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68
Entries, 10 Tournaments, 42 Players, £1500 Prize Fund,
Edward Leighton wins Jackpot and
Dan O'Farrell wins
the Quiz.
No football, no Wimbledon - yee haa - we're back to the 1st Tuesday in the
month. But I must admit I was worried that numbers would be low - it's
August, it's summer holidays and the resident population of London has
seasonally dropped. I have a little bet with myself before every Bg in
Camden as to how many Players will show up. I guesstimated 29.
At 7.00 pm I had 14 players present interested in the maximum 8 Player
Jackpot. There were actually another 3 (all experienced BG in Camden
players) who phoned in saying they were running a few minutes late and
could they have their names put down for the Jackpot. Nope was my answer.
They all know the rules: Players interested in playing in the Jackpot have
to be in situ at 7.00 pm. and telephone registrations will not be
accepted. To be fair they all accepted my denial of letting them have
their names put down without any fuss whatsoever at all.
The Jackpot went up to £95 before only 8 Players were still interested.
Seeing as we were so close to £100 I offered to bump it up that last £5,
they all accepted and off they went to pay their entry fees to Adam
Tansley who also did the draw.
Those that had dropped out as the bidding went up and those that had
arrived a few minutes late were then offered entry into a 2nd Jackpot
(also 8 Players, 7 pointers) and the entry fee was settled at £25 a head.
They then also trooped off to Adam to pay and be drawn.
Next up was the 5 pointer, £10 entry Tournaments. 15 Players paid up for
this so we had another 2 x 8 player Tournaments with the last slot waiting
for another player to arrive which was taken at 7.50 pm.
We also had some Players that didn't want to invest £10 so we had another
8 Player, 5 Pointer £5 Entry Fee Tournament. This was up and running by
7.40 pm and filled by 8.00 pm.
At 8.00 pm I walked around the Lockside Lounge and counted 20 matches in
progress. Hay, it's a piece of cake running Bg evenings! Up hum.
I'd left the key to my cash tin at home. Idiot Mike. We'd managed so far
without it mostly because I'd had the presence of mind this month to bring
along 2 floats so that Adam could easily take entry fees and the £1
registration fees from Jackpot players while I took all the rest. But I
had a problem looming; the answers to the Phil Simborg Quiz were in the
tin. Even though I'd written the Quiz up onto printable cards I wasn't
confident that I knew all the answers. There's a good reason for this.
Players have a perchance for talking to me about the quiz during the
evening. That's fine but if I know the answers there is a danger that I'll
give away a clue or two in my replies to them. So I only study the quiz
after the evening. This of course has the downside that if I have the
answers locked away in a tin and don't have the key (idiot Mike) I can't
mark the quiz. But, by luck, Scott (my old girlfriend's daughter's
boyfriend) was en route to London and had a huge bag of (probably) his
girlfriends clobber that he wanted to dump at my flat before coming over
to Camden. Scott was put onto key search mode, found it and arrived at
10.00 pm - the very time the Quiz is marked and winner announced. This was
won by now a 2nd time Quiz winner Dan O'Farrell who had a JD and coke as
his prize (though his first choice was a Southern Comfort but the bar were
out of stock of this - note to self: I must talk to them about that bit of
bad catering.)
As Players were knocked out of the first 5 Tournaments so I started, upon
demand, other Tournaments. T6 was an 8 player, 5 Pointer, £10 Entry, T7
a 4 Player, 7 Pointer, £25 Entry, T8 another 8 player, 5 Pointer, £10
Entry, T9 & T10 were 4 Player, 5 Pointer £5 Entries.
The first Tournament to complete was T3 and was won by Jo Davies (nee
Curl) who is making a rather nice little habit of doing this. I've watched
Jo play bg for the last few years now and have witnessed a steady but
secure increase in skill. The obvious reason for this would seem to be
that she has married a rather good player called Dod. However Jo denies
this every time it is made and I'm inclined to believe her - her style of
play is not a clone of Dods'; she's become a good player in her own right.
The final of the 2nd Jackpot featured Al Hogg and Brian Walker. Al needs
little introduction having been ever present on the London Bg scene and a
past European finalist. Brian Walker may not be so well known to all
having been away from bg for a while and resting in India. Sensible chap.
Brian's stamina was tested in Round 1 with his match going to DMP but
couldn't quite overcome Al in the final.
The final of the 1st Jackpot was between Dod Davies and Edward Leighton.
