We had a nice turnout for this month’s tournament – 14 players, including a couple of new folks and a couple we haven’t seen in a while. We nearly had 15, but one person locked the keys in the car and couldn’t make it…
We had two brackets, one of 6, and one of 8. In a change, I labeled the bracket of people who didn’t enter the side pool the “A” bracket this time. Round 1 had Joel over Chris, Tim over newcomer Steve, and Mark A over newcomer Nate. Tim later played Nate in the consolation bracket, and told me he learned that Nate had found out about the club from one of our Tour of Patio events – 3 years ago. So getting out there does work to recruit new players, eventually. Anyway – eventually Joel won the bracket over Mark A, with Tim taking the Consolation bracket.
In the “B” bracket, round 1 had Howard over Nick, Bodger over Jeremy C (back for his second event in two weeks), Ed over Larry, and me over Kyle. Howard went on to win the bracket, defeating me in the final. Kyle made up for his slow start by winning the Consolation bracket.
Here’s a cube decision from my first game with Kyle – so the score is 0-0 in a match to 5. Kyle threw this cube out there while I was taking a bite of my sandwich, and it gave me something new to chew on…

I had to kind of talk this one out. Kyle does still have two checkers back, and a lot of ground to cover before he gets them around, so it’s not a “too good” kind of situation. But I am on the bar, and Kyle has a lot of rolls that point on my blot in his homeboard. Ultimately, I reasoned that if I had two on the bar, I would clearly pass – and it was reasonably likely that would be the case after his next move, so I should let it go. And that’s correct! XG reckons that I have 28.5% winning chances, which is not so bad. But Kyle has 38% gammon chances, which is a lot. Taking would have been a -0.403 pentablunder.
It was a good day of backgammon. Next regular tournament is scheduled for October 19 – see you there!
-Mark