{"id":410,"date":"2022-04-16T03:48:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T03:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/?p=410"},"modified":"2022-04-16T03:48:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T03:48:47","slug":"backgammon-us-open-2022-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"Backgammon US Open 2022 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent this past weekend in Las Vegas for the 2022 US Open. Historically, I have been going to the Las Vegas Open in the fall since I got serious about backgammon tournaments, and I had planned to go to the US Open for the first time back in 2020. Guess what caused me to put that one off for 2 years, if you can…<\/p>\n

I had an early flight down on Thursday, and got to the Golden Nugget just about 11:00, as the Calcutta auction was starting. By 1:30, I was playing in my first match. My opponent was named Ward, currently from Hawaii, but previously from Bend, Oregon. There were a couple of cube positions in that match that I recorded for posterity.<\/p>\n

In the first, I am down 0-2 in our match to 11. After an unlucky sequence, I have two checkers on the bar, and Ward went looking for a quick win for our third game. (Here we’re bearing off to the left)<\/p>\n

\"USOpen2022_1\"<\/p>\n

Looks fairly dire, but: he only has two points made on his home board, and not a lot of checkers in the zone. He’s not a favorite to make a third point on this next roll, and I have an anchor. Plus, I’m down 0-2, so I need to make something happen. It was an easy take; and in fact a no double. At 0-0, the computer says it would have been a close no double, but as is, a fairly big no double\/take. I took, and turned the game around to get on the board.<\/p>\n

Roughly an hour later, we got to this position, where I am the one offering a dubious cube. The score is now 9-3 to my advantage; or 2-away, 8-away if you prefer. Winning a gammon here wins me the match, and giving him the cube gave me a lot of pause for thought. If he took, he should automatically redouble, and then a gammon loss hands the match to him! So it was not an easy decision.<\/p>\n

\"USOpen2022_2\"<\/p>\n

At a normal score, say 7-away, 7-away, this is a double\/pass. At this score, a HUGE no double\/take. I have 35% or so gammons if I play it out. But, I doubled, and he passed, and so it took me two more games to win the match.<\/p>\n

After that rousing success, I got suckered into joining the intermediate jackpot as well. In the first round of that, I got into a similar kind of situation. Here I’m leading 7-6, in a match to 9; so 2-away, 3-away. (This one is bearing off to the right…)<\/p>\n

\"USOpen2022_3\"<\/p>\n

There aren’t so many gammons as the last position, but what I could tell was different was his wins after the automatic redouble. Earlier in the match, this would have been a fine double\/take. Now, it’s a pretty big no double\/take. Fortunately, on this one, I did not make the massive blunder and played on (to eventually win that match as well).<\/p>\n

My next match in the jackpot brought me back to humility, as I started out down 0-2, caught up and passed to 7-4, then eventually lost 7-9. It was a fun match, but I didn’t take any positions for later reference. In fact, I took as many pictures in those first two matches as I did the rest of the weekend! The rest of them were relatively straightforward, though, and I don’t want to drag everyone through every match I had all weekend…<\/p>\n

In the main event, I got knocked down to consolation after my first match on Friday, but then advanced to the round of 8 in that before getting knocked out. In the last chance, I busted out in the first match. This position is (approximately) an important decision I faced in that one, but a checker play. Hit, or jump past?<\/p>\n

\"USOpen2022_4\"<\/p>\n

The problem with hitting is, what if you get hit back? On the other hand, my opponent has two open spaces on their board, so I might just pop right back out. On the other other hand, I might dance multiple times after the return hit. It’s never easy… I went with no hit, which is… MASSIVELY CORRECT. Hitting is a -0.324 quadruple blunder. Except that I ended up losing the game anyway, when my opponent rolled double 5s and then a multitude of doubles\u00a0(she went on to second place in the last chance).<\/p>\n

I also played in the Blitz, Speedgammon, DMP, and the After Tourney, ending up second in the Blitz Championship and first in the After Tourney, so I came home with some cash and a trophy. All in all, a very nice weekend.<\/p>\n

\"PXL_20220411_021154557.MP\"<\/p>\n

I also brought home a pile of brochures for future events to share with the Portland backgammon club. I am not sure what my next national event is going to be – there are a lot of good ones! I got a couple of asks about when the next Portland national event is going to be, to which I say: sigh. Someday I will have that much energy again, but probably not for a while.<\/p>\n

-Mark<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent this past weekend in Las Vegas for the 2022 US Open. Historically, I have been going to the Las Vegas Open in the fall since I got serious about backgammon tournaments, and I had planned to go to the US Open for the first time back in 2020. Guess what caused me to … Continue reading “Backgammon US Open 2022 Report”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pdxbg.club\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}