Portland/Vancouver Backgammon

We had a really nice turnout for our first official tournament of 2025 — 22 players! There were a good number of new players as well — 5 first time participants, including a posse of ringers but I’ll get to that…

The day started a little frantically for me – Howard and I were playing a couple of money games to warm up, but as the second game progressed, people were arriving, so each roll was separated by a minute of taking money, making change, verifying skill level for the newcomers, taking pre-payment for the upcoming BMAB in a few cases… I ended up having to go back and check on a couple of different registrations technically after the draw was done because it got to be an overload. Plus, the minute I finished the draw, one new person arrived, I got a request to add the side pool, and I realized I had left one person out entirely. After some last minute juggling, we got it going across 3 brackets — 2 full 8-person ones and 1 6-person one.

In the “A” bracket (made up entirely of people who entered at least one side pool this month), round 1 showed Tim E over Larry D, Howard over Dave C, Dave R (one of the newcomers) over me, and Bodger over Nathan. Dave R was teasing about it being a pain playing the director, since we got interrupted fairly regularly through the match. He, Ben, and Jim were 3 of the first-timers, and have been playing a running chouette for some time, but just learned about our group. Anyway – turns out he’s a decent player — he went on from beating me to winning the bracket, putting Bodger in 2nd. I managed to fight my way back to win in the consolation bracket, defeating Howard through sheer good luck in spite of at least one monster blunder.

In the “B” bracket, round 1 had Ben (see above) over Mark A, Jim (see above) over Mark H (yes, we had 3 Marks at the tournament), newcomer Alicia over Joel (in part thanks to his effective coaching on how to use the doubling cube, it should be noted), and Stan over first-timer Tim Y (who did come to observe at the Championship last week, but first-time playing). Ben and Jim went on to play for 1st/2nd, with Jim taking the top spot. So the 3 ringers who have been playing a $2 chouette just waltzed in and cashed in everything their first tournament… we’ll probably see them all again. Mark A came back to win in the consolation over Mark H (so all 3 Marks were in consolation matches…)

In the “C” bracket, round 1 had Leah over Ed, Mary over Julie, and Rich (not first-timer, but first time in over a year) over Matt. Rich got the second round bye, and Leah won over him in the final (starting out the year undefeated, again). Ed came back to win the consolation bracket over Matt.

I did record my matches, and might get them up onto YouTube eventually – if you didn’t know I have been posting there for a while, it’s perhaps not as inspirational as watching Mochy’s videos, but it’s more entertaining because I make more mistakes. Check them out…

Dave C and I were having some back and forth about how “Player of the Year” is determined. I still haven’t fully worked out how I want to handle it this year, but the rough idea is close to what I did back in 2021 (when Bodger won it) versus the “wins-losses” formula that I’ve used since (when Dave D won it 3 times in a row). The problem with the “wins-losses” formula is that it is really biased towards whoever is crazy enough to show up for the almost every event (that is, Dave C (and to be fair, Tim E, Bodger, Julie, Joel, and Ed)). Last year, we had 87 people come to at least one tournament, but only 23 people who came to three or more. I still want the field limited to people who come pretty regularly, but whatever that threshold works out to be for 2025, PotY will go to whoever has the best win percentage. Right now we have a 22-way tie for participation and a 3-way tie for win percentage, so it’s a pretty tight race…

By the way, keep an eye out for a likely last minute, “Super Bowl” weekend event. With the Texas Backgammon Championship tragically cancelled for this year, a number of us are grumpy about not getting to lose significant amounts of money on Backgammon, so I’m working on a “high roller/low roller” event.

-Mark

We had a fun afternoon of backgammon yesterday at the 2024 Women’s Championship/2024 Men’s Championship event – here’s the blow-by-blow:

In the Women’s Championship, we unfortunately had a low turnout. Julie reached out ahead of time to let me know that a last minute homeowner’s issue was going to prevent her from making it. I don’t know what happened with Paola or Nicki, but neither of them showed either. So, it was a 3-player field. In round 1, Andrea faced off against Kashic. They had a drawn-out match, over two hours long, mostly single point wins, and going down to the wire. Ultimately, Kashic came out on top, and after a short break, sat down to face Leah in the final (Leah, of course, had a first-round bye from winning two of the qualifiers…)

And it was another drawn-out match, well over two hours again, with mostly single point wins. I was able to come spectate for the last few games, as everything else had wrapped by then. Trailing 4-5 in the match to 7, Kashic offered Leah a cube in a complex mid-game position. Leah (I strongly believe correctly) took, and came damn close to turning it around. With 3 of Kashic’s checkers on Leah’s bar point, and the rest brought in, Leah broke anchor off Kashic’s 3-point with a 64, 22/18 22/16. But Kashic replied with a 65, and hit, 18/7*! Leah re-entered quickly, somehow escaping to her mid-point; then Kashic hit again with a 63, 18/9*! It looked like game over, but Leah saved the gammon with 66 and they moved on to the Crawford game. 

