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