Author: PDX_BG_Admin

We had 13 people show for what is (most likely) our last meetup at Circa 33… Because some people have asked, my reasons for making a change are largely due to the original reasons for us having it there:

1. It’s close to Rob’s house [well, he’s not hosting anymore, so…]
2. They had an all day happy hour [well, now it starts at 4, so…]

We got a couple of good suggestions for a new location, so I will go on a pub crawl over the next weeks and pick one. If it doesn’t work out, I’m not afraid to move it again!

We experimented with a new format too. The fun thing about experiments is that sometimes they don’t work. It was far from a disaster, but it could have gone better. With 13 people, we had not quite enough people for two 8-person brackets, and so naturally I tried to run three brackets! That was also a function of trying to have both a $5 and a $10 entry. Then the side pool question got confusing for people… Well.

By 3:10, I had 7 people signed up for the $10 bracket, so I got that kicked off. 3 people opted for the $5 bracket. Then newcomer George arrived. I wanted to put him in the $5 bracket, as a newcomer, but he insisted that he wanted to play the $10. So that filled the $10. Turns out, George is a professional poker player and no slouch at backgammon – more on that in a bit.

Mark F and Bryan both arrived before 3:30, and I promised them a second $10 bracket. Here’s where my planning fell apart. A few months back, when I visited the weekly tournament in Vegas, they run it on a strict 8 person bracket, once you’re out you have to buy-in to a new bracket. I was thinking people would do the same, but I wasn’t considering that I was using a double-elimination structure still, which meant that no-one was finishing up to enter the third bracket. So Mark & Bryan ended up just playing heads-up. Sorry guys!

In the $5 bracket, Julie trounced newcomers Bob and Aaron, although knowing Julie, she was very nice about it.

In the $10 bracket, Kevin repeated his undefeated approach from last month.

Now let me whine for a moment. My first game was against Sharon, and it was a good match – lots of ups, lots of downs. I barely squeaked by, then sat down to play Larry. It was a good match again: I won, he won a double, I got through the Crawford game, and then was cruising towards a crushing victory in the double-match game. I had him trapped behind my prime, his board was crashed, put him on the bar, started bearing off – clearly victory was mine. Until I was forced to leave a blot, and Larry hit it. Well, that happens, and I had a huge edge, came in immediately, just needed to get around the board and… Larry rolled double 6’s. So now he was bearing off while I was still getting around the board, but no big deal, I had some big rolls, and soon enough we were sitting with me having 5 checkers to bear off and him having 12. Now, he was on roll, but no big deal, the only way he could win was to roll doubles – 3 times in a row. Which he proceeded to do. 1 in 216 odds, I lost the match!

Well, I went down to the consolation bracket to play George, who told me he plays mainly on Gridgammon, and has spent a decent amount of time playing Victor Ashkenazi. Playing online against giants does tend to hone your skills, and so George took me out too, though I think I gave him a decent run for it.

George ended up winning the consolation bracket, which got him his entry fee back, but not his side pool bet. I had declared that the winner of the side pool got it all, and that ended up being Larry. Talk about a lucky guy! Larry placed second, losing to Kevin in the final, but Kevin had not entered the side pool! So Kevin got the winnings for the tournament, but Larry got about twice that for the second place plus the side pool!

Again, a learning experience for me. With the shorter tournament structure, I think next time we’ll do 8 person, single elimination brackets, and if you want to keep going you can buy into a new bracket – Vegas style.

So next month, aside from the venue and the format, it’ll be about the same. Also, in response to Tim’s lobbying, the tournament will start earlier in the day – noon or 1, I think. But other than that, about the same. See you there!

