Backgammon Live in London 2006 - Report
Official Sponsor
www.backgammonmasters.com
Registration for Backgammon Live in London 2006
opened in mid September. By mid October the Olympiad Tournament
was fully registered, by late October the Singles Knockout was
fully booked and by early November the Backgammon Boat Trip to see
the Fireworks was also fully booked. We went into the weekend with
116 people booked and I'm sorry to say a number of people who
wanted to attend but we couldn't squeeze in when they wanted to be
with us.
The Crew and some early birds arrived at 1.00 o'clock on Friday to
set up. And what a team effort it was. Danny and Crispin made
tables that I had bought along because the Spice Island didn't
have quite as many as we were going to need, Richard moved tables
around as we were going to want them, Phil Salts and Steve Grundy
were roped in to move chairs around, Adam showed an artistic side
and laid out all the presents and
BackgammonMasters.com
freebies, Natalie and Isabelle arranged
the trophies and Matte climbed a ladder to plug a cable into the
overhead projector. By 6.00 pm we had the upstairs of the pub just
as I wanted it.
Players were arriving by a number of means possible; tube, cars
and
GLH free sponsored cabs from mainline stations. They checked into
the YHA and made their way to The Spice Island.
I'd intended to have drinks at 7.00 o'clock downstairs in the pub
but that area was busy with locals so we had drinks upstairs
followed by dinner. I like this part of the weekend because by
starting without playing backgammon it says to folk that this is a
social occasion first.
At 9.30 the
Weekend Long Knockout
kicked off with 35 players. That's up from last year which was 28.
So there would be 3 matches in the Round of 64. I happened to be
one of those 6 players, Richard was on a bye so he helped the
Weekend Knockout T.D. Danny just make sure everybody was playing
and had a drink.
After an hour or so we had a good number of players knocked out
and ready for more so registration of the first
Tric Trac Tourno of the weekend was
opened. Michelle was to be the TTT T.D. but she was busy playing
in the Weekend so I stepped in to kick off a TTT. I'd set up for a
10 player TTT but had 20 players in front of me. Ok - so that will
be 2 x 10 player TTTs!
This year we'd arranged an extension in the pub until 1.00 am. so
there was no hurry to leave which made for a far better evening
and meant that most of the Weekend Tournament got to a Round ahead of
schedule. At 1.30 we retired to the YHA not to go to bed but to
finish off the last 2 or 3 matches in the TTTs and to have our
first 8 player
Jackpot of the
weekend. But we had 16 players interested. Ok - so that will be 2
x 8 player Jackpots!
Friday evening winners were Fanika and Matte in the TTTs and in
the Jackpots Mike Bailey (aka Stan) who has attended every BG Live
in London and Jörg Schwiemann who was back having missed the last
two years. They all won Champ 'o' Champ
points and were awarded their trophies the following morning.
Bedtime for the insomniacs was about 4.00 am.
At 9.45 Saturday morning the doors of The Spice Island opened
proper with tea, coffee and biscuits available on the bar. At
10.00 Mr Adam Tansley gave his seminar
"Have
a Cigar!"
The seminar was well received by the 35 or so
players that attended and seeing that I was to hear constant
references to it over the weekend I'm sure players found it of
benefit.
At 11.30 Mr Richard Biddle took the floor and did the
Singles
Group Auction. Irving jumped in quick and bought the first two
groups at a knock down price. The Group headed by John Broomfield
went for £100 and Andrew Sarjeant bought the Jon Kinsley Group for
a a bargain £30. Syndicates of players were now forming and the
bidding was going higher and higher. I'd written the Auction sheet
to go up to £100 per Group but what with Richard's excellent
Auctioneering skills I had to do a quick bit of re-programming to
accommodate the Paul Lamford Group which went for £110. A total of
£505 was raised - £45 up from last year.
Main pool entries had mostly been taken before 11.30 but there
were a few more who wanted in so their money was quickly taken
before I called out a few registered names that I hadn't seen yet.
