19th Jan 2009

40 Entries, 7 Tournaments, 30 Players, £823 Prize Fund,
Mourad Whaba wins Jackpot.
 

Ok, so how did our new "mid month" Bg in Camden evening go? It should be compared to November and December when we had 25 and 16 players respectively. 30 players came along so yes, it was a good turnout and is showing signs of building. A £10 Swiss was up and running by 6.30pm, the Camden Auction at 7.00pm saw 7 players kick off in a £25 Obligatory Pool with an Optional Pool of £50 and they were joined at 7.20pm by the 8th player. This was followed by a £5 Swiss. 7.30pm and 24 players bg active. We ran a further 4 Mini-Jackpots for those that arrived a little later and those knocked out. Just the 1 player for a workshop.

Our first in the door players was the first to win - Gary Brooker made a clean sweep in the £10 Swiss. Sean Williams was a Finalist in the 1st Jackpot but met Mourad Whaba who has been on a terrific streak for about 2 months now and carried it on this evening. His recent record? 3 wins out of 4 entries. Who can stop the man? 

Richard Biddle played in a Casinorip.com online tournament so he plugged his laptop into the flat-screen facing players so they could see the Casinorip software in action. A small crowd gather around, Richard played in 2 Rounds but then disappointed his audience by being eliminated. However it was a good to be able to show another method of playing backgammon to others.

It wasn't the only method of bg on show this evening; I opened GBUBg and showed a couple of players the free software available there. 1st time Bg in Camden Chris Mansfield learnt how to set it to tutor mode and I'm sure he'll use it to bolster the considerable bg book reading he's been doing.

Mini-Jackpot results were now coming in and other Mini-Jackpots got started. Mike Williams and Steve Rudall won M-Js 1 & 2. Gary Brooker went for his 2nd win of the night but was denied by Graham Read. The £5 Swiss puttered on until Neil Weyman of Casinorip played Chris Mansfield to the £25 1st prize. In M-J 4 Colin Kristov, who has been coming for a few months now, registered his 1st Tournament win. Shortly later he would be joined in this feat by Neil Weyman with Chris Mansfield more than happy with his "where else can you have a night out for just a fiver?"
 

Ok, so Bg in Camden is nowadays running at 2 evenings per month - always the 1st Tuesday (that's sacracant) and mostly the 3rd Tuesday in the month depending on how many Tuesdays there are in a month. I envisage that the 1st Tuesday will be the bigger evenings for a while yet and the 3rd Tuesdays to mostly be populated by Swiss players and Workshopees. Jackpot players are of welcome but the "biggies" will probably be on the 1st Tuesdays.
 

Mike Main