We had a decent showing for today’s tournament – 19 players came out for a pleasant afternoon of backgammon, braving the rain and snow. Lucky Lab was crowded, with both a Go and Scrabble group, plus the usual smattering of other game groups. But the backgammon boards outnumbered all the other groups combined, I believe!
We broke into 3 brackets, which is clearly not an even number per bracket. In the “A” bracket, I had four players who had signed up for the side pool(s), and we played 5 point matches to make up for the smaller bracket size. It worked out as I hoped – we finished roughly at the same time as the larger brackets. First round, I smashed over Dave C to an easy victory. Tim and Jeremy had a much longer first match, playing for easily 20 minutes longer than Dave and me. Jeremy eventually won that one, and at Dave’s request, he smashed me in the second round to take the winner’s mantel. Tim beat out Dave and then also me in the consolation bracket to win 2nd place.
In the “B” bracket, round 1 had returning player Marty beating out Bodger, first timer David S defeating Joel, Nathan over Mark A, and Richard over Ed. Nathan eventually went on to win this bracket, with Richard coming in second. Marty and David went on to battle it out in the consolation bracket, with Marty coming out on top.
In the “C” bracket, round 1 had Cam defeating Sande, Dawn over Julie, JB beating Stephen, and in a hard-fought final, Kyle defeating the Bye. JB and Cam went on to meet in the final, with JB taking the title. In the consolation bracket, Dawn and Julie faced off again, with Dawn ultimately winning again. Julie let out a cry during their last game which made some of the Scrabble players jump as one roll went particularly against her…
All in all, it was quite a smooth tournament, I had a great time, and I like to think everyone else did as well. Between now and the next regular tournament, we will be having the first “Championship Satellite” event – I intend to schedule 4 total of these “Satellite” tournaments this year, with the top two players from each getting an entry into a Championship tournament in December. Past couple of years, I have given a trophy for “Player of the Year”, and this year I hope to give out 3 trophies – “Player of the Year” using more or less the same format I did for 2022, and a “Men’s Champion” and “Women’s Champion” trophy for the winners of the December tournament. Participation in each event counts towards the “Player of the Year” event as well, so if you want to maximize your chances of getting a trophy this year – sign up!
-Mark