We had a nice showing for this month’s event – 17 players said “to heck with the sunshine and warm weather, I’ma play!” and made their way to Lucky Lab. Traffic did delay a good number of them, however, so we got off to a slightly late start, to the consternation of a handful who had obligations to leave early. But we actually finished about the normal time.
I had moved this month’s event up a week as well, which meant we were on the same day as Sande’s casual meetup, so there were more like 23 or 24 backgammon players in the place. It gave me the opportunity to get pictures of some of the casual players for the Instagram…
In the “A” bracket, round 1 had Kyle over Bodger, Larry over Howard, Dave over Tim, and me (eventually) over Mark H. Dave went on to win the bracket over Kyle, and Howard fought his way back to revenge himself on Larry in the Consolation.
In the “B” bracket, we had one first round bye due to the odd number, which went to Mark A. Round 1 saw Julie over Andres, Ed over first timer Gabe (Andres’ son), Jim over Ben (also Andres’ son, and so Gabe’s brother), and Leah (happy birthday!) over Joel. In the final, Ed came out on top over Mark A, and Julie won the Consolation over Leah.
I wore the proto-type t-shirt with the Portland Metro Backgammon Club logo to the event, and got people to weigh in on the color options I’ve been exploring. Keep an eye out for a survey/pre-order opportunity in the very near future! My goal is to get an order placed in time for people to get them at the May regular tournament (so you can then wear it to the Chicago Open ABT tournament, if you happen to be going to that). Until then, remember, better to be lucky than good! 🙂
-Mark