Portland Metro Backgammon Club

We had a fair showing for this month’s tournament – 11 players came out on a sunny and cool afternoon, preferring to roll the dice and have a drink over going for a hike and enjoying the changing seasons. We also had one spectator, Mike, who has come to a few casual events and wanted to see what a tournament was all about.

11 is, as you may know, an odd number, and also not a power of 2. So we ended up with two uneven brackets – 6 in the “A” bracket and 5 in the “B”. I tried to strongarm Mike into joining to even things out, but he wasn’t having it.

In the “A” bracket, round 1 had Howard over Leah, me over Dave, and Larry over Tim. I ended up winning the bracket over Howard, and Dave took the consolation.

In the “B” bracket, round 1 had Joel over Jeff B, Karen over Julie, and Mark A getting the round 1 bye. Karen ended up winning the bracket over Joel, and Mark A took the consolation. That’s Karen’s first tournament win, so big congratulations to her!

Here’s a position from my match with Dave, game 3, score is 1 to 1 in match to 5, and I took without really thinking about it…

The race is close (I didn’t stop to count, but it is only like 6 moves into the game, so it didn’t seem like it was going to be lopsided). I have trapped back checkers, and a couple of exposed blots, so not great for me. But Dave has a back checker too, and if I am missed on this next roll, it seems like we are going into a prime versus prime kind of game. It’s only a small pass for money, but at 4-away/4-away, the fact the he will win a lot more gammons than I can makes it a huge blunder to take. One of these days, I will get it through my head that you have to adjust your cube action for match score…

Until then, the next Championship Qualifier is coming up on October 3rd. There are only two more chances to qualify, so make your plans to be there! Reminder too that the Championship Qualifiers contribute towards the Player of the Year contest. Right now Howard has a narrow lead in that, but several players are only a couple of points behind him. Anyone making a strong run through the rest of the year has a good chance of taking it!

-Mark

We had a very modest turnout for the (overdue) second championship qualifier – 8 players came out. But, it was maybe our most gender balanced turnout to date – 5 male identifying, 3 female identifying. Still, rather than run a 5-person bracket and a 3-person bracket, I threw us all together into one 8-person bracket.

We have a pretty poor track record so far of keeping the Men’s and Women’s Championships segregated, in spite of that being part of the point. Our very first qualifier, back in 2023, was won by Molly Anderson. And of course last year, Leah Nash won both the overall Men’s Championship and Women’s Championship events. On some dimension, that speaks well to the backgammon culture in our town; but it does not necessarily help with the “give more people more entry points” aspect of the event.

Anyway, 8 players.

In round 1, Julie won over TJ, Mark A won over Steve, Joel won over Magali, and I won over Leah. Magali then beat Leah in a second match to determine second for the women in the field, securing a spot in the Women’s Championship on her 3rd ever tournament with us! Julie got the other spot, but she already had one, so now Julie has a bye in round 1 of the Championship (and is ineligible to participate in the next two Qualifiers).

The final came down to me versus Mark A. It was a tough match – I took and early lead, then Mark tied it up, and long story short, he won! I told him that since my camera had died half-way through the match that no-one would ever believe it; but it’s true. So Mark A gets a spot in the Men’s Championship, and I got the other spot, but I already had one, so now I have a bye in round 1 of the Championship (and am ineligible to participate in the next two Qualifiers).

Given the small field and the payout structure, the purse for the Championship did not grow very much this time. And overall, I get the sense of a bit of a slump year. Last year, we had 19 tournaments, and there were a couple of people besides me who attended every single one of them, plus a couple who missed only 1 or 2. This year so far, we have had 12 events, and aside from me, everyone who is attending has missed at least 3 of them. Not sure what, if anything, to do about that – we all have options on how to spend our days. But it does mean the race for Player of the Year is, right now, incredibly wide open.

We have one more Tour of Patios event coming up later this month, the 22nd at Bar Bar on Mississippi. Then next month we resume our fall tournament series on the 3rd Sunday of each month at Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. We will also jam 2 more Women’s and Men’s Championship qualifiers in, near the beginning of October and December. So check the calendar and make plans to attend!

