On January 10th, 2026, 7 people came together to determine the 2025 Portland Metro Backgammon Club’s Men’s Champion. Well, 6 came together, then Paul showed up later, because he had a bye in the first round, having won two qualifiers.
Round 1, Jeremy C faced off against me, Kyle had to take his chances against Leah (who, reminder, is the 2025 Women’s Champion), and Cam had to battle it out against Larry. And I guess Paul had to challenge himself, in some dimension, as well – but he got through that ok. Anyway, in those pairings, the second player was the winner. Leah and I sat down to play our round 2 pairing; while Paul sat and waited for Cam and Larry to finish (they went to 6-6 DMP in the match to 7, really getting as much play as possible out of the match).
I won the first game on a relatively early double/pass. Second game, Leah had me in a rough spot and I unwisely took a cube that was also a pass, and paid dearly for it, losing a gammon to go down 1-4. Third game, the shoe was on the other foot, Leah taking a cube that was technically a “too good/pass”, although she managed to save the gammon. It turned into one of those crazy long games, where she hit a blot during my bearoff, and had to try to contain me from re-entering and running around the board – game had 55 moves before it was finally over. Fourth game, I doubled her from the bar, with two checkers on the bar actually. She took, and it did not go well for me. Soon enough, she redoubled, I took, and she went on to win the game, advancing to the finals!
Meanwhile, Larry and Paul were battling it out. I was too busy to watch their match, but it went Paul’s way in the end.
I did record Leah & Paul’s final, and I will get it up on YouTube eventually – took me a week to get around to doing this write-up, so I’m definitely behind on my work… 🙂
Anyway – first game, Paul won on a relatively early double/pass. Second game, Leah (attempting to recreate her match against me) offered a relatively early cube, which this time was not a double/pass, and so Paul took, and Leah won that to take a 2-1 lead. Third game, Paul came back, getting Leah to take a borderline cube and winning a single: 2-3 Leah-Paul. Game four, Leah got in another cube and won another single, regaining the lead 4-3. Game five, she did the same again, taking it to 6-3 Crawford! Paul, his back to the wall, rallied and took it to 6-4 Post-Crawford. Game seven, Paul won the opening roll, playing down and slot with his 5-1. Leah replied with a 5-2 and so was not able to hit the blot in her homeboard. Paul doubled, of course, and Leah took, of course. And then it was on – Paul playing a gammon-go, Leah a gammon-save game. Paul took an early lead, hitting one of Leah’s checkers to put 3 back into his home board. Leah replied with 1-1, making a four prime and putting Paul on the bar. A few rolls later, Paul got 5-5, letting him escape his back checker and setting him up to have an easy time getting the rest of his checkers home against Leah’s anchor on his 3-point. Leah managed to make Paul’s bar, adding difficulties to his bear-in. But a lucky 4-4 let Paul jump past his bar, and begin bearing off! Leah’s front structure was pretty good, however, and after getting only two checkers off, Paul was forced to leave a shot, which Leah hit! Paul entered soon enough, but was never able to jump back out, and Leah completed the close-out. Leah began her own bear-off, and had to clear both her 5 and 6 point in order to get to having two checker off herself. Paul entered with a 6-2, setting himself up to come back with a big double or two. But it was Leah who scored the next big double, taking four off with her 4-4! Paul limped along around the board, but by the time his last checker was home Leah’s lead was too great to overcome.
Congratulations to Leah, winner of both the 2025 Women’s Championship and 2025 Men’s Championship; and incidentally losing Player of the Year by a technicality – if we had managed to have this event in 2025 she would have had the trifecta! At least she took early lead on 2026 Player of the Year with this 3-0 event. And congratulations to Paul as well for a very well played match – his PR was a “World Class” 4.01 on regular XG settings, probably going down on ++.