Crawford game was Leah’s going away – she was playing very well, and had Kashic on the bar with a closed board. With just a single checker on the roof, the gammon was unlikely, but Kashic had a difficult time entering! Leah had cleared 3 points before Kashic could come in, and it was looking like Leah would get the upset gammon to win the match, when Kashic hit 66 to save it!

Now tied at 6-6, they began the DMP game to decide it all. Once again, the game looked like it was Leah’s going away. Kashic’s board was crunching with two checkers still trapped back on Leah’s 4 point, and Leah had a substantial racing lead as she brought her final checkers around. But then Kashic rolled 66 to escape the back checkers, followed by 33 and 55 on their next two rolls, while Leah was throwing small numbers. Suddenly Kashic had the advantage, with most of their checkers on the 1-4 point, a gap on the 5, and a small stack on the 6, while Leah had a nice even spread across her board. It was all up to the dice at this point, but Kashic kept rolling big and Leah kept rolling small. Nothing you can do at that point – congratulations to Kashic for winning the 2024 Women’s Championship!

In the Men’s Championship, we did also have some absentee-ism. Somewhat as predicted, Aggi did NOT fly in from Hawaii to play. The draw would have set him against Paul, so Paul ended up with the first round bye. Dave and Bodger faced off, as did Joel and Gary. Both Dave and Joel won those matches. In round 2, Dave faced off against Paul, and Joel sat down against Tim (who, of course, had a first-round bye from winning two of the qualifiers…) Dave and Paul were at the table next to me, so I was able to watch the score going up as they played, and Dave came out on top! Meanwhile, Tim squeaked out a victory over Joel, and so Tim and Dave went on to play the final! Ultimately, Dave came out on top, and so congratulations to Dave for winning the 2024 Men’s Championship AND 2024 Player of the Year!

Additionally, we did have a handful of players who had not qualified show up for the knock-out jackpots – plus Bodger joined in after his first-round loss. Congrats to Kyle, Steve H, and Bodger for winning one each of those.

First regular tournament of 2025 is coming up in just a week – see you there!

-Mark

We had a great turnout for today’s event – 23 players. When I was setting out to do the draw, there were 21, and so I pressed Nicki (Howard’s daughter) into playing so that we would have an even number. 8 minutes later, the 23rd player arrived, just as I was finishing the draw. But a 7 person bracket pays better than a 6 person bracket, so no harm done.

There were 8 players who took at least 1 side pool, so we had a full “A” bracket. In round 1, Tim beat me (lucky bastard), Larry beat newcomer Brandon (who I then played in consolation, very good player), Howard took out Ed, and Bodger defeated Dave. Howard went on to win the bracket over Tim, with Larry winning the consolation.

In the “B” bracket, Mary won in the first round against Julie, Nicki took out newcomer Celia (who was there with Stephen as part of his birthday celebration), Mark A beat Nathan, and Leah defeated Brian. In the end, Mark A triumphed over Mary in the final, with Celia coming back to win the consolation.

In the “C” bracket, round 1 had Joel winning over Stan, Stephen (the newcomer and birthday boy) beating out Steve (returning after an extended medical leave), and Jeremy (like me, fresh back from Miami) over newcomer Mark H. Matt got there late, and got the bye. In the end, Jeremy won over Joel, with Steve taking the consolation in a rematch against Stephen.

Many questions were asked about when the next event would be, and I promise to get an update about that out soon.

WordPress is giving me issues with adding pictures, so I won’t show you the position from my match against Brandon where I ought to have doubled (and he ought to have passed), but instead I played on. Worked out for somebody… 

-Mark

I spent last weekend across the country, at the inaugural Miami Open backgammon tournament. Jeremy (who appears to be going to every ABT event, anywhere) was also there; but Paul (who could have turned it into a combo family reunion) was not. Anyway – this was by far the largest backgammon tournament that I have ever attended, with well over 200 players. That was quite amazing.

