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