-Mark

Player	Initial Elo Rating	Matches Played	Matches Won	Final Elo Rating
Kevin	1543.5	3	3	1584.64
Mark	1578.7	3	1	1556.23
Mark F	1529.7	1	1	1542.59
Dick	1541.4	4	2	1534.14
George	1500.0	4	3	1532.47
Tim	1546.3	2	0	1517.23
Julie	1488.4	2	2	1516.49
Larry	1494.1	3	2	1512.44
Bryan	1505.6	1	0	1492.71
Sharon	1511.4	2	0	1487.40
Aaron	1500.0	1	0	1486.25
Bob	1500.0	1	0	1485.68
Emerald	1471.8	3	1	1464.38

I learned two very important lessons today.

1. If you have 17 people show up for a tournament, there is no reasonable way to get them done in just 3 hours. Break it into a couple of brackets?
2. When you print out a 17 person bracket, make sure the font on the numbers is large enough to read, or you are going to screw up some of the moves to the consolation bracket!

Let me spell out the impact of the logistical challenges – at one point I put someone into the wrong line, which meant when the next person moved down, there was already a match happening there, which meant that there was a cascade effect. The worst impact of which was that I ended up playing Mark F twice, and got eliminated. Sad!

Nevertheless, I did give him a pretty good run. Here’s a position that came up in our second match, when we were 1 each in the 3 point match.

Here I’m black and Mark is red. I offered the cube. Good move? Take or a drop?

My probability of winning is about 70% according to GnuBG. If it were a 0-0 score, this would be a take. But given that the match results would depend on it, it is a pass. Mark correctly dropped, then gammoned me in the next game. Smart move, eh?

The group was a good mix of new people and returning players, with a couple of folks who hadn’t been around in quite a while – looking at you, Ed. Most people went for the side pools, and so the first place ended up being worth over $100 – $125 I think. Second went home with $60, third got their ante back. Ed took third. Newcomer Kevin and returning player Dick were in the running for 1st/2nd, but Dick made a concession to the logistics of their respective drives and conceded – they’d already played once, which was how Dick had got started in the consolation bracket. ANYWAY, Dick and Tim had a drive back to Astoria, and Kevin and Sharon had a drive back to Coos Bay (!!!!), and it was 7:30 and my wife was texting to ask if I’d died in a car wreck on the way home. So, that was that.

In spite of the anticlimax of the ending, it was a heck of a day of backgammon. Hope you’ll make it back next month, when I promise to do something different to make it run more quicker.

Here’s the ratings going into/out of tonight. See you next month!

Player	Initial Elo Rating	Matches Played	Matches Won	Final Elo Rating
Bryan	1486.2	6	4	1505.61
Dick	1500.0	6	5	1541.41
Ed	1500.0	5	3	1518.88
Emerald	1500.0	2	0	1471.76
Jarom	1513.0	2	0	1488.73
Julie	1485.0	4	2	1488.42
Kevin	1500.0	4	4	1543.48
Kirstin	1500.0	3	1	1493.10
Larry	1500.0	3	1	1494.13
Mark	1600.7	3	1	1578.71
Mark F	1500.0	6	4	1529.69
Matt	1500.0	3	1	1493.67
Michael	1500.0	3	1	1532.10
Paul	1500.0	2	0	1471.71
Sharon	1500.0	4	2	1511.45
Tim	1553.2	4	2	1546.33
Trish	1476.6	2	0	1454.43

Turns out, it was zwikelmania on the 18th. As a result, Lucky Lab was very crowded. I showed up a bit before 1:00, and set up next to the front door. Before 1:00, a group of people started playing darts right behind that table. There was a lot of traffic, but not obviously anyone looking for backgammon. After a while, I went and walked through the bigger room, and found Dan, who had been sitting around waiting for someone else to show up too. We moved back to the front table and played a money game for an hour or so, took a break for Dan to deal with a little work, then settled in for a chouette with the arrival of Rob and Martin about 3:00.

Well, I was already way down due to Dan’s excellent dice throwing skills, and the arrival of backup just meant that someone else got to lose with me. Dan held the box for two full cycles at one point, making bank off us. Still, I had fun, and we even had a random stop-by pick up one of the postcards: Mel, who learned to play in Turkey, and who challenged me to a couple of just for fun games.