There were a few other things that made this different from other ABT events as well. The director was Arda, who runs most of the biggest tournaments in Europe, including the Monte Carlo World Championship, and we used his rules (no dice on checkers, “responsible moves” instead of “legal moves” (aka you do not have to tell your opponent if they play illegally in a way that benefits you)) instead of the standard USBGF rules. Also, for some reason, they were not using the USBGF OTS to manage, so no automatic text messages when your opponent was set, etc.

Given the size of the event, and the fact that it was the organizer’s first ABT, there were significant hiccups getting things started. Jen came with me for this one, on grounds that Miami would be a nicer destination than most ABT events, and we took a red-eye flight, landing Thursday morning. The last entry time for the jackpot was supposed to be 11:00, but it took until closer to 1:00 for me to get registered and into the drawing. Friday morning, with the start of the ABT, was a repeat of the day before. Round 1 did start sort of on time, around 11:00, but they were supposed to have rebuys playing by 1:00 and they did not get them started until after 3:00, which set everything back by hours. I won my first round (against Tommy Tallarico, winner of the Intermediate in Monte Carlo and eventual winner of the Miami Intermediate as well, meaning I gave him his only defeat of the weekend…), and so ended up waiting until 7:00 for round 2. In a case of “ice the kicker”, I then lost two in a row, dropping myself into the Last Chance, which did not start until Sunday.

Saturday we went and did some tourist stuff, although I did go back in late afternoon/early evening and get a couple of matches in (losing both). Jeremy was waiting around for his first round opponent in the Juniors event, which had a cut-off of 55. At some point, the director made a call for anyone who wanted to take the spot of Jeremy’s opponent (whose no-show was holding up the whole bracket), and no-one accepted. She then asked if anyone who was 56 wanted it, and I jumped up. Yes, she checked my ID. There were a bunch of jokes about getting fake IDs for the purpose of BG tournaments. Anyway, Jeremy smoked me in that match, and I gave up for the day.

Sunday, I did have a good run in the Last Chance. I won up until the semi-final, when I once again got hit by “ice the kicker” – there was an hour and half delay between my next-to-last and last match, because they had told my opponent that it didn’t have to start until 4:00, and no-one had his contact info. But, we hedged, and so I got at least part of my entry fees back.

 

Overall, no regrets – Miami was a beautiful spot to visit in November, and I am counting this as my first “international” tournament. 🙂

We had a mixed turnout for the 4th and final 2024 Backgammon Championship Qualifier — 11 men came out for the Men’s division, and (initially) 0 women came out for the Women’s. Part of the idea behind these events was and is to encourage more women’s participation in competitive backgammon, and so I was a little disappointed in that. But, I reached out to Kashic and let her know that if she stopped by, that she would place into the Championship by default, and she hoofed it over as quickly as possible. And then by chance Nicki was dropping off her father for the Men’s event, and I asked her if she also wanted to win by default. So we will, at least, put out a full field in the Women’s 2024 Championship.

In the Men’s, with an odd number of players, I had a first round bye and a third round bye – Howard got the first round one and Dave got the third round one. Among the matches that got played, here’s what went down:

Round one had Paul (looking to defend his 2023 title) against Joel (looking to get a bye since he already had a spot), Andres against Gary (also looking to get a bye), Dave (not content with his near lock on Player of the Year) against Larry, Bryan (second event in a row!) against Mark A, and me against Phillip (first event in like 2 years!). In each pairing, the first player listed won. By weird coincidence that is actually the order that everyone is listed on the scoresheet… Anyway, flush with my success in round 1, I immediately crashed and burned in round 2. Round 3 had Howard against Paul, in a closely fought and much watched match – Paul took the lead early, and Howard almost came back; but in the end Paul and Dave sat down to finish the bracket off. I left around this time, but it was reliably reported to me that it was a wild match with a lot of back and forth, getting to DMP and coming down to a few crazy swings in that game. Congrats to Paul on the win and to Dave on getting into the Championship.

Here’s a fun position that came up in my first game of the day. Score is 0-0 in a match to 7, and I am thinking about cubing from the bar!

It’s always fun to cube from the bar, but it’s not always right. Running the position through XG++ came up with it as a No Double — by -0.001. Roll-out says it is a double, though. In other words, it’s darn close on whether it was right or not from the bot’s perspective, but that makes it a slam dunk genius fun double from the human perspective. It is, of course, an easy take, and in fact my photo of the position has a blur of Phillip’s hand snatching it up. It did end up working out for me, too.

Anyway, the 2024 Championships are being scheduled – I have already heard back from 5 people with their availability, and will get it on the calendar once I hear from the rest. The players are:

For the Women’s Championship: Julie (with a bye in round 1), Paola, Leah (with a bye in round 1), Andrea, Kashic, and Nicki.