I'd stated on the website and in the programme for the event that
if any of the 64 registered players were not in situ at 12.00
o'clock and that if I had reserve players in situ I would replace
those registered but not present with the reserves. In the
interest of getting the Tournament started on time I stuck to my
word and 3 players were removed and replaced by 3 reserves. I did
the computerized draw and flashed up Main Round 1 page on the
large screen. By 12.10 we had 32 matches in progress and players
were bought their pre-ordered drinks.
I was suppose to run a TTT for the remaining reserve players and
various members of my family that were with us this year to see
what on earth I get up to in my life. But I found myself a little
short of time and before I could do so found that I had match
reports to fill in. So I'm sorry to report that the TTT didn't
happen but the players had something to eat instead.
I'd shaved down the Singles Knockout this year from a total of 172
matches to play to 156. This is because we have a Boat Trip to see
a Fireworks Display right in the middle of the Tournament. Players
love it but it causes me a headache every year. I'd dropped the
traditional Progressive Consolation, Last Chance and Suicide in
favour of 3 Plate Tournaments with players being paired as soon as
they are ready to play. I'd also increased the Plate 1 Tournament
to 5 pointers instead of 3 pointers. This according to the dummy
tournaments I had run over the months preceding this event would
mean that we would be down to the last 16 players in the 4
brackets before most of the players left for the Boat Trip. That
was the theory - I can't say the practice matched the theory and
there were still 32 players involved by the time they needed to
leave for the boat. But I can't say it caused anybody to complain
- in fact it just added to the fun of the day - a little bit of
organised chaos makes for a lot of fun.
Next up was the Boat Trip. We had a larger boat this year and 85
passengers instead of 47 as we had last year. The Pier the boat
leaves from is a good 500 yards away - just too far to ask players
to walk given the time constraint. So we have a fleet of sponsored
cabs to transfer passengers from The Spice Island to the Hilton
Pier. Cabs pulls up, in jump 4 passenger, off goes the cab, drops
off, comes back and does another run. 82 passengers moved inside
of 30 minutes. That was everybody except one group of 3 who were
running late. I jumped into the last cab to go pick them up at
Rotherhithe Station at 3.40. I told them that if the boat was
still at the Hilton Pier they could get on it but if it had pulled
away it was their own fault for getting here late and they would
miss the boat trip. The cab dropped me near The Spice and zoomed
of.
A few minutes later I heard that the boat had in fact left on time
at 3.45 but turned around for the late passengers. I was livid. If
the boat missed getting through Blackfriars Bridge before the Port
of London Authority closed the river to all traffic 15 minutes
before the Fireworks Display everybody would not get the best
possible view of the fireworks. I stood outside on the upstairs
balcony to calm down and watch the boat go past. I stood there for
ages. Then I had to nip inside to sort something or other out. I
returned to my balcony look out and still couldn't see the boat. I
decided it must have passed by while I was inside and that the
phone call I was expecting letting me know of its approach had
been forgotten about probably because of the backgammon matches
happening on board.
But at 4.40 the phone call came - they were now nearing The Spice
en route to Temple Pier. Where on earth or river had they been?
They should be passing though Blackfriars Bridge at this time. I
was told that upon leaving the Hilton Pier the Captain had taken
them down river to Greenwich for a little sight seeing tour. This
was never part of the booking – the boat was booked to go from the
Hilton Pier direct to Temple Pier.
I really wasn't confident that the boat would make Temple Pier in
time. It didn't. I got a phone call letting me know they had
moored this side of Blackfriars Bridge and that, as I knew it
would be from there, the view of the fireworks display was
obstructed.. But I'm told the fireworks were as good as ever even
if the passengers couldn't see the lower ones.
Michael Crane of Biba was with us again this year to run the
On
Board Tournaments. 1 pointers, 8 player brackets, Optional Pools.
He far out-did himself this year and ran 12 tournaments. All the
winners got a plaque and 1 Champ 'o' Champs points each. Meanwhile
Danny Gallagher ran the
On Shore Tournaments - there was less
demand for these this year so there were only 2 On Shores though
they were longer point matches. Bedstefar and Clan wanted a TTT so
a TTT happened for them. Pernille, a first time TTT player,
achieved a staggering average of 1.75.