-Mark

We has a modest turnout for a sultry afternoon at our third stop on the Tour – 10 players met up in St John to enjoy some beverages, gyros, and backgammon action. Parking was a bit of a challenge for this location, and so I am not sure we will put it on the rotation again, but it was a nice enough spot. Shade was at a premium, however – it was set up for good protection from the rain (of which there was none) and light (with a transparent roofing material). Joel broke out a parasol at one point, showing that he is indeed always prepared. Mark A was also disappointed that the Mexican food cart never opened.

Magali pointed out that I incorrectly treated her as a non-first timer in my write-up of Tour parts 1 & 2, so we will count her as a first timer for this event. 🙂 My apologies for the mischaracterization.

We ended up running 4 brackets, which were won by Mark A, Tim, Pete, and Jeff, congratulations to all of them. Personally, I went 0-2, losing on high cube values to both Jeff and Julie. Plus my camera’s battery was dead, so I couldn’t even record the matches to learn why I should have dropped those cubes later. Perhaps I’ll never learn.

Next up is the much delayed Championship Qualifier #2 on August 2nd- should have been scheduled for May or June, but I’m a slacker. That one will be back at our home base, Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. But we do have one more Tour of Patios event coming as well, August 22 at Bar Bar on Mississippi. Hope to see you at one or both!

-Mark

In June, we had two Tour of Patio events. July, we will only have one, and it will be late in the month, because it turns out I have a family and will prioritize that over backgammon when it comes down to it.

First event was at The Victoria, which was our inaugural location last year too. Last year, it was freezing cold. This year, it was too darn hot. Many people chose to sit and play inside, where there was air conditioning. Nevertheless, 10 players came out to participate, including first-timer Noel. We managed to run four 4-person knock-outs, which were won by Pete, Howard, Tim, and myself.

Second event was at NEPO42, a new location for us, suggested by Dave. They have a great patio, but this time, it was slightly chilly and damp. Almost everyone chose to sit and play inside, where is was warm and dry. A few matches made it out onto the patio before the day was over, but that was definitely the minority. This one was a blow-out event, too – 17 players showed up. Granted, 3 of them were Jeremy C’s friends that he occasionally drags along, but this time they all agreed to play. Turns out this was Jeremy’s going-away party, he will be moving back to be closer to family.

First timers were Mike (in Portland for an undisclosed but not unlimited time), Alyssa (one of Jeremy’s friends), and Darren (just found out about us and is excited to come back!). Also notable, Eliot was in town, so it was nice of him to stop by.

We managed to run six 4-person knock-outs, which were won by Dave, Eliot, Joel, me, Pete, and Jonathan. Congrats to all.

Afterwards, we also had a chouette going, with Mike, Tim, Leah, and myself battling it out for at least an hour after the tournament wrapped up. Overall, quite the afternoon of backgammon!

The next one is scheduled for July 26th at another new location – Cathedral Park Food Carts. Hope to see you there!

-Mark

We had a fair showing for this month’s tournament – 10 players. Given the nice weather, I was not surprised that many people found something else to do. But, that was plenty for a good day of backgammon action.

Now I could have split the group into 2 brackets, of the 6 people who entered at least one side pool and the 4 people who didn’t; but we gave it a try putting us all into one bracket. And as a result, the event went on until 4:30 and the last match was never played. So, lesson learned – I break it into (at most) 8 person brackets to prevent the day running longer than people want to hang around, and that is, in fact, reasonable. Still, fair to test your assumptions once in a while.

With 10 players and a 16 person bracket, there are a lot of byes. So Mark A, Jeremy, Tim, and myself were the unlucky 4 who got anti-byes and would need to play and win 4 games to win the tournament. And, as it turned out, one of us did!

Round 1, Jeremy beat out Mark A, and Tim came from behind to beat me. Round 2, which is where everyone else started, Steve won over Karen, Larry beat Pete, and Kyle beat Howard.

Final came down to Jeremy versus Kyle, with Jeremy taking the win.

Consolation bracket final was to be between Tim and Steve, but they agreed to just chop the prize money and call it a day.

