Month: April 2026

We had a fair showing for this month’s tournament – 10 players. Given the nice weather, I was not surprised that many people found something else to do. But, that was plenty for a good day of backgammon action.

Now I could have split the group into 2 brackets, of the 6 people who entered at least one side pool and the 4 people who didn’t; but we gave it a try putting us all into one bracket. And as a result, the event went on until 4:30 and the last match was never played. So, lesson learned – I break it into (at most) 8 person brackets to prevent the day running longer than people want to hang around, and that is, in fact, reasonable. Still, fair to test your assumptions once in a while.

With 10 players and a 16 person bracket, there are a lot of byes. So Mark A, Jeremy, Tim, and myself were the unlucky 4 who got anti-byes and would need to play and win 4 games to win the tournament. And, as it turned out, one of us did!

Round 1, Jeremy beat out Mark A, and Tim came from behind to beat me. Round 2, which is where everyone else started, Steve won over Karen, Larry beat Pete, and Kyle beat Howard.

Final came down to Jeremy versus Kyle, with Jeremy taking the win.

Consolation bracket final was to be between Tim and Steve, but they agreed to just chop the prize money and call it a day.

Here’s a position from my match against Larry in the consolation bracket. I am on the roof, and Larry has a double anchor in my home board, but I threw the cube at him anyway; and he had to think about it for quite a while. What do you think?

If you use the PRaT criteria, it looks pretty good. Position – I have the stronger home board. Race – I am well ahead. Threat – I could roll a 4-something, or 1-1, 2-2, 3-1 (all of which hit the blot on the 21 point), or even 2-1 (entering and hitting the blot on the 12 point). So I thought it was pretty strong. But, home board strength isn’t everything – if I enter without hitting, Larry is well positioned to prime my back checker, and I am stripped everywhere else – thus likely to leave a blot somewhere else for him to shoot at.

In fact, XG says I only have 54% winning chances here, and it’s not even a double! Larry did take, and things did go well for me from there. I rolled 3-3, which forced me to leave a two blots. Larry rolled a 6-1, hitting both! Then I rolled 3-3 again, putting him back on the bar twice (B/22*(2) 8/5*(2)). I was able to hit a couple of more blots coming around, and ultimately won a backgammon and the match – proving once again that it’s better to be lucky than to be good (although maybe better to be both).

Our next event is the Portlandia Invitational, on May 2nd, which I am told is also Derby Day; but then we also have the normal monthly soon after on the 17th. Hope to see you there!

-Mark

We had a fair turnout for our first Championship Qualifier of the year – 13 players turned out to try their luck; 10 in the men’s division, 3 in the women’s. We really need to work on improving that ratio; I expect I will do an “intro to tournaments” class or “first timer tournament” event some time in the next couple of months.

In the women’s, I intended to run it as a round-robin; but Leah had to leave after her first match – apparently unconcerned about placing in a future qualifier to defend her title. Julie was the big winner of the day, beating both Leah and then Paola, but both Julie and Paola qualify for the Championship at the end of the year.

In the men’s, I ran it as a full 16-person bracket, but with 6 first round byes. Getting the anti-byes were Joel and Ed (Joel winning that matchup) and Larry and Noah (Larry winning that matchup). The rest of us had an easier time of it. Final 4 were Joel, Tim, Steve, and me. Steve and I had a really fun match; Tim reported not enjoying his match against Joel all that much. Joel was on fire with the dice, rolling big doubles aggressively in the bearoff.

Final was me versus Joel. Joel took an early lead, winning a doubled gammon in the first game to take a 4-0 lead in our match to 7. He won a doubled single in the next game, taking us to 6-0 Crawford. I managed to survive the Crawford game, and went into game 4 trailing 1-6. Game 4 took all of 20 seconds – I won the opening roll, making my bar point; Joel rolled something mediocre, I doubled, he correctly passed. So we went into game 5 with me trailing 2-6.

Game 5 I won the opening roll with a 2 versus his 1, coming down off the midpoint and slotting my 5 point. Joel rolled a 6-4, hitting both my blots, and I doubled with two checkers on the bar. He correctly took, but I managed to come out ahead, winning a gammon almost 30 moves later. And so we went into game 6 tied, 6-6. Game 6 was an exciting one, with some big swings – for instance I rolled double 6’s to take the lead, and Joel immediately rolled double 6’s to take it back. Lots of 6’s – game 6, tied 6 to 6, back to back double 6’s! In the end, I managed to out-roll him in the bearoff. So both Joel and I qualify for the men’s championship.

Next regular tournament is scheduled for April 19, and on May 2 we will have a special event, the Portlandia Spring Invitational. Hope to see you there!

-Mark