For the Men’s Championship: Bodger, Tim (with a bye in round 1), Gary, Joel, Aggi (will he fly back from Hawaii for this? time will tell), Paul, and Dave.

As with last year, there will be a concurrent non-Championship event, so it should be a good time. Look for the event to appear on meetup sooner than later!

-Mark

We had a good turnout for this month’s regular tournament – 19 players converged on the Lucky Lab for an afternoon of backgammon. 

I ended up splitting the group into 3 brackets – originally 6 each, but I did put the straggler into the “C” bracket with a first round bye, so that’s how it rolled. 

In the “A” bracket, a/k/a the bracket where most people put up for at least one side pool, in round 1, Mark A won over Ed, Dave beat out Bodger, and I won over Larry D. Mark and I ended up playing for first, leading to some joking about “may the best Mark win”. Whether that happened or not is arguable. Larry ended up winning the consolation bracket.

In the “B” bracket, in round 1, Nathan beat Matt H, Mary won over Francesca, and Kyle got past Julie. Kyle ended up winning the bracket, with Mary (who says she hasn’t played since the Denver ABT, that is the 2022 one…) coming in second. Francesca won the consolation bracket, not bad for only her second tournament…

In the “C” bracket, round 1, Tim won over Brian (back for the first time in a year+), Joel beat newcomer Matt S, and (in an unfortunate chance of the draw), newcomer couple Sue and Larry G were pitted against one another. In the end, Joel won the bracket over Tim, with Brian taking the consolation bracket.

I recorded my matches, but I have not transcribed them yet- I’m saving that for Tuesday night, so I have something to do at a time when, as I understand it, nothing else is going on. I might be misinformed on that. Fingers crossed, we’ll get through that and get to all play together again soon – maybe at the final Women’s & Men’s Championship Qualifier, coming up on the 17th. We’ve been getting around 18 players per Qualifier all year, and I expect this one to be about the same – should be exciting!

-Mark

We had 6 players from the Portland Metro Backgammon Club attend the Wild West Shootout in Denver, Colorado this year – the most Portland representation at an ABT event ever, I believe. In addition to myself, people attending included Paul Swain, Dave Cohen, Jeremy Krieger, Bodger Millerd, and Leah Nash. 

People arrived on different days, and most everyone was there before me. On Wednesday, Paul took part in the BMAB event, placing 7th on PR, a decent showing. Paul and Bodger both also took part in the Early Shootout.

On Thursday, Leah got her first ABT experience in the Annie Oakley Shootout, getting a couple of matches under her belt. 

Friday is when I got in. After an early flight, I grabbed lunch at the airport and was getting the text message for my first round opponent in the Gunslinger Jackpot as the Lyft pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. I went straight to the playing room, and lost my first round match against Sabine, who went on to win 2nd in that event. After that, I got checked in, and then Leah and I signed up for Doubles. We did pretty well, making it to the round before cashing, and hedging at that point so we got our entry fees back. Our opponents recorded the match, and we did actually outplay them, but that’s backgammon for you.

Paul and Jeremy played in the Bison Jackpot, and Bodger and Dave were also in the Gunslinger. Leah played in the Warriors Jackpot, so we had the full field covered. Most people made it further than me, but this ended up being Paul’s best event of the weekend – he ultimately took 2nd in the Bison Jackpot, facing off against Brandon Macklin, who came in 2nd in the World Championships earlier this year. Well done, Paul!

Saturday the main events started, with Paul and Jeremy covering the Bison, Dave, Bodger, and I covering the Gunslinger, and Leah in the Warriors. Round 1 saw Paul knocked down to the 2nd bracket level, but everyone else still undefeated. Round 2 saw Dave and Bodger take their first losses, and then they were pitted against one another in the Main Fighter’s bracket. I was having incredible luck – in two different matches I won a doubled backgammon for 6 points (in a race to 9). At the end of the day, both Leah and I were still undefeated in our brackets, meaning we were guaranteed at least cash!

Sunday, I was a bit of a wreak. Sleep deprived and over caffeinated, I played a few 5-point Blitz matches, losing all of them. Eventually, I decided I needed to not be playing for a while. I watched the stream of Paul’s final in the Bison JP and periodically wandered back to the playing room to watch the score on Leah’s final. She was playing Mary, who we had faced off against in the Doubles Thursday night, so at least a known quantity. I know it makes her nervous to have people watching, so I didn’t want to join the small crowd hovering around that one. 