I've already spoken to the boat company and am waiting for them to
come back to me as to why the Captain went the wrong way. We were
missing chairs on board last year and this year the boat went the
wrong way. It seems no matter how much I plan the weekend
something is not going to work as it should - but 2 blunders in 2
years by the boat company is not good.
Back to the Singles Knockout which was due to complete. I knew
full well that it wouldn't do so quickly because players had now
had a dose of fresh air and would be hungry. The carvery was laid
out and was the first thing players saw. Had the Singles progress
to the last 16 players I could have sat them down to play but
there were still about 30 players involved and I wasn't about to
come between 30 empty stomachs and the carvery. So we had an
overrun. Ce la vie, a party is never supposed to go like
clockwork.
Soon the famished had eaten, Singles players were back at the
tables and Michelle stepped forward to hand out the players
presents. Everybody that came had been asked to bring a small
present for another person. Michelle had handed out raffle tickets
to those that had bought and now it was time to hand out the
presents. Michelle asked that my Mother (who was there with a
number of other Mains) help with the handing out of presents. Well
done Michelle, my Mum went all gooey legged and chuffed to bits to
be doing something. A small friendly riot ensued with a good deal
of laughter around. I later saw people wearing silly hats that I'm
sure were presents.
Semi-Finalist in the Main were Dave Treacy, Martha Littlehailes,
Monica Beckerson and Adam Tansley. Dave beat Martha to make this
his second Main Final is as many years and Monica beat Adam in a
battle of the olde hand versus the new hand. In the Final it was
Monica who won leaving Dave as the bridesmaid again. So experience
over the board seems to have paid - Monica was featured in a film
on backgammon some years ago and it seems perfect timing that she
has won again just when backgammon on the television is becoming
fashionable again. In Plate 1 John Broomfield triumphed over Carol
Lems with Elaine Bretherton and Neil Foston as Semi-Finalists. In
Plate 2 Paul Lamford won over Jon Samuel and in Plate 3 Dorothy
Lee beat Fergus Cooney. All those mentioned (except Fergus) won
Champ 'o' Champ points. In the Auction Simon Morecroft had bought
Dave Treacy so won 30% of the Auction and Andrew Sarjeant had
invested £30 in Group D which included Monica and gave Andrew an
11/1 return.
Next tournament up was
The Doubles.
20 teams took part this year (slightly up from last year which was
18.) Richard was to TD this one but he was busy in the Weekend
Knockout so I jumped in to get it started. Registrations and Pools
taken the draw was made and off they went to play. They want more,
they want more! I rang the bell and announced another TTT was
starting. 20 players surrounded my desk and hence another 2 TTTs
started. But there were still players left standing and still more
backgammon was required. Ok - no problem - we'll run a Jackpot
too. Michael and Sharen Crane handed out the On Board plaques.
Having got myself ahead of all the players I thought I keep ahead of them so
the Saturday Quiz was handed out. At the monthly
Backgammon in Camden Phil Simborg provides a Quiz. However I had, through some
miscommunication on my behalf, missed having it in place in
October and though my sheer lack of time missed having it in place
in November. I'd spoken to Phil again this week and we had got our
act together and I had the two Quizzes (Sat
&
Sun) to hand and ready so they
were presented here at BG Live in London.
I took a wander around the pub. There were Doubles matches in
progress, TTTs all over the place, Jackpots here and there,
Weekend Knockout matches were keeping to their timetable, people
were chatting, silly present games were being played, my English nieces
(13 and 11 years old) had found the chewy sweets on the TD desk and took over the entry
of results (running tournaments via computer really is child's
play) my mother, who loves food, was having another meal and the
place was buzzing. I told myself "Mission accomplished!"
The Mermen (St Albans players who play in The Mermaid Pub) Uldis
Lapikens and John Ingamells won the Doubles over The Lucky Devils
Jon Kinsey and Adam Tansley. Jörg Schwiemann and Mike Bailey
(who had won the Friday Jackpots) now won the two Saturday evening
TTTs. Simon Morecroft won the Jackpot.
At 1.30 we left the pub and headed to the YHA for our last Jackpot
of the day. Manchester player Steve Grundy took this one and a
walloping £8 Prize Fund to go with his trophy and Champ 'o' Champ
point. I hit the sack at about 4.00 am.
