BACKPACKER BACKGAMMON AT BIBA
31st August, 1st & 2nd September 2007

Report by Michael Crane


As usual the Backpacker packed in loads of action over the weekend. There were no fewer than 11 different events for players to take part in! I availed myself of a few; most of which I won! I chalked up victories in the Friday Jackpot (4) after beating Nicky Check followed by our sponsor, Mike Main; then I won the Gang (9) tournament after whittling the field down to just myself and Bob Young. If you're not sure what the Gang entails I'll tell you: it entails two teams each headed by a Captain and lots of shouting . . . lots! The winning team is split into another team and so on until we have a Final pairing. My third victory came right after the Gang when I won the Saturday Jackpot (4) when I trounced Mike Main and then Nicky Check! And finally - after four failed attempts at qualifying - I made it into the final of Cazzie's Round Robin (25). Jeff Barber had already made a fantastic start, beating Bob Young and winning a backgammon (worth 3 points); and when I joined it he had finished on 5 points. I strapped myself in and won two gammons and two singles to pinch it off Jeff by one point! This is my third Round Robin final and my second consecutive win . . . I like these!

In the Friday 500 (8), Sean Williams, returning from Down Under, gained his first points when he beat Ray Tannen. This win for Sean propelled him into 16th place thus qualifying for the £500 in December on his first attempt

In the Main (23) we slimmed the players down to four on the Sunday morning: Tom Duggan vs Simon Morecroft and Jon Barnes vs David Nathan. Tom took an early lead, as did David; however, their opponents pulled back but in the end it wasn't enough and Tom and David met in the final. David's match against Jon was worthy of a final in its own right - and I wished I had recorded it. As it turned out, the final proper was over very quickly thanks to some very dodgy cube action from Tom.

With the score at 5-0 to David, Tom is heard to say, "This is going to be embarrassing." After watching the entire match I am now wondering if he was referring to the current score or looking into the future and commenting on a cubing decision he made when the score had improved to 5-4!
 

11 point match
Black 5 White 4
Black cube action

David (b) offers across a good cube, it being both a double and a take, and Tom quickly scoops it up, "Snatch!" he calls. David rolled 32, 25/23 6/3. Tom rolls 21 and hits the blot on the black 22-point and moves 11/10 to cover his 4-point blot with 6s. David dances with 61 and then Tom recubes to four in this position:
 

White cube action

This is a massive blunder @ -0.407 and David is delighted to have a 4-cube in residence on his side of the board. At the moment Tom has approx. 42% game winning chances and he should have held on to the cube. According to Snowie, David has almost 58% of which 26% are gammons! Easy take - bad double!
David re-enters fairly quickly, anchoring with double-two; but two rolls later a third checker is hit and David then dances for twelve consecutive rolls; during which time Tom is well into the bearoff. Tom gets down to just five checkers to bearoff when he is forced into leaving a shot - David misses and Tom chalks up a gammon on a 4-cube and steals the match!
 

Meanwhile, in the Consolation (19), Peter Chan had entered from the non-progressive side and was waiting in the final to see if fellow non-prog, Myke Wignall would be joining him, or progressive, Stephen Drake. Myke prevailed and against Peter he clawed his way to dmp after trailing, but it was Peter who came out the winner - a triumph of luck over dynamic backgammon?

 

 
In the Last Chance (16), Peter's travelling companion, Adrian Jones, made it to the final where he finished off Lawrence Powell to take home a second trophy back to Liverpool . . . . I mention this because Peter told me to!
The Mad Monkey (16), 3-pointer, saw Friday's 500 winner, Sean, in the final playing against Fak Laight. It was Sean that emerged the victor, leaving Fak in 2nd place. Over the weekend, Fak had bought a new car and was seen reading the owner's manual several times . . . . perhaps he should have bought a new backgammon board instead :-)

 

The final backgammon report is for the Sunday Jackpot (8). This is one of the two events I failed to win this weekend; but at least I was beaten by the eventual winner, our sponsor, Mike Main. He beat Lawrence Powell to take home one of his own trophies. Well done, Mike.

The Poker (6), was a little low on entry, but this didn't bother a couple of poker-virgins, Neil Webb and William Spiers. They had travelled down from Glasgowish and were very pleased to make it into the payouts. Neil came 1st, Lawrence Powell 2nd, and William 3rd. Unfortunately, Neil and William left for home early Sunday morning so there isn't a photo of them. The Poker Grand Prix is hotting up now, and you can read about how it's going and who's placed where on the Biba website.