At one point, playing against Dan, I faced the following decision:

That’s the doubling cube being offered to me. Now here’s where psychology comes into the game. Mathematically, this is a no double and an easy take. But we were in the 5th game or so in a row where Dan had whipped me. 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s hit, 5’s and 6’s escape a back checker. And I hadn’t had a good roll, nor Dan a bad one, so far this game. In spite of his odds being only 0.567 (according to gnuBG), I passed.

Let me tell you, failure of confidence can get expensive.

We’ll be back next month – maybe a few more new people will show up to take some of my money off me. Hope to see you there!

Mark

There wasn’t any snow or ice to keep us from the bar today! We had 11 people play in the tournament, a pretty decent turnout. An extra special thanks goes out to Demi, who was planning to just hang around while Bryan played, but who let me twist her arm into playing when it turned out that I had filled out the 11 person bracket with only 10 players. I am actually pending final results, because with such a large pool, play ran a little long – so I left the #1/#2 players to duke it out without me.

My best story of the tournament is newcomer Trish, who found out about the existence of the backgammon meetup group only last Wednesday – when I ran into her completely at random with a board on the table in front of her. Backgammon is out there more than you’d think – if you run into someone with a board, tell them about the group! We’re always wanting more players.

There was a good number of side games and conversation going the whole time through, I believe it was about the liveliest meetup in a year. Old-timer Reid was the walk-on beast to beat, although we tried to liquor him up enough to give the rest of us a chance. But the other one to watch was new-comer Tim, whose wife Emily also played. They must have some pretty fierce competitions going at home because they were both forces to be reckoned with. Tim won a couple of games, then dropped to the consolation bracket, only to fight his way back up to the final match. As a result, he definitely won for getting the most backgammon for his money, playing a total of 6 matches! By 6:30, it was down to these two to duke it out. I had promised to be home by 6:30, and so had to bail at that point. A good half-dozen people were still hanging around to share stories and watch the final battle. I will update this post once one of them tells me who won, to indicate the final rankings of everyone.

Thanks again to everyone for the great turnout, and hope to see some of you next week for the Chouette!

Update: Tim came back to win! Well done! Here’s the table of results with a whole lot of new people getting Elo scores…

Player	Initial Elo Rating	Matches Played	Matches Won	Final Elo Rating
Mark	1617.3	4	2	1600.73
Tim	1500.0	6	5	1553.18
Reid	1500.0	4	3	1531.87
Spencer	1500.0	4	2	1509.27
David	1500.0	4	2	1500.11
Emily	1500.0	4	2	1486.67
Bryan	1500.0	4	2	1486.16
Todd	1500.0	1	0	1486.14
Julie	1513.8	2	0	1484.99
Trish	1500.0	3	1	1476.62
Demi	1500.0	2	0	1472.29

Well… there wasn’t a tournament. The weather made travel problematic for most people. Didn’t stop a couple of us showing up, though. Jarom and I played a money game for about an hour and then hung it up – one dollar changed hands, but only because we didn’t start keeping track until after the first game. But we’ll be back next month!

Second Saturday Tournament 3:00-6:00 1/8/2017 at Circa 33

3pm for warm-up games, Tournament Games start at 3:30.

Tournament games are 3-point matches with Crawford rule. The idea is that a short match lets even a beginner occasionally get lucky against a pro, and it also lets us get through the matches fairly quick. We do not use game clocks but quick play is encouraged. Tournament structure can be either a double-elimination bracket or a round-robin, depending on turnout – we try to make it so everyone gets at least two matches. Once you’re out of the running, though, feel free to stick around for more one-off games.

Tournament stakes are optional – those that choose to can ante in. Those that don’t wish to can opt out. If you were “in” and you win, Payday! (actual ante, payout schedule, etc. TBD by Mark or guest host – typically top two or three walk away with something.)

