|
The Casinorip.com London Open 2009 is going to be the most
important Backgammon Tournament held in the capital in the last 18
months. To the best of my knowledge it will be only 3 Flight event
ever held in the capital. Having said that the entry fees are
modest yet the prize funds will be more than healthy and could be
enormous. However even with a modest entry fee backgammon players
are always on the lookout for a bargain so Qualifying Tournaments
are an attractive option to many. We ran 2 Live Qualifiers this
evening - one for the Championship Flight and another for the
Intermediate Flight.
6 players for the Championship Qualifier and 6 for the
Intermediate Flight Qualifier. With the Champs flight being the
slightly longer 7 point matches I auctioned off the two byes to
the highest bidders but for the Inter, which was 5 pointers, I
held back to two remaining seats as re-buys or for others should
they arrive late.
Andrew Ableson versus Ray Fard in the Champs Qualifier was the
first match to complete after which Ray elected to take up on one
of the seats in the Inter Qualifier. Simon M beat David Collins in
the Inter, but David elected not to re-enter. Graham R versus Eric
M (an Inter match) was the next to complete and Eric grabbed the
last remaining Inter seat. Over in the Champs Michael Flesch, an
Arsenal fan and as such a surprise player this evening because his
team were playing Liverpool (match score 4-4 and apparently one of
the best games of the season!) won over Joe Stakis to then play
Nicky Check. Meanwhile Andrew out-rolled Malcolm R in the bear-off
leaving Andrew to wait for either Michael F or Nicky C. Over in
the Inter Yuri won over Sue K, but Yuri then fell to Graham R.
Ray's evening didn't get any better and Eric progressed at his
second attempt to play Simon M. In a quick Champs match Nicky
dispatched Michael F (who was thankfully unaware of what he was
missing at Anfield) and shortly after, in the Inter, Simon M
halted Eric M. Knocked out players were now either playing head to
heads or had left the scene. Finals: Champs Qualifier: Andrew
versus Nicky, Inter Qualifier: Graham versus Simon.
Andrew doesn't have a lot of cash to throw around so a win here
was probably of greater importance than it was to Nicky but Nicky
will never give up until the fat lady sings. She sang in Andrew's
favour, Nicky ignored her and battled on but in the end Nicky had
to face the music and Andrew won the match. Congrats to Andrew who
was awarded with a casinorip.com T shirt and will now have free
entry, registration and a £20 bar voucher (value £160 for an
investment of £25) for the
Casinorip.com London Open 2009 Championship
Flight.
Over in the Inter Qualifier Final Simon took a healthy lead over
Graham. But that fat lady was still in the building and still
vocal. In a storming last game Graham had 5 checkers on the bar
and 2 on his 1 point. On the lady sang, Graham got a hit,
Bruennhilde sang on, Graham bought his checkers round re-hitting
Simon like a punch-bag, still Richard Wagner's creation sang,
Simon was forced to leave another blot, Graham punched, Simon
could be forgiven for not being a happy man if his musician son
ever plays a bar from der Ring des Nibelungen, Graham was now in
charge and at last won the thrilling final game. The music in The
Lockside Lounge ceased. Congrats to Graham who was awarded with a
casinorip.com T shirt and will now have free entry, registration
and a £15 bar voucher (value £80 for an investment of £15) for the
Casinorip.com London Open 2009 Intermediate
Flight.
|