Here’s a position from my match against Larry in the consolation bracket. I am on the roof, and Larry has a double anchor in my home board, but I threw the cube at him anyway; and he had to think about it for quite a while. What do you think?

If you use the PRaT criteria, it looks pretty good. Position – I have the stronger home board. Race – I am well ahead. Threat – I could roll a 4-something, or 1-1, 2-2, 3-1 (all of which hit the blot on the 21 point), or even 2-1 (entering and hitting the blot on the 12 point). So I thought it was pretty strong. But, home board strength isn’t everything – if I enter without hitting, Larry is well positioned to prime my back checker, and I am stripped everywhere else – thus likely to leave a blot somewhere else for him to shoot at.

In fact, XG says I only have 54% winning chances here, and it’s not even a double! Larry did take, and things did go well for me from there. I rolled 3-3, which forced me to leave a two blots. Larry rolled a 6-1, hitting both! Then I rolled 3-3 again, putting him back on the bar twice (B/22*(2) 8/5*(2)). I was able to hit a couple of more blots coming around, and ultimately won a backgammon and the match – proving once again that it’s better to be lucky than to be good (although maybe better to be both).

Our next event is the Portlandia Invitational, on May 2nd, which I am told is also Derby Day; but then we also have the normal monthly soon after on the 17th. Hope to see you there!

-Mark

We had a fair turnout for our first Championship Qualifier of the year – 13 players turned out to try their luck; 10 in the men’s division, 3 in the women’s. We really need to work on improving that ratio; I expect I will do an “intro to tournaments” class or “first timer tournament” event some time in the next couple of months.

In the women’s, I intended to run it as a round-robin; but Leah had to leave after her first match – apparently unconcerned about placing in a future qualifier to defend her title. Julie was the big winner of the day, beating both Leah and then Paola, but both Julie and Paola qualify for the Championship at the end of the year.

In the men’s, I ran it as a full 16-person bracket, but with 6 first round byes. Getting the anti-byes were Joel and Ed (Joel winning that matchup) and Larry and Noah (Larry winning that matchup). The rest of us had an easier time of it. Final 4 were Joel, Tim, Steve, and me. Steve and I had a really fun match; Tim reported not enjoying his match against Joel all that much. Joel was on fire with the dice, rolling big doubles aggressively in the bearoff.

Final was me versus Joel. Joel took an early lead, winning a doubled gammon in the first game to take a 4-0 lead in our match to 7. He won a doubled single in the next game, taking us to 6-0 Crawford. I managed to survive the Crawford game, and went into game 4 trailing 1-6. Game 4 took all of 20 seconds – I won the opening roll, making my bar point; Joel rolled something mediocre, I doubled, he correctly passed. So we went into game 5 with me trailing 2-6.

Game 5 I won the opening roll with a 2 versus his 1, coming down off the midpoint and slotting my 5 point. Joel rolled a 6-4, hitting both my blots, and I doubled with two checkers on the bar. He correctly took, but I managed to come out ahead, winning a gammon almost 30 moves later. And so we went into game 6 tied, 6-6. Game 6 was an exciting one, with some big swings – for instance I rolled double 6’s to take the lead, and Joel immediately rolled double 6’s to take it back. Lots of 6’s – game 6, tied 6 to 6, back to back double 6’s! In the end, I managed to out-roll him in the bearoff. So both Joel and I qualify for the men’s championship.

Next regular tournament is scheduled for April 19, and on May 2 we will have a special event, the Portlandia Spring Invitational. Hope to see you there!

-Mark

We had a fair showing for this afternoon’s tournament – 13 players on a cold, wet day. A comment was heard about how come more people weren’t there, given it was cold and wet – what else are you going to go do on such a day? But nevertheless, that’s how it turned out.

In part, it might be because I had thrown the schedule off. Usually the tournament is the 3rd Sunday of the month, but I pushed it to the 4th Sunday this month because I wanted to go to the Bellingham Winter Classic, which was on the 3rd Sunday this month. Tim and Bodger went as well, and Bodger even did fairly well, making it to the final 4. I, on the other hand, got to get home earlier than I otherwise would have, which was also nice. So, a small abuse of my role as tournament director – apologies to anyone who showed up on last week, but I haven’t heard from anyone who did.

