We had a nice showing for this month’s (very early in the month) tournament – 14 players showed up to play, plus Christine from the Puget Sound club stopped by to say hello (she had a wedding to attend and so could not stay long enough to actually play). We had 3 newcomers, plus a returning newcomer from last month – overall quite a good turnout for such a sunny and pleasant day.
Bodger and I played a couple of matches of speedgammon before the tournament started, to help him warm up for attending the Denver Open later this week (where he plans to play that event). With a 90 second time bank for a 5 point match, it is a very frantic event! First match we did in one game (with the cube up to 8); the second actually took multiple games. Bodger smoked me in both of them, which hopefully bodes well for his performance in Denver.
In the “A” bracket, I had only 6 players, so there were some second round byes. In round 1, Leah beat out Dave, Bodger defeated first-timer Giless, and Elliott (who has played before in an online event back when we were doing those) skunked me. Leah went on to win the bracket, with Bodger taking second (which hopefully bodes well for his performance in Denver). Dave squeaked out the Consolation bracket win over Elliott.
In the “B” bracket, Cam beat out Larry in round 1, as did first-timer Rich over Ceci, Terry over Kyle, and first-timer Diane over Mark A. Cam went on to win the bracket, with Rich taking second; Terry won the Consolation bracket over Ceci.
We will meet again at the end of the month for the final “Championship Qualifier”, followed one week later by the November tournament – as the weather turns colder and wetter I expect more people will see the attraction of spending the day inside playing gammon – hope to see you there!
-Mark