Saturday Chouette 1:00-5:00 1/14 at Lucky Lab on Hawthorne

We’ll have at most 5 players per board. Bring a board or at least your own doubling cube. BE PREPARED TO PAY OUT UP TO 30 TIMES THE POINTS/GAME. We’re a friendly group, but not necessarily friendly enough to take an IOU… 🙂 If you have to cash out early, mid-afternoon settlements are always an option.

The following rules to be in effect:

1. Jacoby rule
2. No consulting before the turn, that is, players other than the captain don’t get any input until after the first double/take/drop decision is over. Redoubles, you can talk about why you’d want to or not. EXCEPTION: to speed up play, players are free to share the pip count at any point.
3. No minority hold-outs (if 3 of the 4 (or 2 of the 3) playing drop a double, the last player has to take the drop as well). EXCEPTION: if there are only two players on the team, one person dropping is not a majority – if the captain drops or gets dropped, the #2 moves up to the captain mid-game.

Past few months, we’ve done this one the first Saturday of the month, but this month that would be two days in a row of backgammon with our second Sunday tournament; probably go back to first Saturday again in February…

On a cool and wet Sunday, 5 of us gathered at Circa 33 to play our last Second Sunday tournament of 2016. Five people being a small-ish turnout, Rob suggested a round robin format.

We had two newcomers – Julie and Ben – who comported themselves quite well. There’s a slightly unusual situation in the results, because in the final round, Rob and Julie called it quits when they were at 2 games apiece – Rob was down for the night and out of the running, and Julie locked in for second place, and it was getting late. So I scored each of them as getting 1/2 a match for that one. Reminder that since Julie and Ben were new, they start at an Elo score of 1500. And our rules are that in a round robin tournament, the winner of a match can walk away with up to 4 points, for instance if they win a gammon in the final game. Results were as follows:

	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Total
Mark	2	4	4		4	14
Rob	0		0	0	2	2
Paul	3	0	0	2		5
Julie	3	3		3	2	11
Ben		0	4	3	0	7

Player	Initial Elo Rating	Matches Played	Matches Won	Final Elo Rating
Mark	1608.4	4	3	1617.33
Julie	1500.0	4	3.5	1513.78
Ben	1500.0	4	2	1501.66
Rob	1501.3	4	0.5	1465.42
Paul	1460.8	4	1	1441.79

I took a couple of positions in my match with Paul because I wanted to check them against the computer. Both were doubling decisions, positions where I in fact did offer Paul the cubes. In the images below, I’m black. First one was in our first game, I had him on the bar and felt like this was a little aggressive. Would you offer the cube? If you were red and offered the cube, would you take?

GnuBG says this is a good double, and a pass for red. Paul did in fact pass.

Second position was similar, in that Paul was on the bar again. Keep in mind that this time, he’s down a game.

This one also felt aggressive, and in fact it is too early to double. Paul properly took, and redoubled me a few moves later – which is proper. Down 1-0 in a match to 3, if you own the cube it does you little good to hold it. However wise Paul was in his handling of the cube, though, I did manage to hold on to win the game.

We’ll be back for another on January 8th – hope to see you there.

-Mark

We had five people turn out – same crew as last month – and broadly similar results. We really need some reinforcements to show up to keep Mark F. from walking away with the match every time! Someone cart Martin back in…

Play started a little late, using Paul’s board, Mark F’s precision dice, and a motley assortment of doubling cubes. We took a table just by the door, where the noise level was lower and the lighting was better – and the door for smokers as close as possible. Play was more or less even for a few games, until Mark F took the box for the first time and held it for 3 games. From there, he never got close to break-even again, although a few others did. Me, I was sinking like a stone.

There were a number of interesting positions that came up, and pictures were taken for later reference. Mark F said that unfortunately the more interesting position he photographed didn’t turn out, but a position where he was offered the cube did – here it is:

Here Mark F was white. If this looks like a massive drop – you are correct. However, because we were playing with the Jacoby rule, there’s no gammon chance unless the cube is offered. Thus, it is only a minor error to not turn the cube here.