Anyway, with an odd number, I split us into a 7-person “A” bracket and a 6-person “B” bracket.

In the “A” bracket, round one had Larry over Jim, Kyle over Bodger, and Howard over Dave. I took the bye, and then also considerable feedback about that. Final came down to Larry and me, and I outrolled him in DMP – very tight match, I look forward to reviewing the tape. Howard won the consolation bracket.

In the “B” bracket, round one had first-timer Peyton over Mark A, Tim over first-timer Caryl, and Steve over second-timer Karen. Steve won the bracket, with Peyton taking second and Tim winning the consolation.

Next regular tournament is coming up on March 15th, and there are two special events to get on your radar as well. First, the first 2026 Championship Qualifier is scheduled for March 28th. Come fight for a spot in the 2026 Championship Match! Second, the second ever Portlandia Spring Invitational is scheduled for May 2nd. The survey I did last fall showed a lot of interest in a higher equity event, and this is it! It was a lot of fun two years ago when we had the first one, and it’ll be a great warm-up for the Denver ABT at the beginning of June, which I hear a fairly high number of Portland players will be attending.

See you at the next one!

We had a fair showing for this month’s tournament, kicking off the regular 2026 series. 11 players came out to compete on a cold but sunny afternoon, plus one guy there for moral support and a reuben. Lucky Lab was closing at 5 for a staff party, so we were under some pressure to get done; but things normally wrap up by 4 or 4:30, so I was not too worried about that.

In the “A” bracket, round 1 had Cam over Larry, me over Mark A, and Jeremy C over Tim. Cam got the second round bye, while Jeremy crushed me 0-5. Cam then won the bracket. In the consolation, since it was such a small bracket, I set it up to just run everyone through, including Jeremy, as he’d only lost 1 and it’s double elimination. And in the consolation final, I faced Jeremy again, this time crushing him 5-0. I noted that must mean we’re pretty evenly matched.

In the “B” bracket, round 1 had Matt H over Jim B, Ed over Bodger, and Kyle got the 1st round bye. Matt went on to win the bracket, and Ed the consolation.

I had texts and calls from more than one person who was unsure whether the tournament was when it was, a reflection of some continuing problems with meetup’s interface and notifications. I’m upgrading the group’s technology to include an official Google Calendar – click on THIS LINK and it should subscribe you to the calendar, and you will always be able to see upcoming (and for that matter, past) events. Hopefully that’s helpful for everyone!

See you at the next one!

-Mark

On January 10th, 2026, 7 people came together to determine the 2025 Portland Metro Backgammon Club’s Men’s Champion. Well, 6 came together, then Paul showed up later, because he had a bye in the first round, having won two qualifiers.

Round 1, Jeremy C faced off against me, Kyle had to take his chances against Leah (who, reminder, is the 2025 Women’s Champion), and Cam had to battle it out against Larry. And I guess Paul had to challenge himself, in some dimension, as well – but he got through that ok. Anyway, in those pairings, the second player was the winner. Leah and I sat down to play our round 2 pairing; while Paul sat and waited for Cam and Larry to finish (they went to 6-6 DMP in the match to 7, really getting as much play as possible out of the match).

I won the first game on a relatively early double/pass. Second game, Leah had me in a rough spot and I unwisely took a cube that was also a pass, and paid dearly for it, losing a gammon to go down 1-4. Third game, the shoe was on the other foot, Leah taking a cube that was technically a “too good/pass”, although she managed to save the gammon. It turned into one of those crazy long games, where she hit a blot during my bearoff, and had to try to contain me from re-entering and running around the board – game had 55 moves before it was finally over. Fourth game, I doubled her from the bar, with two checkers on the bar actually. She took, and it did not go well for me. Soon enough, she redoubled, I took, and she went on to win the game, advancing to the finals!

Meanwhile, Larry and Paul were battling it out. I was too busy to watch their match, but it went Paul’s way in the end.

