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71 Entries, 9
Tournaments, 55 Players, £1710 Prize Fund,
Peter Bennet wins Jackpot.
A busy evening at Backgammon in Camden – fifty-five players in total, most
of whom arrived promptly which meant that by 7.30 we already had five
tournaments on the go!
We had a particularly strong field with Peter Bennet, among others, making
an appearance, not to mention the special guest star Kazuhiro Shino.
Kazuhiro was a semi-finalist at last year’s World Championship in Monte
Carlo, and had just returned from the Bahamas where he had been playing in
the PartyGammon Million Dollar Tournament, which boasted what was probably
the strongest field in a backgammon tournament ever.
With seventeen people entered for the jackpot auction, the entry fee
reached £100 before we had the requisite eight players. This meant that
for the first time, I suspect, we needed an auction for the second jackpot
of the evening, where the entry fee reached £50. Not an evening for the
faint hearted it would seem.
Reputations count for nought in backgammon, and Shino quickly exited the
main jackpot at the hands of Peter Bennet. In fact no-one could stop
Peter, who steamrollered his way to the final before inflicting a 7-0
thrashing on Romolo, leaving Peter with the lion’s share of a most
handsome purse.
Tom Duggan quickly made it through to the final of the second jackpot, but
then decided that he didn’t fancy the wait for a second finalist (the
other half of the draw was progressing much more slowly), and so after a
little financial wrangling, he took half of the pool money home, leaving
the other two semi-finalists to play for the remaining cash, with the
glory going to David N. Since we like to be completists, and have an
official winner of each tournament at Camden, I decided to declare David
the winner of this jackpot since he had stayed the course, and anyway Tom
wasn’t present to receive any award!
In addition to the two jackpots, we had a further six £10 tournaments and
a £5 tournament, which raised the total amount staked for the evening to
£1,710 - probably a record at Camden (correct me if I’m wrong, Mike). We
had two very popular winners in Jo Davies and Sue Keeble. Stalwarts on the
backgammon scene, it’s good to see them both doing well.
It was also a good evening for first-timers. Ritchie Newbolt has been
honing his game at the Croydon backgammon club for some time, and decided
to unleash himself on the Camden backgammon community, winning at the
first attempt. Also new to Camden was James A. who, after being forced out
of both jackpot auctions, found himself making amends in one of the £10
tournaments.
Phil Simborg’s quiz this month was one of the hardest I’ve seen from him –
as evidenced by the fact that no-one got the right answer. If you didn’t
get a chance to see it, take a look at it on the web-site.
We do have some unfinished business in one of the £10 tournaments. With
time being called in the Lockside Lounge, Simon Gascoigne and Parvin were
just sitting down to their five-point final. I had suggested a shortened
match might be in order, but the full five-pointer was to be preferred by
the players. Anything short of an eight-cube in the first game was likely
to mean insufficient time for this match to be completed, and so it
transpired. However, rather than attempting some sort of settlement,
arrangements have been made to complete this match in the coming week or
so. Which leaves us with an old fashioned cliff hanger ending. Will Parvin
prevail? Will Simon do his worst? Will Mike ever find his way out of the
Kiwi outback? Find out in next month’s unmissable instalment of Backgammon
in Camden!
On a personal note, this was my first solo-handed Camden meeting (the more
observant of you will have noticed Mike was missing from proceedings). It
was a busy and exciting evening, which I enjoyed greatly. On the whole I
think things went well. To have forty people signed-up, paid-up, drawn and
playing within twenty-five minutes of the kick-off was as good as I could
have expected. Things seemed to continue well throughout the night. I got
the impression that people were happy with me standing in for Mike (and if
they’re not, forget about petition – Mike’s not coming back anytime
soon!).
So see you next month – Tuesday 6th March.
Adam Tansley
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Note by Mike Main:
Hi from New Zealand. Wow, what a terrific evening in Camden - 55 players
and the largest ever Prize Fund (beats May '06 by £110.) Also of note is
the huge number of new to Bg in Camden players this month - 20 of yous.
Welcome yee all and I hope you have been inspired to return for more. This
takes us over the 200 players who have played in Camden since we started
18 months ago.
And thank you to the player who emailed me telling me not to come back
'cause Adam had the evening all in hand. Well Sue, I shall take your
"advice" for 6 months then, seeing as you enjoy not doing as I ask or tell
you I shall take a leaf out of your book and be back to in August. Until
then Adam, and I should have warned you Adam, that Sue enjoys being a
troublesome one. Giving her a kiss usually gets her back in line though.
Congrats on your win Sue.
It's hot over here in Auckland - just walking around brings me out in a
sweat. So far I've mostly been looking for a van to take me around NZ. I
should have one on Monday and have it kitted out as I want it by
Wednesday. Then it'll be off up to the Bay of Islands for a few days to
test out the van, back to Auckland if anything needs fixing on the van
then down as far south as you can go in the South Island to slowly head my
way back north for July. More news as I have it via the mailing list.
Meanwhile enjoy yourselves on Tue 6th March.
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