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The February 2004 Live Tric Trac Tourno at Ryan's Bar, London. I thought it was going to be a low turnout but that proved to just show that you never know how many will turn up on the evening. We were 11 players. We kicked off proper at about 7.00 p.m. with a lesson: How to play for a gammon. Sonia was the pupil and MMM was the teacher. Firstly I was very quick to throw the teacher bit around to all those present. So it became a sort of chouette - various players throwing in their ideas. It was generally agreed that the first tactic to employ is to play a blitz game and if this fails play a backgame. Also, much in the same way as in multiple point matches one should always consider the cube before every roll, when playing for a gammon one should always consider "What is my best move to make for a gammon?" before each move. This game had the lot - after just a very few moves nearly each and every move had some debate over it. Mick V had a view, Suzy and Tony had ideas, Richard arrived half way through and added his knowledge, Sue K chipped in her thoughts and Al Hogg found interest in this exercise and had his measured say too. My trouble was that they mostly sided with the pupil - what chance did I have? lol However this was not the issue - the idea was to learn how to play for gammons so I take some pride in this session because a gammon was won (by Sonia et al) so..... mission accomplished. We kicked off the TTT slightly late - it had been a long lesson - so I probably should have cranked the tempo up a little but we were not yet a full 11 players - only 9 with myself playing to boost the number of games to 36. 8 players only makes for 28 games - not quite enough to make for a really good evening of backgammon. Had I known that another 2 players would arrive to play over the first few minutes of play I'd had dropped out, but I'm not telepathic and I started to play. A Live TTT remains (upon MMM's discretion) open to new players until all player have finished their first TTT game. So our two new players were entitled to join in. But that would push us to 11 players and 55 games. And we were starting late. 55 games in 3 hours (including stopping for Thai dinner) is pushing it. Apart from that with 10 players present I as T.D. have that bit much extra to do and therefore less time for playing. I should have dropped out. So in future I'm going to say this: If there are only 8 player MMM will play, If a 9th player turns up I shall drop out (this means any games I have played become null and void) so as I can run the TTT better for all the players (who have after all paid 10 quid). The lesson must have worked as gammons were rife however the pace of play was slow. By 9.15 when the Thai dinners arrived the miniature bottles around the trophy were looking,,, not so numerous. Paul's pocket was jangling and Tony, who had been bought (with Suzy) along by Richard Biddle had a couple from an early backgammon. I was also keeping an expectant eye upon Richard, Al and Mick V for gammons and wasn't failed. Dinner didn't slow down the gammon rate and didn't increase the tempo either. There was some good well thought through play going on here this evening. Even so Paul played quickly, lost 2, straight won 4, gammoned 3 and backgammoned 1 to set the mark. The question became "Could anybody catch the Master?" Time waits for no man and I knew that we'd be late finishing. But players were into a groove now and there was little point in pushing up the tempo now. Gammons came on a plenty and miniatures were pocketed a plenty too. Until that is that the miniatures ran out. I owe a few players a bottle or two - please claim next time. Mick V came the closest to catching Paul, but Mick V, Sue K, Tony Al and Richard couldn't climb that high and it was Paul Lamford (aka gandp) who won yet another TTT he entered. Bravo Paul. Thank you to all those that played, a very warm welcome to our new players Tony and Suzy and hope to see you all next month - let's see if we can have a full fast playing 12 player TTT. You know the ropes of gammons now, just up the tempo. If one takes a look at those who regularly win at TTTs they are often the fast players. Get into that blitz or backgame mind set, play it quick and history says it works. |
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