20th October 2009

16 Entries, 2 Tournaments, 18 Players, £658 Prize Fund,
Costel Ciobanu wins Jackpot.
 


One of our new mid-months events. We had booked The Lockside Lounge from 2.00pm for this event because there were to be lots of international players arriving in London the following day for another backgammon event. Nice idea but the afternoon session never really got of the ground. No worries because one new player came along and played a few games and the other few there played head to heads and chatted or wandered round Camden Market.
 


 

 


Things kicked off for 7.00pm. We had 8 players interested in a Knockout, 2 at £25 but the other 6 wishing for more. No problem; we'll make it a £25 Obligatory Pool with a £75 Optional Pool.

For this event only we had published that we would accept Euros. In Prague we had worked in euros and Czech kroners so behind the T.D. desk we've working in 2 currencies off pat now. But Costel arrived from Romania with US dollars! With the help of his resident compatriot, Catalin, this little challenge was worked round and Costel had sterling by 7.00pm. Please note: Bg in London is not offering exchange facility at every event. Those events that feature this facility will say so.
 
This feature is I think about to be added to
Bg Live in London 13 14 15 November 2009.
Which by the way is filling up rapidly and if players want seats
 they should grab them A.S.A.P. now please.


 


World Champion Mochy was with us this evening and had bought along even more Japanese backgammon power in the force of the Japanese Open 2009 winner Noriyuki Hosaka (aka Nori.)

In winning this Nori had won a free trip to London.

Christian Plenz (Finalist UK Masters '07) joined us later on as well.
 
So for T1 we had 2 Romanians, 2 Japanese and
4 Londoners: Neil Robins, Nicky Check, Peter Bennet and Simon Barget.
 
The draw was:
Romania v Japan
Japan v England
England v Romania
England v England
 		 1st Round results were:
Costel beat Mochy
Nori lost to Peter
Simon lost to Catalin
Nicky lost to Neil
 
At 7.15 we had 3 players for a Swiss. So they started off by playing a Round Robin knowing that if it got to 8 players it would change format into a Swiss. By 7.30 we got to 7. This would mean 6 matches a-peice which was going to be too much for the time we had available. So I, ("Oh god, he's gonna kill me but Sean'll laugh") slotting in a pidgen in the form of Richard Biddle to make it up to 8. Sorry Richard.
 


 

 

Swiss 1st Round results were:
David Collins beat Graham R
Lewis Potter beat Robert Chard
Monica B beat Richard Biddle
Mahmoud J beat Alan B


In Tournament 1 Semi-Finals
The matches were:
Romania v England
Romania v England
 		 1st Round results were:
Costel beat Peter
Catalin beat Neil
 


Romanians Rule
Costel Ciobanu and Catalin Bucur before Tournament 1 Final
 

In The Swiss Round 2:
David Collins beat Lewis Potter
Monica B beat Mahmoud J
Graham R beat Robert Chard
Richard Biddle lost to Alan B

By this time other things had been on Romanian minds. Costel is a Chelsea fan and acting Tour Guide Catalin was charged with finding seats at Stamford Bridge for the following evening when Chelsea were to play Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. I was asked and pointed straight away to Richard; a life long Chelsea fan. Richard had jumped on the web and yes tickets were available but they weren't cheap. But now that we had an all Romanian Final those Chelsea tickets didn't look so expensive after all!


In the Final Round of the Swiss:
Monica beat David
Alan beat Graham
Lewis beat Mahmoud
Richard beat Robert

So Monica won The Swiss with a rare victory over Mahmoud as well, 
David, Alan & Lewis got their £5 entries back,
Graham and Mahmoud played over par this evening,
1st time live player Robert Chard got his first 3 live matches played
and Richard Biddle (the pidgen) scraped home 1 win.


In the All Romanian Final of T1 it was Costel Ciobanu who won.
The following day he went to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea win 4-0.


 

KNOCKOUT TOURNAMENT CHART                SWISS TOURNAMENT CHART


Summary:
Costel, I hope the rest of your time in London go as well as your first two days did.
 

Mike Main
Report of next event.