A quick morning shower, some breakfast and it was time to set up
in the Spice Island all over again. Doors opened at 9.45, tea,
coffee and biscuits were laid on and about 30 attended the Chris
Bray Seminar "The Doubling Cube Explained." It was excellent.
Chris also provided some copies of his book "An Independent View"
as prizes and will be bringing out another two books in 2007.
And so onto the
Olympiad. A 32 player
event with 7 brackets, Optional Pools throughout and an Auction to
start. We had a few players drop out in the last hour but those
seats were taken by the reserves. Richard raised £510 in the
Auction, monies were paid, the draw done and 16 tables of play
were before my eyes. But so were other players so a TTT and a
Jackpot were started as well. By 12.30 we had 46 active players.
Phil Salts had been coming close to a trophy all weekend but
hadn't actually managed it. He had a cab booked at 3.00 pm. so
this TTT was his last chance. He played quickly and found he got
into a TTT style groove - the best way to play a TTT in my
opinion. But he couldn't get them all played by 3.00 so he had to
leave it, in accordance to TTT rules, to a replacement player of
equivalent rating to play his last two matches. But Martin
Birkhahn wanted a trophy too and was not to be outdone. Phil,
you'll just have to come back next year to which you are most
welcome. Phil had been drawn against my niece Isabelle Farve
earlier on in the Weekend Knockout. Isabelle loves the game but
had as yet not bothered to play with the doubling cube. I'd
explained the very basics of it to Isabelle but I knew if she was
drawn against a player who knew how to use it she would stand
little chance in a 7 pointer. Phil, who had announced he wanted to
go home with a trophy when he saw them being laid out on Friday,
was good enough to explain Isabelle's errors not only after their
match but during their match in a way that Isabelle told me was
totally understandable and logical. Hence Phil had risked his
chances in order to educate another player. Uncalled for but the
help was most welcome.
The Weekend Knockout also drew to a close. Once again Adam Tansley
was a Semi-Finalist but Steve Grundy was the finalist from the
upper part of the draw and Crispin saw off Hanke to be the other
finalist. Steve won the final and thus the winners trophy and 5
Champ 'o' Champ points but he hadn't entered the £5 Pool and
Crispin had so Crispin won his second Pool of the weekend. Bet you
enter the Pool next year Steve.
In the Sunday afternoon Jackpot it was, on his second entry, Eric
Maillebiau who came away the winner.
The Olympiad is designed to keep 80% of the players active at all
times. This would work fine if players had not been playing and
drinking all weekend. But under such circumstances stomachs need
to be filled so players were stopping for meals. This of course
sent the timing out of the window. But players were all happy and
that's the idea so no worries there. Satellite 1 was the first
bracket to complete with Matte Juggler winning a gold, Crispin
Duke taking the silver and Prize Fund and Sue Keeble taking the
bronze. In Satellite 2 it was my other Swiss niece Natalie Favre
who took gold, Sue took the silver and Michelle the bronze and
Prize Fund. In the TTT for those knocked out of the 1/4 Finals of
the Conso Paul Lamford took a gold. The Suicide went to Tom
Duignan, Last Chance to Danny Gallagher, The Conso to George Hall
and the Main gold to John Broomfield with silver to George
Miltiadou and bronze to Stef Rohan. John and George had bough
themselves in the Auction and thus had a handsome return. Before
the event Irving had been telling other Manchester players that if
they didn't win at least a medal at BG Live in London they were
s**t. I'm please to report Irv didn't have to eat his words and
won the Last Chance bronze.
The Olympiad completed at nearly 7.00 pm so we moved straight to
the Prize Giving Ceremony. Players came forward and were awarded
their medals and presents by the Backgammon Bunnies Chrissi,
Isabelle and Natalie. Also to award was the Hustler's Haven. It
was Jon Samuel who showed me the largest wedge of bucks so it was
he who took the trophy.