Finally, the Fighter’s bracket resolved and I got to face my opponent – Ron Bruns. I’ve played Ron a half-dozen times at different events, and so I knew his style, which helped settle my nerves. While I was about half-way through the match (there was a lot of back and forth), both Paul and Leah were wrapping up. Leah ended up taking 2nd, which is a great showing for her first ABT event! Congratulations, Leah!

And in the end, I did pull off the win. I was, of course, recording the match, and Ben (the tournament co-director) had asked me to promise to post it to YouTube, which I said of course. But sadly, the camera died somewhere about 70% of the way through the match! I have no record at all of the last 3 games. Very frustrating. What I did have recorded was some damn sloppy backgammon play – both Ron and I were running on fumes at that point. 

Still, a win is a win, and I am pleased – not just with how I did, but with how the club overall did. It was great to see the mutual support throughout, and I think we really made an impression on the other attendees as Portland having a strong club. 

Dan, the Denver producer/co-director, will be coming to Portland in March for our BMAB event, and so stay tuned for more information on that!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention – Jeremy ended up winning the After Tourney. So between the 6 of us, we took home cash in 4 events – plus Paul and I happened to pick up the Bison winner in the Calcutta. Dave has expressed his regrets about not getting an equity swap set up. But at least he got paid out on his Calcutta buy-back due to my win. You’re welcome, Dave. 🙂

-Mark

We had a great turnout for today’s monthly backgammon tournament – 16 players came out on a sunny and gorgeous first day of fall. People were split between indoors and the patio all day, and although I was inside I think the folks on the patio had the right idea.

In the “A” bracket, first round had Dave over Mark A, Larry over Leah (breaking her undefeated streak for the year, aww…), Cam over Kyle, and me over Bodger. In the final, Cam beat me down in 2 games – winning a single (that he could have cubed me out of much earlier than he actually did) followed by a doubled gammon win. Larry fought through to win the Consolation bracket, although somewhat by default, since Dave had to leave for another obligations and so conceded the bracket. Drinks on Larry next time!

In the “B” bracket, first round had Nathan over Stephanie (back after some years hiatus, and raring to go!), Joel over Ceci, Ed over newcomer Francesca, and Brian (back after some years hiatus, and tentatively committed to not waiting that long until the next one) over newcomer Dave G (who drove up from southern Oregon, winning the “longest commute” prize). In the final, Joel ended up winning over Brian. Nathan and Stephanie had a rematch in the final of the consolation, with (alas for Stephanie!) the same result.

There was a lot of excitement and discussion about the rapidly approaching Denver Open – at this point I believe 7 Portland based players will be in attendance, the biggest showing from our club at an ABT event ever! I am looking forward to it, for sure. To add to the excitement, I’m considering counting any head-to-head Portland matches from there towards the Player of the Year contest. Speaking of which, yes, Dave still has that almost on lock – he currently has a record of 28 wins/16 loses (I did not count the forfeit in the consolation today), giving him an impressive net 12 wins. Leah is still not far behind, with 11 wins/2 loses for a net 9, and Cam is right behind her with 12 wins/5 loses for a net 7. If Dave pulls off the three-peat, next year might have an exclusion clause added to the contest, or add a “Player of the Year Who Isn’t Dave” trophy as well…

It was a lovely afternoon of play, and I hope to see everyone back for our next tournament in a mere 2 weeks – for the rest of the year, the tournament is the FIRST Sunday of the month to avoid conflicts with any holidays.

We had a good turnout for the third championship qualifier – 15 people turned out for a long afternoon of backgammon.

As usual, Dave was there early, and we played  a short match ‘for his entry fee’, which he won. That one, sadly for Dave, does not count towards the Player of the Year competition, because it was the only match he won that day.

In the Men’s bracket, Tim was playing flawlessly, in spite of having eye troubles – he has a detached retina, which apparently prevented him from seeing bad moves. But when it came to the finals, Tim had to give way to Aggi, who – drumroll – is from Hawaii and is perhaps unlikely to make it back for the actual Championship. Aggi was in town visiting his son, Tyson, who hasn’t been to a meetup in a while but made a respectable showing himself at this event.

In the Women’s bracket, Leah extended her undefeated streak for the year, beating Andrea in the final, but nonetheless securing Andrea a spot in the Championship for the second year in a row.

