Yesterday’s tournament was a great way to start 2026. As it transpired; we had 15 players and 2 social players.
A special mention must go out to Brett and his father Bruce for travelling down from Byron specially to play in our tournament. Kudos!
I hope the newer players learned a lot, especially with playing on the clock. More on that a little later.
All matches were played in great spirit. I guess the stand out was Adam. At 6 all and 2 wins apiece; taking a long run in to bowl his dice, requiring a magical 5/4 from the bar to hit my outside checker to avoid a certain loss! His next roll of 2/2 sealed my fate, closing out his board.
The results:
David beat Adam 7/1 (4 from 4) dropping Adam out of contention for any of the money and bottle of wine. Not the first time this has happened to him. David won $150 and a bottle of wine.
Paula, whose game has steadily improved, came second on a count back. 3 from 4 and a difference of +12. She won $70 and a bottle of wine.
I managed third (some recompense for the 5/4 mentioned earlier!), 3 from 4 and a meagre difference of +4 and $40. (Ed 3 from 4 and +3. Adam 3 from 4 and +1)
We had 2 players that lost their matches by running out of time. It’s therefore not fair if players unilaterally decide they are not going to use the clock, especially not asking or informing the tournament director! The clocks are there to stop slow play. (That was partially the reason we ran late. The other; was our late start due to a misunderstanding by me. We finished at approx. 4:30pm)
It was disappointing to be notified that another club had decided to run a tournament on 7th March 2026. There are plenty of other Saturdays in a month and the 1st is well known by that club’s organiser to be ours. This doesn’t benefit Backgammon!
I have spoken to the RACA and tentatively reorganised the next two dates.
NB: Saturday 14th March 2026
And then, due to Easter, our April tournament will be on:
Saturday 11th April 2026.
I’ll confirm those two new dates asap.
