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The game was a modest success – Lucky Labs is probably a better place to hold games than Circa 33. The parking situation is better, the lighting is better, not quite as noisy, wider food selection. But the beer is maybe not as good, or at least not as many options. We’ll probably have the next chouette at the same location.

Mark F, Martin, and I played. Thanks to them both for their patience in teaching me how a chouette works, and for every time I needed a couple of minutes longer than them to do a pip count. Those guys are fast!

Here’s what I learned:

1. The “buy-in” wasn’t meant to be a “buy-in”, it was more a guideline on what to have on-hand to settle when the game ends. The actual required to settle was quite a bit below that.
2. We used a rule that no consulting was allowed before a double was in effect. I would suggest we amend that to allow sharing the pip count at any time – I held up the game more than once while working toward the same answer they had already reached.
3. Score-keeping: initially I was concerned to track the actual change per game in addition to the running total. Only the running total really matters. I also was tagging who was the Box and the Captain per game, which I think was a good idea.
4. We need to be clearer up front how long the match is to run. We didn’t discuss until about 2 1/2 hours in, when I promised another half hour to hour of play. Well, I actually held out almost 4 hours. But it’d have been more fair to set that we were going for 4 hours at the outset. As it was, felt like I was busting up the party.

As I said, next time we’ll have a lot more advance warning – aim to schedule a couple of more Chouettes in this year, and get onto a regular schedule in 2017.

-Mark

Chouette at Lucky Labs on Hawthorne, 1:00 PM Sunday October 2 We’ll have $100 buy-in, playing for $3 per point. Max 5 players per board – if there’s enough interest and some want to play for more or less stakes, we’ll set up a second board and adjust on the fly. Bring a board and your own doubling cube. Jacoby rule, no consulting before the turn, and no 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). The intention is to make this a regular event – probably only manage once a month through the end of the year but maybe go to twice a month in the less holiday-intensive time periods.

3-point Tournament at Circa 33 on Belmont, 3:30 PM Sunday October 9 Play 3-point matches, double elimination tournament. The stakes are optional – there will be a $5 ante and a $10 ante side pool running, with the top 2 players from each splitting the pot. Enter one or both! Crawford rule will be in effect for all matches. This event will repeat on the second Sunday of each month through the spring.

Welcome to the Portland Backgammon Club. Also known as the Vancouver, Washington Backgammon Club, since I happen to live across the river. Anyhoo: this site is being set up to be the new home for backgammon in the Portland (Oregon) metro area. The intent is to use this website mainly as a place to put out information about tournaments in the Portland area. Depending on how organized this all becomes, it is a central online location for calendars, announcements, etc.

My history: I’ve been in the area for a couple of years, and playing with the Portland meetup.com group. The problems with that are:

1. Many people join it not out of an interest in backgammon per se, but just because they’re signing up for every possible meetup game group. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it doesn’t lend itself to developing a core of local backgammon players.
2. Meetup has an unreasonable pricing structure for groups over 50, when they are mainly an email distribution tool and there are other options.

So. This is a work in progress, but if you’re a backgammon player in the Portland area, stick around. We’ll build something good.

-Mark