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92
Entries, 12 Tournaments, 57 Players, £1164 Prize Fund,
Jon Barnes wins Jackpot and Mike
messes up the Quiz.
A Heinz variety of players – 57 bean shakers is good enough for me to call
it that. At the end of this October evening there would be 10 bean shakers
who could call themselves Winners.
They’ve plonked a great big box of a thing for musical stuff in the D.J.
corner. It’s massive. I don’t think you could play on it so I ran the
evening from behind it and thus I seemed to have metamorphosed into a
D.J.T.D. Actually it worked quite well; I can see right down the bar and
most tables from my perch.
There was also room for Chrissi behind the DJ box too - Chrissi was with
us this evening to take signups for
Backgammon Live in London in November. A good number signed up and at
the current rate of signups I expect the weekend to be fully booked a
couple of weeks before it happens.
The evening kicked off at precisely 7.00 pm. with the Auction for the
Jackpot Tournament. I had 14 names written down interested in the £25
Entry, 7 pointer, maximum 8 player Jackpot so the Entry Fee was bidded up
until only 8 players remained. It went to £50 this month. Those that
dropped out played in a £25, 7 pointer, 8 player tournament with the last
two remaining seats being grabbed by slightly late arrivals. Next to get
started were two £10 Entry, 5 pointer, 8 Player Tournaments, demand was
high for £5 Entry Tournaments so we had two of these, then more wanted a
£10 Entry so we had another one of those kick in and we also had a £1
Entry, 5 pointer kick off as well. 52 players sitting down to play
tournament backgammon by 7.45. And I could see most of the players from my
nest. Gotta practice my disc spinning though.
Matte F was with us for the first time this evening - he'd heard about BG
in Camden from the Croydon BG Club where he's recently starting playing
having not played for a couple of years. Not frightened to jump in at the
deep end Matte entered the £25 Jackpot and was drawn against Peter Bennet.
"Oh dear" I though, "we won't see Matte here again." I'm pleased to say
that I was wrong in my assumption that Matte would lose - he didn't and
was thus drawn against new to Bg in Camden player but experienced
elsewhere Ken Gibson. "Oh dear" I thought "na, shut-up Mike, wait to see
the result." The result came in shortly after and it was good news for
Matte, bad news for Ken. I'm sure Matte was growing taller by the hour.
Next up he was to play Al Hogg - I didn't inform Matte that Al is an
ex-European Finalists. A while later Matte came over to me and announced
that he's won that match too. I was impressed!
By 10.00 o'clock Alan Beckerson was the winner in T3 and Mourad was the
winner of T4 which gave them time to enter other tournaments. The
Jackpot (T1) was progressing along nicely with Jon Barnes, Tom Duggan,
John Broomfield and Edward Leighton making the semis. The £5 entry
Tournaments (T5 & T6) were running along smoothly and resulted in wins for
1st time Bg in Camden player Elena (bravo indeed) and about 3rd time Bg in
Camden player Pete W.
By 8.30 I was opening up new tournament upon demand. No more £25 entries
this evening, instead players wanted £5 & £10 entries so that what we had.
That's the glory of this tournament system; I ask players what they want
and, if I think it's likely there will be minimum 4 of them, that's what
they get.
Stef and Paul had arrived at about 7.30 so played in T7. They were drawn
in the opposite half of the sheet and met in the Final. Paul was tired so
asked Stef to reduce the match to a 1 pointer - she accepted and won.
Meanwhile T8 (the £1 entry) had not been attractive a huge number of
players but it did raise to 4 players. The final was between Asinka and
Simon R. - the prize fund of £4 was handed over to them before the final
so they could do a deal if they wished. The victor, in his first BG in
Camden evening, was Simon R.
Back in T1 we knew our two finalists - J.B. versus J.B. In a long and
crowded around match that went to DMP it was Jon Barnes who won over John
Broomfield. This makes Jon B. the only person to win the 1st Tournament of
a Bg in Camden evening twice. Congrats to him and John B. I'm sure your
day will come.
Meanwhile the T9 was won by Simon M. T10 was won by Mourad making this his
second win of the evening, T11 by Phil D. and T12 by Alan B. who also
became a two times winner this evening.
I messed up on the Quiz. I'm supposed to send Phil Simborg (our Quiz
Master) a reminder email 10-7 days before a BG in Camden. I didn't. A
silly error on my behalf and I apologise to all those who look forward to
the Quiz both during the evening and afterward on the web. I'll make sure
we're back on course next month.
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Summary:
57 players on a wet London evening is a good turnout. Actually if we had
had many more it might have all got a little too tight - summer is over
now and outside play along the balcony is not the best seat in the house
so we're really reduced to inside for the foreseeable future. If BG in
Camden stops at about 60 players per month for the next few months that's
fine by me.
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BRING A
BOARD PLEASE
Too often nowadays I'm asked:
"Do you have a board
we can use Mike?"
There are upwards of 60 of yous turning up these days.
That's great - but it means we need 30 boards these days.
I blame myself because
I have about 7 boards I bring along.
But folks they're
really heavy
and I'm sick of
carrying them all.
Please bring along a board if you have one.
You don't need a huge backgammon board
but a larger board makes playing the game much easier.
But bring along
what you have please.
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A good number of people signed up for
BG Live in London next month. As the rate seats are being booked I
expect the entire event to be fully booked a couple of weeks before it
happens. So if you want a seat contact me sooner rather than later please
- I hate telling people we're fully booked.
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