Finally
As usual the Backpacker was a cornucopia of backgammon. Eleven elements in total meant there was plenty of action for everyone; and those that attended had a great time. I'd like to thank Mike for directing it and for the many trophies, and Sean for the Excel spreadsheet that is the engine behind the drawsheets and number crunching. I had a great weekend, winning four elements, as well as 'owning' both Main finalists via the Saturday Auction, and wining the Biba Tote (again!) after being the sole owner of Tom! Yep, I had a great weekend :-)

Main (23) 

Consolation (19) 

Last Chance (16) 

Mad Monkey (16) 

Friday Warm-up £500(8) 

Gang (9) 

Cazzie's Round Robins 

Poker (6) 

Friday Jackpot (4)

Saturday Jackpot (4)

Sunday Jackpot (8)

Note by Mike Main:

So we were 2 players up on last years attendance - that's an improvement on last years 21 but it could have been higher because the Hilton Hotel had told would be players that the hotel was full when in fact it wasn't nearly full. It's a sad state of affairs when a chain as large as Hilton cannot get their booking system to work to the optimum. For that reason and the general standard of service in the hotel makes good reason for Michael Crane to move his business to another chain next year and I'm pleased to see that that will be happening in 2008.  

But the weekend was all about, as it should have been, the players that were actually there and I think everybody had a good time so in that respect it was a good event. Michael Crane's haul of trophies was very impressive and begs the question of how many more could he have picked up over the years had he not always been stuck behind the T.D. desk?  

I'd done various improvements to the spreadsheets to run the weekend by and this year every tournament was run via them. The only problem was with the draw in the Main tournament. I'd omitted to remove the winner of the Friday Tournament no longer gets a bye in the next main tournament so seeing it was in print in the programme it had to be honoured. However the draw spreadsheet was not set up for one player being guaranteed a bye so we had a few problems while I sorted that. However it was still quicker than doing a draw by hand so we were still on a plus. Further I was pleased to hear Michael Crane ask me various questions on the formulas contained in my spreadsheets so I think this should lead to further improved spreadsheets at all Biba events.

WARNING: A MIKE MAIN RANT!
I was also pleased to see the inclusion of Round Robin Cubeless Tournaments and am thrilled to see such a format being played at Biba Tournaments. Cubeless backgammon is, in my opinion, true backgammon. That damnable doubling cube was only invented in about the 1920s, the fella or fellaess who invented the horrible little thing didn't even own up to it and we'll probably now never know his/her identity - well at least that prevents me from going and spitting upon his/her grave! Furthermore checker play backgammon was being played for something like 5000 years before the interruption of the doubling cube - that means that the game alone does more than something correct for the human head and heart. So in the greater scheme of things I consider the doubling cube nothing more than a fad, a fashion, a whim. Retro is the way to go - what was good enough for our predecessors is just dandyily fine by me thanx.

And I've not finished yet - Round Robins - yup, I luv 'em too. Backgammon to me is a social thing. All this pip counting, equity tables, kleinman counts - dargh, ban 'em I say, though I must admit I think I'll be on a pretty slim and slimey wicket on this count,,, no, don't use that word Mike, it's gonna come across as hypocritical given I just said ban other counting.... erm, alter count to tack. Now to get back on my tack, what was I saying? (or even trying to say I should say)... oh yes, Bg is a social thing. I play bg to meet people. To me it's a tool to sit down with somebody over a mutual interest and see, though their bg play, what sort of person they are. Ok, I admit it's also a chance for me to sit down and have a beer and a ciggie as well. Hay look, I've found another soap box in a cupboard. Yes, yes, yes, I know I'm a dinosaur and as such I fully expect to die before non-smokers do but, I ask you, who were the biggest and best creatures around when the dinosaurs were around? I rest my case - smokers enjoy life, maybe we don't live as long as other puritanical creatures but we live more in the shorter period we do live and nobody lives forever. And no, I don't believe in God either so my case is solid on that immortality front too and even if it was I, for one, would not care to live forever in a smoke free heaven - gimme hell, fire, brimstone and unlimited fags any day merci. RANT OVER!

I adapted my Tric Trac Tourno spreadsheets to work for the different scoring system used in Cazzie's Round Robins and these I think made it easier for players to know what they were playing for so that was all to the good. That said I do find the scoring system (-1 point for a loss by gammon or backgammon) very severe and thus not as an attractive format as it might be. But that's possibly a jaundiced view on my behalf because I'm so used to TTT format. Either way the Cazzie Round Robins are a very good addition to a Biba weekend.

I can't leave out a mention of the Gang Tournament. We had 9 players in it this year which is good but lacked the Full Monty of 16 players in Round 1 when things can get really really noisy instead of just really noisy. I must hasten to add that in a previous Michael Crane report of this year when the Gang Tournament was played at another Biba event he attributed  the invention of the format to me Mike Main. This, much as I would like it to be factually correct, is not so. That stoke of genius lies with Zoe Cunningham ably abetted by her partner Sean Williams who invented it at Bg Live in London 2005.

Backpacker Backgammon will be providing more live backgammon now that I'm back from my walkabout to New Zealand - that's the monthly (1st Tuesday in the month) Backgammon in Camden and shortly there should be some other venues in London as well. There will also be, in November, the annual Backgammon Live in London. 

Many thanx to Michael Crane for the weekend.