I realized after I got home that I should have taken some pictures myself to include in this post. But – there was one position of note that I remember all too well. Here it is:

In this one, Mark F is the box, in red. Paul was captain, with Nick and I the field. Rob had cashed out earlier and missed this fun. Anyway: Paul had kept Mark trapped on the one point during bear-off, and we were heading for not just a gammon but a likely backgammon! With five chips on the two-point left to bear off, Paul rolled doubles, leaving a blot on the two-point! Which, naturally, Mark hit. He proceeded to keep us on the bar and/or hit us until he was well into his own bear off. And when we got to the position above, he did us the favor of returning the cubes.

Now, I’m putting this back together from memory – it’s possible there were actually two chips on his one point and one on his two point instead. But the dynamics are the same. Question: is this a take?

1 time in 6 he gets doubles and bears off. But 5 times in 6, he doesn’t, and the field has a chance to roll. To bear off one chip from the 9 point, there are 12 rolls that make it: double 3’s or better, 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, and 5-4. So the field’s odds of winning are 5/6 * 1/3 = 5/18: 27.8%. This is a clear take.

Nonetheless, Paul and Nick said no. I took, Mark F. did not roll doubles, and I got to make the final roll. 27.8% skyrocketed to only 33.3%, so sadly not a redouble opportunity. I shook the cup vigorously, and produced a 5-3. So close. Well, even when it’s the right decision, it doesn’t always work out.

Next month’s chouette will not be the first Saturday, because first Saturday and second Sunday are the same weekend. So look for us the third Saturday of January…

-Mark

Choutte at Lucky Labs on Hawthorne, 1:00-5:00 Saturday December 3rd

We’ll have one board playing for $3 to $5 per point, and if there’s enough interest a second/third/nth board at higher/lower stakes. We’ll have at most 5 players per board. Bring a board or at least your own doubling cube. BE PREPARED TO PAY OUT UP TO 30 TIMES THE POINTS/GAME. We’re a friendly group, but not necessarily friendly enough to take an IOU… 🙂 If you have to cash out early, mid-afternoon settlements are always an option.

The following rules to be in effect:

1. Jacoby rule
2. No consulting before the turn, that is, players other than the captain don’t get any input until after the first double/take/drop decision is over. Redoubles, you can talk about why you’d want to or not. EXCEPTION: to speed up play, players are free to share the pip count at any point.
3. No minority hold-outs (if 3 of the 4 (or 2 of the 3) playing drop a double, the last player has to take the drop as well). EXCEPTION: if there are only two players on the team, one person dropping is not a majority – if the captain drops or gets dropped, the #2 moves up to the captain mid-game.

3-point Tournament at Circa 33 on Belmont, 3:30 PM Sunday December 11th

Play 3-point matches, double elimination tournament. The stakes are optional – there will be a $5 side pool running.

Crawford rule will be in effect for all matches.

This event will repeat on the second Sunday of each month through the spring.

Modest turn-out tonight, just 5 of us again. Rob was the host, and decided a round-robin structure would make more sense – guarantees everyone at least 4 games, top two point takers going to play for the prize. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans… Couple of people ended up needing or wanting to leave before we’d gotten all the way around. As such, we ended up with only 7 games played between the 5 players.

No new players at today’s tournament, and so everyone entered with an established Elo score. Here’s how that changed based on today’s play:

Player	Initial Elo Rating	Matches Played	Matches Won	Final Elo Rating
Mark	1578.2	3	3	1608.40
Rob	1487.6	3	2	1501.31
Robert	1486.8	3	2	1501.13
Paul	1488.1	2	0	1460.85
Ken	1446.2	3	0	1415.07

Next month we’ll do the same – that is, a 3-point tournament on the second Sunday of the month. Come on out, and bring a friend – we need to build the community!

Mark