The big question was who had won the
Champ
'o' Champs. Dave Treacy was certainly in contention having
picked up points in various tournaments, as was Steve Grundy who
had won the Weekend and picked up points in various others and
Matte Juggler wasn't far off either. But John Broomfield had won
the Plate 1, an On Board and had just won 5 points in the Olympiad
which gave him more Champ 'o' Champ points than any other player
and thus the title and Champ 'o' Champs trophy as he was in 2002.
Congrats John.
Thanks was given to our Main Sponsor
BackgammonMasters.com The operational costs of
running a weekend such as this are considerable and it's with the
support of sponsorship that these can be met. The alternative is
to charge players a lot more that they were charged which would
reduce the number of players probably dramatically.
But we hadn't finished yet. There were still more trophies to play
for. Not least of all we had
The Gang
Tournament to play. The concept is simple: put all players
names into a hat and draw them out into two teams. First names out
of the hat a Team Leaders. A 3 point match is played between the
two teams. The winning team is split again and another 3 pointer
is played. This goes on until just 1 player wins. The first round
in particular gets very noisy and is the closest thing to a
backgammon riot or rugby scrum. I wish I could lay claim to the
invention of this format but I can't - that honour goes to Zoe
Cunningham who thought it up inside of 10 minutes at Bg Live in
London 2004.
The word has spread about how much fun this tournament is and we
had 22 players up for it this year. 11 a side backgammon! Can I do
it justice in a report? No. It was, as per usual, a load of fun
with lots of debate over moves and jeering from the other team
while decisions were made. There was however a moment when it
could have got a little too fractious. One of the team leaders was
an online player who was attending his first ever live event. His
team was taking an age to decide upon 3 possible moves with the
checkers moved to one of the three desirable moves. At this moment
the team leader moved his dice to a more convenient location on
his side of the board. This would have been fine if the team
leader had slid the dice across the board maintaining contact with
the playing surface. But he didn't. He picked them up off the
board by an inch or two and replaced them on the board. Team B
cried "move made - move over - our roll!" They had Team A bang to
rights. But not everybody had seen the dice being moved. I let the
debate carry on for a while and when it was starting to subside I
stepped in to explain to the Team Leader what he had actually
done. He remembered moving the dice but didn't recall if he had
lifted them or not. A classic case of an online player not knowing
or understanding the ramifications of correct live play. This
entire event is designed to show players how live backgammon is
played. The Team Leader learnt a valuable lesson that I'm sure
he'll, and others, will never forget.
It was Fergus's team that won the match but the time was nearing
10.30 and there was not time to start another at least hour long 3
pointer so we started to pack up the things we needed and headed
for the YHA bar. A number of players had to leave so the match
became a 3 versus 3 players instead of a 6 versus 5 players. In
Round 3 the winning 3 were split again into a 2 versus 1 and it
was the 1 who won - the 1 was Irving.
While Round 2 was going on those knocked out of Round 1 and still
with us played for the last TTT of the weekend. Richard, who had
consistently had hard draws all weekend, had not won a trophy up
until now and he was determined to do so. Now he did.
While Round 3 of the Gang was going on the last Jackpot (Sunday
Insomniac's Muffin Cup) of the weekend kicked off. Crispin added
another trophy to his haul.
Summary:
This was the largest ever BGLIL. We raised our numbers from a
highest ever before of 75 to an actual 103 over the weekend.
That's about the limit the venue can handle. Was it the best ever?
That's not for me to say but I was told by one player who attends
a lot of backgammon tournaments around the globe that this is "the
best weekend on the backgammon calendar."
Being ever critical in the quest to get it as good as I can I tend
to focus in on what went slightly wrong so I'm probably guilty of
under selling the gig but be that as it may I was very annoyed
with the boat going the wrong way down the Thames, the food and
staffing level in The Spice Island could have been better and the
breakfast in the YHA is not sufficient to set oneself for a day of
backgammon.
The tournament spreadsheets worked very well and that combined
with printed programmes players had little trouble understanding
what was going on so I was free to move on to the next event
rather than answering questions.
Many thanx to the Crew who did a wonderful job as ever. We all had
designated roles but if one was busy elsewhere another simply
stepped into their place and kept the show running.
Thanx also to our Main Sponsor
BackgammonMasters.com
and to our other sponsor
GLH who provided cabs
and computer equipment as and where
needed.
|
