Backgammon: Sean is back on form
We won't be playing backgammon this evening as everyone has wimped out since it is a bank holiday. However we made up for this by going to an all day tournament last Sunday.
The tournament was held at George's by the water, a restaurant in King Street Wharf. This is on the left hand side of Sydney, directly opposite where we live. The quickest way for us to get there would be to swim across, but it's not much longer (and a bit drier) if we walk down and cross at the bridge.
King Street Wharf as seen from our flat
The tournament runs every 6 Sundays or so and starts at 12:30pm. We very foolishly decided to have a nap on the sofa (too much swimming and running - see previous post) at about 10:30am and had to rush around in a panic when we woke up at 12:20am. Luckily we were still in plenty of time; the tournament didn't start until about 1pm.
We played 9 point matches in a 24 player field with buy backs. In order that the buy backs didn't hold up the rest of the tournament, these matches were only played to 7 points. Sean and I both went out in the first round (no change for me there then), but after having some tasty meze for lunch (Sean had fish, squid and lamb and I had the same but with Spinach pastries - spankopitta - instead of squid) we both bought back in.
The tournaments here are much more friendly and we were put on opposing sides of the draw both in the original 16 and the final 8 buy backs. I won a match! In only one game - I threw the cube back to 8 in a position something like this:
Black cubes to 8
I can't remember the exact position - it is a drop with black's checkers like this or better, but a take if they are a little worse. I have no idea what it was.
My next match went on a little longer, but I managed to roll my way through it. Sean started hovering nearby towards the end so I correctly surmised that he had won two matches too and was waiting for the winner.
For a long while it appeared to be the case that I always won when Sean and I met in a tournament but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. We played to 5 and Sean came up trumps.
To be fair I was not too upset about losing as the final was in a very complicated chouette format. As there had been 24 players, Jay the tournament director had decided to try and make a chouette format to determine the winner from the final 3. In the end Sean, Jim and Ian played a chouette, scoring wins and losses separately with the first to lose 13 losing and going out and the first to win 13 coming first. I'm sure Sean will have a lot more to say about this, but it looked unnecessarily complicated to me. Sean was looking to come joint 1st in his final game as captain but his opponent managed to swing the game around and so Sean came 2nd (his team mate went to -13).
Overall we had a lovely day and will definitely be going to the next tournament at the end of May.
We won't be playing backgammon this evening as everyone has wimped out since it is a bank holiday. However we made up for this by going to an all day tournament last Sunday.
The tournament was held at George's by the water, a restaurant in King Street Wharf. This is on the left hand side of Sydney, directly opposite where we live. The quickest way for us to get there would be to swim across, but it's not much longer (and a bit drier) if we walk down and cross at the bridge.
King Street Wharf as seen from our flat
The tournament runs every 6 Sundays or so and starts at 12:30pm. We very foolishly decided to have a nap on the sofa (too much swimming and running - see previous post) at about 10:30am and had to rush around in a panic when we woke up at 12:20am. Luckily we were still in plenty of time; the tournament didn't start until about 1pm.
We played 9 point matches in a 24 player field with buy backs. In order that the buy backs didn't hold up the rest of the tournament, these matches were only played to 7 points. Sean and I both went out in the first round (no change for me there then), but after having some tasty meze for lunch (Sean had fish, squid and lamb and I had the same but with Spinach pastries - spankopitta - instead of squid) we both bought back in.
The tournaments here are much more friendly and we were put on opposing sides of the draw both in the original 16 and the final 8 buy backs. I won a match! In only one game - I threw the cube back to 8 in a position something like this:
Black cubes to 8
I can't remember the exact position - it is a drop with black's checkers like this or better, but a take if they are a little worse. I have no idea what it was.
My next match went on a little longer, but I managed to roll my way through it. Sean started hovering nearby towards the end so I correctly surmised that he had won two matches too and was waiting for the winner.
For a long while it appeared to be the case that I always won when Sean and I met in a tournament but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. We played to 5 and Sean came up trumps.
To be fair I was not too upset about losing as the final was in a very complicated chouette format. As there had been 24 players, Jay the tournament director had decided to try and make a chouette format to determine the winner from the final 3. In the end Sean, Jim and Ian played a chouette, scoring wins and losses separately with the first to lose 13 losing and going out and the first to win 13 coming first. I'm sure Sean will have a lot more to say about this, but it looked unnecessarily complicated to me. Sean was looking to come joint 1st in his final game as captain but his opponent managed to swing the game around and so Sean came 2nd (his team mate went to -13).
Overall we had a lovely day and will definitely be going to the next tournament at the end of May.
posted by Zoe at 11:18 AM
2 Comments:
Hi there,
Sounds like you're keeping busy over there and having a good time of it all too. This is just to let you know that somebody is reading what yous are writing!
Zoe I knew you were a food addict and I know I said there was a lack of foodie reports way back when you were in K.L. but you are even out-doing yourself now that we get a smoothies blog. Ah well, you're in the right country for your affliction!
Sean looking forward to your blitz research article. Did Charlie ever pay his full dues? Kings Wharf Tournament sounds a good venue - though I'm not sure about the final play-off chouette idea. Give 'em a Gang Tournament!
Love to yous both,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for posting - good to know someone is reading. Blitz article is harder than I imagined but I should have put something together over the next month. More promising looks to be some work I have been doing on calculating race equities. Haven't seen Charlie again. Yet! The chouettes over here are all non-consulting as they don't like the arguments so a gang tournament might be a bit much for some of the locals. Might try it anyway! All the best,
Sean
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