So if you’re tracking this from home, in the Women’s, we currently have Julie and Leah, both with a first-round bye, and Andrea and Paola qualified, with 2 spots left to go. In the Men’s, we currently have Tim with a first-round bye, Joel and Bodger, and Aggi (from Hawaii) and Gary (did not leave his contact info). So on the Men’s side, I think I actually only have 4 spots filled. I do not know how I am going to handle that – who knows, maybe both Aggi and Gary will show for it… Time will tell!

I have been lazy with doing the tournament results the past few months – several people have asked me about that over the ToP. But to make up for it, here is a full summer recap for you all.

ToP #1 was a modest event – 7 people showed up at the Victoria. That was not quite enough to run 2 brackets, but somehow Dave and Steve finished their first round match in under 5 minutes, and so I had a re-buy to make two full brackets, which were won by Cam and Bodger. It was slightly too hot out that day, one of the other people visiting the bar had a dog who was laying out like it was being baked, which was an exaggeration to be sure. So not the strongest start to the Tour, but not terrible.

ToP #2 was more well attended – 8 whole players. This one was at a new place, the Hilt, which was a good location for it. Three additional people showed up but did not get into the tournament – a couple of guys who ended up playing casual against one another, and one latecomer who I played some heads up after crapping out early. Mark A and Joel won the two brackets for this one.

ToP #3 was the low point of the tour. Hinterland was nice enough, but the patio portion was very crowded, and it was legit HOT. Like, hot enough that Dave was complaining about the heat. We ended up playing a single bracket, in the small indoor (and air conditioned) space they had available. But this one did mark the return of Kyle to the playing field, which was great. Dave won the bracket. Leah showed up late, and a chouette broke out, so it was a fairly full afternoon of play.

ToP #4 was a smashing success. The Zipper is a good location, we’ll definitely have it on the Tour again next summer. 13 people came out for this one, and we managed 5 and 1/2 brackets (Jeremy & Dave played the half bracket, that is, a single heads up match, which Jeremy won). The full 5 brackets were won by Dave, Gary, me, Cam, and Tim. Aside from some arguments about whether the fried chicken sandwich could be beat by other places in town, it was a very congenial afternoon and a lot of fun.

ToP #5 was a return to APEX, which I slightly regretted – the extra travel time and the relatively scarce parking had me grousing about not doing it there again. And we won’t – turns out they are closing shop at the end of the month! I regret my churlish attitude. The event started out with shade being at a premium, and ended with a short cloudburst making us think better of starting a chouette. But it was another very well attended event – 13 players again, with 5 full brackets, which were won by Kyle, Steve, Jeremy, Dave, and Nick.

Here’s a position which came up in my match against Paul (in what looks like his first tournament appearance of 2024? Paul, were you not at the Portlandia at least? Oh right, Chicago…) – we played a one game match, which, naturally, means the cube decisions were important (which, naturally, they usually are). First position that I took a picture of was here, where Paul (having taken my cube fairly early in the game) had definitely turned things around, and offered to keep playing as long as it was for 4 points:

So I’m on the bar, he’s about to either make another point or flood the outfield with checkers so that I will have a hard time bringing the straggler home. But – that’s all I have to do, is bring a straggler off the bar and around. It’s a really big double. Is the take correct? I honestly don’t know. XG says it is a pass, GnuBG and BGBlitz say it is a take, even on roll-out for all three bots. XG sees a lot more gammon losses for me than the other two (17.4/15.7/12.9% respectively), they more closely agree on the win percentages (74.2/72/70% respectively). So if I was playing XG, I should definitely drop. But I was playing Paul (which is close to the same thing but friendlier), so I took. Which is a blunder against XG on roll-out.

From there, things just got silly, the way single checkers trying to move around the board can do. Paul ended up volunteering a shot bearing in, trying to prevent me getting out and correctly realizing he’d have no trouble re-entering if hit. But he was hit, then I was, then he was, and when the dust settled, we got to this position, where I had to stop and consider raising the cube to 8:

One way to think about this one is, what rolls leave me too good? Double 6 and 5 get me all the way in the clear, which is a lot to hope for. Double 4 is blocked, as is double 2 (partially). Double 3 and double 1 both are improvements. Then there’s just a lot of numbers that leave me in my outfield, dodging a single shot to be winning. I went for it, raising the cube to 8. Turns out this was the moment – very close double, huge take. I proceeded to roll a 21, Paul somehow missed it, I came around, he missed me again, and I pulled off the win. Short match, but exciting!

For the rest of the year, we’re moving back to Lucky Lab, starting with the Championship Qualifier #3 on September 14th – hope to see you there!

-Mark