raj got into
his considerable stride this evening by winning over Edward.
In our other tournaments of the evening Alan Beckerson and Sean
Williams were the players that ended up smiling in T2 (final
unplayed), Mike Ireland won a Mini-Jackpot and Monica
Beckerson won the other.
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