Month: March 2023

It wasn’t quite as wet and rainy as I expected as I headed down for this month’s tournament. I was a bit worried about turnout because we had fewer RSVPs than usual, and a non-raining weekend day means lots of options for other activities. And of course, I hadn’t thought about spring break, which I think took a few people out of their regular routines.

We had 3 people turn up for the pre-tournament lesson, which was nice  – often I have had no people turn up for that. One of them even stayed for the tournament, and did pretty well!

Ultimately, there was a fair turnout for the backgammon tournament – 16 players, which made for an easy two-bracket event. To be honest, it got a little confusing, because as I started things off we only had 14, and so I was going to have the “A” bracket play 5 point matches, since I knew everyone in there was capable of playing a bit faster than average; but a couple of stragglers came in and joined, which led to it being a mix of 3 and 5 point matches (and then one pair in the “B” bracket heard me say 5, and played a 5, which meant they took twice as long as everyone else in the “B” bracket…) Tournament directing – it ain’t always easy!

In the “A” bracket, I started off against Bodger, Dave played Ed, Jeremy played Tim, and Sande played Matt. Dave romped on to ultimately take first place, with Jeremy taking second. Bodger and I had a rematch in the final of the consolation, where I managed to squeak out a win.

In the “B” bracket, Cam played Richard, Ryan played Sheila, Kyle played Greg, and Mark A played Rick. Mark went on to win the bracket, with Kyle taking second, and Richard won the consolation.

Jeremy, Dave, and I stayed to play a chouette for a while post tournament, where Dave won yet more. As I left, Bodger and Kyle were playing an extra match, and Sande and Richard were enjoying a drink. All in all, it was a fun afternoon.

-Mark

 

We had a fine turnout for the first Women’s/Men’s Championship tournament. 18 players came out, 5 women and 13 men. That, unfortunately, makes for two uneven brackets, and so the gender distinctions (which are, as noted in the announcement, a social construct) began breaking down immediately. Molly and Pete had come down from Seattle for the event, and Molly agreed that, for the purposes of the event, she was man enough. So we proceeded with a 4-person and a 14-person bracket.

In the Women’s event, we had two newcomers (Liz & Jackie), and two seasoned pros (Sande & Leah). Fortunately, the draw did not put the newcomers head-to-head, and so the pros were able to help explain the ropes of tournament play. Evidently Sande is better at explaining than Leah, because Sande’s opponent, Liz, was able to advance to the next round. Leah beat out Jackie in round 1, but fun was still had by all. In the championship round, Leah triumphed again, making her the front runner for the championship match in December! But Liz seemed like she held her own, and she is also qualified for the December championship match. It should be noted that Ceci did show up for the tournament as well, although she had misjudged traffic, and so arrived well after the start of the event. We discussed having her play in somehow, but she was content to just play some pick-up games with Jackie after the first round ended. After all, there are three more Satellites to come, so plenty of time to get into the championship later.

In the Men’s event, round one had Tim beating out Dave, Molly defeating newcomer Dan, Chris over Pete, Bodger over Ed, Jesse over Paul, Kyle over Clay, and I beat out Rick. Matches lasted between about 30 minutes and over an hour, which made tournament flow a little uneven. We may have to enforce the use of clocks next time to prevent things from running quite so long. Everyone really appreciated the longer match length, however. Dave and I played some heads up while waiting for the next round, and I think that consoled him since he beat me up by 18 games in about 30 minutes… Anyway, after a bit, for the quarterfinals, we had Molly playing Chris and Kyle playing me. By this point, Leah had finished winning the Women’s, and she and Chris were dramatically overdue for a couple of other things they had planned for the weekend. Kyle finished me off in a very timely manner, and so we got to watch much of the other game. After a drawn out battle, Molly eventually came out on top, putting her and Kyle into the final. But by that point, it was like 5:30, and the place was a zoo as the staff prepared for their “Worst Day of the Year” bike ride event the next day. Kyle and Molly agreed to just chop the prize money and both get a spot in the Men’s championship event for December!

The next satellite event is scheduled for June 6th, although I have not yet sent the announcement about it. Hope to see most of you there again then!

-Mark