After the match completed Dod gave me a blow by blow report of nearly the
entire match. Really Dod, there is no need for this! Can't you just be
human like the rest of us (Paul Lamford excluded) and be able to remember
only the crucial plays that happened during a match? In short Dod went
down 1,5 (7 pointer), clawed it back to DMP and lost by just one checker.
Bravo Edward - one to tell your grandchildren about - see Dod if you need
a blow by blow account!
Monica Beckerson was looking good in T4 where she became a finalist in a
very short space of time. But the lower half of the draw took longer to
play out and I think Monica might have gone off the boil but the time the
final was ready to be played and lost out to Paul White who, if my memory
serves me right, achieved his second Bg in Camden win.
As many of you might know it's my delight to see new Players coming though
the ranks and doing well. I met Freddy the Frenchman some years ago when I
was selling Backpacker Backgammon Boards in Camden Market. He would love
to take time off running his stall to play a game or two. BBBs didn't sell
well enough for me to warrant running my stall but I stayed in touch with
Freddy. So when last year I started running Bg in Camden I of course let
Freddy know about it. Up until this month he had mostly stuck with fun
games, workshop games and 1 or 3 pointer Tournaments. This month he got
brave and entered a 5 pointer, 4 Player £5 Pool tournament - T5. Now
I know that a T.D. really shouldn't do a little jig of delight when a
player wins but I must admit I did. Freddy won. Francois Tardieu watch out
- il y a another Frenchman coming to catch u!
T6 final was between Adam Tansley and Jon Kinsley. This is not the first
time these two have met and played and I have high hopes for both of them
in the future of Bg. But time waits for no man and neither does The
Lockside Lounge closing time. The match didn't complete but my mutual
consent the win was awarded to Adam and I gather they did something or
other with the prize fund.
T7 was a 4 player 7 pointer and the final was contested between Geoff Conn
and George Miltiadou and they played on the shortest seats in the house so
it was nigh on impossible from my altitude to see the progress of the
match! But they reliable informed me that it was Geoff Conn who won.
George, there's a big win waiting for you sometime soon.
T8 was contested between ex British Champion Paul Lamford and Molho
(Massimo Molisa) of Milan, Italy. Molho, who comes to London for a week or
two every summer, had come along with his cousin Susanna and friend Lucy.
They told me that Molho says he is a good player but they were not too
sure if this was really the case so were interested to see how well he
faired this evening. Well Molho beat Dan O'Farrell in the 2nd round which
is no easy task and then gave Paul Lamford a none to easy run for his
money (and win) so I think Molho's words were backed by his play. See you
again next year Molho.
Little Suzy was going to go home early. Good think she didn't for she won,
over Daniel Flesch, T9.
T10 saw the return of both experienced player Fintan O'Boyle and relative
rookie Lucy. I probably should have, given the time that it started, made
this a 3 pointer but the players wanted a 5 pointer so a 5 pointer it was.
But old father time ticked by and there was not time for the two Finalists
to complete. Given that the score was at 4,2 to Fintan the win is recorded
as Fintan's.
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Summary:
So I lost my bet with myself of only 29 players. 42 players means that Bg
in Camden is alive and very much kicking. There were 8 new Bg in Camden
players to welcome this month and I hope to see again. 7 and 5
pointer matches were the order of the day this month which to me says that
reasonably serious doubling cube backgammon is what players want.
This leads me on to a forthcoming event that I very seriously recommend:
For those of you who do not know him Chris Bray is the chap who write
the only backgammon column in the British press. He's written two
books on backgammon and has given seminars and presentations on
backgammon too. His explanations are excellent and very
understandable. My suggestion is that you consider yourself lucky that
you live in the same town as Chris and get down to Roehampton Club on
Mon 11th September. Pre-Registration is essential.
Before that there is more Bg here in London Town.
Mind Sports Olympiad will be at Marylebone from 26th
August to 3rd September with no less than 7 Backgammon
Tournaments being run by Michael Crane of Biba including
The London Cup and English Open to play for.
And
/or if you are up for travelling across to the West Countrie there is
the
Now in it's
2nd year this is probably the most international
tournament held in this country. Expect play to be of a
very high standard and with the team running it a very
well organised event.
After that there is a Biba event that yours truly
sponsors:
Or else you
could just put in your diary the following date:
Tuesday 5th September
Backgammon in Camden.
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