We had a nice turn-out for this month’s tournament – 15 players, including 6 (count ’em, 6) new players. 8 of the regulars had arrived by about 10 minutes to the hour, and I was actually in the act of doing the draw when a new couple came in. Before I finished introducing myself and getting them oriented, Zach (who isn’t new but hasn’t been in a while) showed up and told me he had 4 more coming. So, we went from one bracket to two just like that.
In the “A” bracket, round 1 had Karen over Julie, Steve over Mark A, newcomer Hannah over newcomer Dianne, and newcomer Aidan over newcomer Weong. That’s a lot of newcomers, no? Hannah went on to win the bracket over Karen, with Julie taking the consolation bracket.
In the “B” bracket, round 1 had me over Zach, Larry over newcomer Blake, Pete over newcomer Nick, and Joel got the bye. I ended up winning the bracket over Pete, and Larry took the consolation bracket.
Nick and Diane are predominantly acey-deucy players, but contrary to my expectations, neither of them are ex-Navy. They just like the game! I know there’s at least a little acey-deucy action at the second Sunday meetups, at least sometimes, so look for them there.
Zach gets a special shout-out for bringing in so many new players. He also turns out to be a really good player. I transcribed our match, and he played near perfect. In our first game, he smoked me, got an easy double/pass and 1 point. In our second game, fairly early in the game, he offered me the following cube. Keep in mind, we are only playing a 3 point match!
The situation is not great for me. Something I watched recently, though, talked about the PRaT criteria (Position, Race, and Threat, a framework for evaluating cube decisions) should really be PRaTT, adding another T for Turnaround. And that’s the T I hung my hat on – it felt like there was a fair chance of staging a turnaround. Which, you know, I did – but it’s actually a fairly big drop! He has position – stronger board than me, 10 checkers “in the zone” for the attack, only one checker back and it can escape with a 6. He has the race, leading by 19 pips (although I didn’t count it, it was just obvious he was ahead). And he has some threat – really just 6-2, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, and 6-6 are killers, but it’s something. But if I can make the advanced anchor, I have turnarounds. Only a -0.118 blunder. Zach immediately rolled the 6-2 and I thought I was dead; but eventually I got some good rolls.
Anyway, it was great to have so many new faces at the event, and multiple of the regulars made a point of telling me how much they enjoyed playing the new folks, so I really hope to see them again at some future events.
-Mark