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1st September 2009
48 Entries, 6 Tournaments, 56 Players, £5338 Prize Fund,
Mochizuki Masayuki (aka Mochy) World Champion 2009 gives a Seminar
in a WSOB sponsored evening
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The evening was notable for various reasons. We kicked off at
6.15pm with a Seminar by the current World Champion - Mochy of
Japan. This was not his first visit to London, indeed I'm almost
tempted to say that he's becoming a regular but that would be an
exaggeration: He played in the London Open in May and Bg in Camden
in June of this year, followed those visits to Europe with his
excellent winning of the World Championship title in Monte Carlo,
then played in WSOB Cannes, returned to Japan but came back for
the Bristol Open 2009 and arranged his flight home to Japan so
that he could be with us in Camden on this evening. He had
prepared a Seminar for Bristol and offered to do it again in
Camden. I jumped at the offer, arranged that we could have the use
of The Caffe Crema downstairs from The Lockside Lounge until
7.00pm, borrowed Roland Herrera's display board, printed copies of
Mochy's handouts, Peter Bennet agreed to help Mochy with any
tricky translations, Richard Biddle arranged the Cafffe Crema into
a seminar room and at 6.15pm Mochy entered to find about 30 eager
players ready and attentive to his every word. The praise of how
well Mochy had explained the concepts he wanted to talk to players
about had been terrific in Bristol and I'm pleased to say it was
no less so here in Camden. For those of you who were unable to
attend either seminar Mochy's notes are re-produced here.
INSERT LINK
This was also the first Bg in Camden to be a sponsored event.
The WSOB 2009 season is now swinging; Leg 1 in Cannes has
happened, Leg 2 in Prague will happen in a 2 weeks from now and be
followed by Leg 3 in October here in London with the WSOB Race
Play-Offs and WSOB CHAMPIONSHIP. WSOB offered to add £200 to the
first Jackpot of this Bg in Camden event.
I knew this would raise a lot of interest in this months event.
But by how much? Last month the first Jackpot became (via our
tried and tested "Camden
Auction") a £200 entry event. So I was pretty sure that record
would be at least be matched if not broken. I started the bidding
at £100 and had a more than healthy 19 players express an
interest. Entry fee upped to £150 and all were still there. At
£200 a couple dropped out; Entry fee record equalled and still a
way to go. £300 and I checked with all remaining players that they
were still all in and all had the cash in their pockets. They were
and did. At £350 we had reduced to 11 players and a sea of steely
faces. It was only when I raised the entry fee to £400 that we had
established our 8 Jackpot 1 players. Record for Jackpot 1
shattered and record of a Bg in Camden evening total Prize Fund
severely dented with another 40 or so players waiting to be
slotted into their tournaments. Does an Added Prize Fund (positive
equity event) attract players? Just a bit!
Jackpot 2 went for £180 (another record shattered) and Jackpot 3
went for a (comparatively) measly £50. These were followed by a
£25 Swiss, and 2 x £10 Swisses. Wizz, wham, bham, 48 active
players playing for £5338. Bg in Camden Total Prize Fund record is
blown out of the window.
A word about our
Swiss Tournaments: Since their introduction in June 2008 they
have become more and more popular. The reason is simple; they
provide a 3 match guarantee to players with the carrot if win 2
out of 3 and you get you're money back.
Last month I tried for the first time a "Camden Auction" for the
Swiss Tournaments. Whilst this was a nice idea it did mean that
the Swiss Tournaments kicked off later than they would have done
otherwise and some matches didn't complete by 11.00pm. That's too
late for many Swiss players and denies them the chance of getting
started before 7.00pm. if we have a group of 8 players ready to
roll. So this month I offered entry to 3 Swiss Tournaments - £25,
£10 or £5 entry in an attempt to get matches started earlier. Ok,
matches didn't actually happen earlier because a lot of Swiss
players were quite rightly downstairs in The Caffe Crema learning
from Mochy until 7.00pm.
But looking into the future I think that offering 3 Swiss
Tournaments as of 6.00pm is the way to go. However I'm going to
throw in a caveat; A Swiss Tournament needs a full 8 players in to
operate correctly. Finding a prefect 3 x 8 players is not an easy
task and as such one that cannot be relied upon to happen every
month. For example this month we had (apart from Swiss 1 and Swiss
2) 5 players wanting a £10 entry Swiss and 4 wanting a £5 entry
Swiss; both short of players. Ok, 1 player had taken ill and left
so I then had 5 and 3 players = 8 players but 5 willing to put in
a tenner and 3 willing to put in a fiver. To get things going I
elected to upgrade the 3 to the tenner Swiss with Bg in London
making up the missing £15. No real problem with that, I'm keen to
bring new players into the fold and was willing to put my money
where my mouth is.
But me juggling things like this cannot always be relied upon
because the number of available players is going to vary event to
event. So here's my solution: If it's impossible for me to juggle
players to suit a Swiss we'll run a, for the overflow players, a
Round Robin instead. The entry fee will remain as players wish
it to be and the prize fund split will be 60% to the 1st placed
player, 30% to the 2nd placed player and 10% to the 3rd placed
player. If there are just 4 players the 3 match guarantee will
still be in place, 5 players will mean 4 matches each, 6 players =
5 matches each (3 pointers) and 7 players = 6 matches (3 or 1
pointers.) By doing this it also means that those that can turn up
in good tie (before 7.00pm) should always get a Swiss seat.
Voila... j'espere!
Back to the report of this evening.... Because the backgammon play
kicked off just a little bit later than we usually do and because
the Jackpot players were playing for considerable more money than
they usually do they were played slower than they usually are. The
combined result was that we ran into time trouble at the end of
the evening. As it happened, one way or another, all of the
Jackpot Finalists agreed to do a split.
This brings me onto another item I should highlight: All Bg in
Camden Jackpots are maximum 8 player affairs so that the matches
all get played within the one evening. I also make the £25+ entry
Tournaments 7 pointers (rather than 5 pointers) so as to maximise
the amount of backgammon Jackpot players will have and to better
the equity for them. However if matches progress slowly, in the
interest of getting Jackpots finished, as the T.D.
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The Lockside Lounge is an excellent
and popular venue but it must be borne in mind by all that we are
due to finish by 11.00pm. A short overrun is often ok with the
staff but I have no wish to take the **** and lose the venue.
This evening we had a situation of a player who is not from London
due to play Final Match against a player who is from London. That
Final was not ready to be played until very late. It would have
been a more practical solution for the Final to have been played
online at a later date. I know some might not consider this ideal
but sometimes needs must. So, given that Bg in London has strong
links with various online backgammon servers (WSOB included) as of
now, as the T.D. |
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An excellent evening, many thanx
to Mochy for giving us a Seminar, many thanx to WSOB for the Added
Prize Fund, many thanx to Richard Biddle for all his T.Ding help
and many thanx to the players and those that came along for the
evening to make it such an interesting and enjoyable September
evening.
We'll be back in The Lockside Lounge on Tuesday 22nd September
as part of us stepping up the (usually) fortnightly eSwiss
Tournamentsvents at The Lockside Lounge. The evening will
feature a workshop, Swiss Tournaments, Round Robins, the launch of
The Winter Doubles Tournament and Jackpots for those that
require them.
Then on Tuesday 6th October we'll be having another
WSOB sponsored evening with another £200 Added Prize Fund.
Before those Bg in London staff (Richard Biddle, Zoe Cunningham
and Mike Main) will be running the
WSOB Prague Event. Hope to see yous then.
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