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Ryan's Bar, Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 Wednesday 7th April 2004. North London's new Backgammon Club was not operating this week because of Champions League Football and a Home Darts Match at their regular venue the Nicholas Nickleby in Ferme Park Road, Stroud Green, London N4. so I invited them to come and play whatever backgammon they wished at Ryan's Bar. We had 18 Backgammoners - a record for an event held at Ryan's. We started the evening at 6.30 p.m. with a workshop for Tric Trac Tourno play. Cyril (who has played only a few games of backgammon) had come along with now regulars Tony O and Suzy. The workshop took the form of a doubles TTT match between MMM & Cyril versus Tony O & Suzy. As other players arrived (Stan then Zoe then Ann then Vicky) they joined in on one side or the other to make it into a sort of Quadruple each side Chouette. This might sound complicated but it does work very well with all players (some asking to change side as their position looked hopeless!) having a chance to voice their opinion. At 7.30 Players were asked if they wanted to play in a TTT or a Knockout. After a while (some hands didn't go up at all!) 8 Players wanted Knockout so they peeled off and decided that they would in fact play 5 point Crawford matches in 2 Round Robins of 4 Players each with the 2 top Players going into a Final. Should there be more than 1 Player in each Round Robin on equal high points they would play another Mini Round Robin of 1 pointers to decide the Finalist. Entry fee was agreed at £10 with the Prize Fund being split at 70% to the Winner and 30% to the Finalist. Meanwhile the 9 other present Players paid their entry fee (£10) to the Tric Trac Tourno and selected their Thai dinners (included). Before all 1st matches were completed they were joined by a 10th Player - not been seen for a while in North London but regular Ealing Player Viviana. With 10 TTT Players and 8 Round Robin Players I considered for about 2 seconds if I should play this evening as well and (quite rightly) decided I would have plenty to do as it was. This gave me a chance to go round to the Round Robin Players and ask if they too would like to eat. Most did and an order of 16 meals went upstairs to be served at 9.00 - 9.15. Meanwhile Prawn Crackers were served to keep Players going. In the TTT it was Alexis who got off to the storming start but by match 11 (of 45) we had no less than 6 gammons won. I checked - yes, this month I had bought along enough miniature bottles (players win a miniature for a gammon, 2 for a backgammon). In the Round Robin Dan saw off Zoe in a match time that mirrored a TTT match length time by gammoning her on a 4 cube. Paul W. took slightly longer to see of Sharon's challenge, Ann took her time to beat Vicky and the Andy K. v Sean W. match took longer with Andy coming away as the winner. At the other end of the room in the TTT Viviana was not doing well and lost her first 5 matches. I did however point out that if she lost her remaining 4 matches she would win a bag of marbles. Cyril, having been instructed in the workshop to check out all his available moves before deciding which he should make, was taking his time and falling behind in games played. I didn't overly mind this - his slowness should serve him well in the long-run - but I was mindful that 1 slow player can make a TTT drag for others. 9.00 p.m. came 9.00 p.m went, 9.15 came and 9.15 went and I went upstairs to find out how our 16 meals were progressing. Ryan's was unusually full and everybody seemed to be eating or had knives and forks poised ready to eat. As an ex-caterer I'm very aware that it is tempting for a kitchen to bang out orders of 2 or 4 meals and leave the group order to last. And, yup, this was exactly was was going on. The new Thai girls' English didn't seem to extend to much more than "yes, coming, so sorry, coming, coming" and to be fair she really was in the lap of the hidden away chef so there was little that could be done to hurry along our order. Meanwhile Round 2 matches of the Round Robin were played and most TTT players carried on and got up to about 6 of their 9 matches played. New TTT player Justin W. was getting into the swing of TTT play, Alexis won a backgammon and was certainly looking the favourite, little Suzy was doing well tonight, Stan was middling, Mick V, John B and Al were not having a vintage TTT, Viviana blew her chances of a bag of marbles by winning a backgammon and Cyril beat current top average player Alexis. All play came to a halt at 9.45 or so (probably more of the or so to be honest) and dinners arrived. The good thing about Thai food is that it is worth waiting for and this is one of the big reasons I like using Ryan's as a venue. Dinner over and it was back to business. In the Round Robins Dan was on 2 out of 3 in A and Andy K and Paul W were on 2 out of 3 in B. If Dan could beat Ann he would go though to the Final and avoid a 1 point match play-off. This did render the Zoe versus Vicky match of no real value other than playing for pride. They expressed their disappointment in this and suggested that maybe an 8 player Knockout with Consolation might have been a better format. They are of course entitled to their opinion but I did point out that this format did at least give them 3 matches as opposed to 2. They sure made full use of this and took their match all the way to DMP. Meanwhile in B the Andy K. versus Paul W. match also took a long time, Sean W. beat Sharon leaving Sean with 1 out of 3 and Sharon licking her wounds (sorry no marbles for 100% non-winners in this tournament). Back in A Dan did beat Ann leaving him in the Final and over in B Andy K. managed to win over Paul W. Results in the TTT carried on coming in and I updated scores as they happened. Players were now consulting the chart before their every next match. Things at the top got really interesting when Justin W. backgammoned the 2002 European Finalist Al Hogg. I didn't see the match but Dan did and he had what must be termed as a right good giggle over it at Al's expense. I asked Al about it but he didn't want to talk about it. John B, Mick V. and Stan (all tried, tested and past winner TTT Players) were not on form this evening and it became clear that it was going to be between Alexis, Justin W. and Suzy this evening. Cyril had notched up another win but it was what other Players could win against him that was becoming the key. Of our 3 title contenders it was Justin W. who finished first on 11.5 points. Alexis needed to gammon Suzy to force a Play-off with Justin but in Alexis's attempt to do so she lost by a straight loss to Suzy and ended on 11.0 points. Justin now had to wait and see if Suzy could backgammon Tony O. Suzy and Tony O are partners, play each other a lot and it is usually Tony who comes out the victor. Down the other end of the room the 5 pointer Final of the Round Robin was under way. I'm not sure what the match score was or what happened in the match but it was Andy K. who stood up the straighter of the two at the end of that match and Dan who gracefully accepted defeat. Back in the TTT in the Suzy versus Tony O match Suzy was looking good - she got 5 or 6 of Tony's checkers back in her Home Quarter and was bearing off nicely. But then disaster struck - she was forced to leave a blot, Tony hit, closed out his Home Board thus saving the backgammon and gammon but it was Suzy who won the match. Justin W. in his first ever TTT, was victorious and was awarded with the TTT trophy. Congrats. So how did it all go having two tournaments running at the same time? Very well indeed I think. Players had the option of 5 pointer play or TTT play, the inter-reaction between the two types of play was terrific as Players maintained an interest in what was going on in the other tournament, the workshop worked well and there was even a late Chouette played. We had enough tables and even though dinners were later than would have been nice nobody seemed overly upset by this. I don't intend running TTTs more than once per month but anytime that the Nicholas Nickelby cannot happen I'm more than happy for them to join us at Ryan's. Meanwhile if you would like to join the Nicholas Nickelby Mailing List please click here and if you would like to join the Live TTT Mailing List please click here. The next Live Backgammon Event that I will be organising is the Mind Sports Olympiad Cambridge 2004 Backgammon 
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