I did record Leah & Paul’s final, and I will get it up on YouTube eventually – took me a week to get around to doing this write-up, so I’m definitely behind on my work… 🙂

Anyway – first game, Paul won on a relatively early double/pass. Second game, Leah (attempting to recreate her match against me) offered a relatively early cube, which this time was not a double/pass, and so Paul took, and Leah won that to take a 2-1 lead. Third game, Paul came back, getting Leah to take a borderline cube and winning a single: 2-3 Leah-Paul. Game four, Leah got in another cube and won another single, regaining the lead 4-3. Game five, she did the same again, taking it to 6-3 Crawford! Paul, his back to the wall, rallied and took it to 6-4 Post-Crawford. Game seven, Paul won the opening roll, playing down and slot with his 5-1. Leah replied with a 5-2 and so was not able to hit the blot in her homeboard. Paul doubled, of course, and Leah took, of course. And then it was on – Paul playing a gammon-go, Leah a gammon-save game. Paul took an early lead, hitting one of Leah’s checkers to put 3 back into his home board. Leah replied with 1-1, making a four prime and putting Paul on the bar. A few rolls later, Paul got 5-5, letting him escape his back checker and setting him up to have an easy time getting the rest of his checkers home against Leah’s anchor on his 3-point. Leah managed to make Paul’s bar, adding difficulties to his bear-in. But a lucky 4-4 let Paul jump past his bar, and begin bearing off! Leah’s front structure was pretty good, however, and after getting only two checkers off, Paul was forced to leave a shot, which Leah hit! Paul entered soon enough, but was never able to jump back out, and Leah completed the close-out. Leah began her own bear-off, and had to clear both her 5 and 6 point in order to get to having two checker off herself. Paul entered with a 6-2, setting himself up to come back with a big double or two. But it was Leah who scored the next big double, taking four off with her 4-4! Paul limped along around the board, but by the time his last checker was home Leah’s lead was too great to overcome.

Congratulations to Leah, winner of both the 2025 Women’s Championship and 2025 Men’s Championship; and incidentally losing Player of the Year by a technicality – if we had managed to have this event in 2025 she would have had the trifecta! At least she took early lead on 2026 Player of the Year with this 3-0 event. And congratulations to Paul as well for a very well played match – his PR was a “World Class” 4.01 on regular XG settings, probably going down on ++.

Well, that’s a wrap on 2025! We had 12 players come out for our final tournament of the year. I say “final”, but there’s a grey area – the 2025 Men’s Championship has yet to be played, but it is scheduled for January 10th, 2026; so I decided results from that event would count towards the Player of the Year chase for 2026, not 2025.

There were three newcomers at today’s tournament too, Bill, Jeff, and Karen. I slightly rigged the first round of the bracket to make sure they were each playing an experienced tournament player. So, round 1 had Joel playing Bill, Tim playing Jeff, Bodger playing Karen, and Mark A playing Steve H, with the first listed player winning in all cases. Jeff went on to do well in the consolation bracket, though, making it to the final. In the main bracket, Tim ended up winning over Mark A, while Bodger won the consolation.

In the high-rollers bracket, since there were only 4 players, we went with 7 point matches. Round 1, Dave beat me and Howard beat Larry. This was a big deal for Howard, he’s had poor luck against Larry all year. Howard then beat out Dave, and Larry beat Dave as well to take 2nd.

With that, we have a last minute twist in the race for Player of the Year! Leah had it all but locked up, with 12 net wins (that is, 14 wins in 16 matches, so 14 wins minus 2 losses…). Going into today, Howard had 10 net wins. By winning the bracket, he’s tied Leah in net wins! And, in case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the higher participation level. Howard got to his 12 net wins over 54 matches for the year – over triple Leah’s count! And so congratulations to Howard Markowitz – Portland Metro Backgammon Club’s Player of the Year for 2025!

Granted, not the greatest honor Howard has ever won in backgammon, it’s still pretty good!

I have set the regular tournament series to continue on the 3rd Sunday of the month through May. There’s a new casual meetup starting on the 3rd Thursday of the month as well, and I will soon be scheduling the 1st 2026 Championship Qualifier as well as bringing back the Portlandia Spring Classic high equity event. So, tons of backgammon planned for 2026. Hope to see you all there!

-Mark