December 2007

SPRING BACKGAMMON TOURNAMENT

JOHN McLEAN
WINS 2007 TRIPLE ELIMINATION SPRING TOURNAMENT

MAIN FLIGHT. Two byes were the result of a draw of 16 with 14 entrants. The day - Sunday 8:30am in the morning, 4th November 2007. The venue - Hilton International Hotel in Victoria Square Adelaide. And again we acknowledge the great assistance we have received from the Hilton over the years and thank new General Manager, Chris Ehmann, for his continued help and who invariably cruises past on Tuesday nights to ask ‘how’s the game going’. But on to the results and text, courtesy of club treasurer, JOHN O’GRADY.

This tournament is somewhat complex in who goes where after what result they have had. We are indebted to JOHN O’GRADY for working this out for us. Back to the results. Incredibly, even with the draw done transparently [as it always is] Club President NICK BEGAKIS and Club Treasurer, JOHN O’GRADY scored the byes. This enabled everyone to get playing with Nick and primarily John sorted out the administrative matters.

EDITOR - Personally, I prefer to play immediately as a bye tends to cool the adrenalin rush of getting to the tournament on time and sussing out whom one has drawn in the tournament. Cooling one’s heels with a nice espresso takes the edge off I believe. This day was to see ironies galore.

But, back to the results !!! There are two sections to the main flight – the top half and the bottom half [obviously !]. In the top half, JOHN McLEAN on his way to the nil group loss final defeated SHANE McNALLY, VASSILIS TOUBAKARIS, DON SCHULZ. In the bottom half, JUSTIN FREYTAG on his way to the nil loss group final defeated NICK PAPADOPOULOS, ANGELO ALI, PETER GEELEN. JOHN McLEAN played and defeated JUSTIN FREYTAG in the nil loss group final.

Now on to the one loss group results. All those mentioned earlier who lost to the eventual finalists in the no loss group went into the one loss group [plus others not mentioned above]. Of particular note is the JUSTIN FREYTAG defeated CHRIS BENHAM in the one loss group final to then have the opportunity to challenge the winner of the two loss group winner.

So now to the two loss group results. All those mentioned earlier [plus others not mentioned earlier] who lost to the eventual finalists in the one loss group went into the two loss group. CHRIS BENHAM faced TERRY EFTHIMIOU in the final of the two loss group. TERRY EFTHIMIOU lost to VASSILIS TOUBAKARIS in the first round and defeated NICK BEGAKIS but was knocked out by CHRIS BENHAM [who went on to play in the one loss final]. In the two loss section, TERRY defeated SHANE McNALLY, VASSILIS TOUBAKARIS, DON SCHULZ, PETER GEELEN and CHRIS BENHAM. Interesting how game results change and who one meets again and again. So TERRY EFTHIMIOU come out on top of the two losses group.

This set up a match between TERRY EFTHIMIOU and JUSTIN FREYTAG for the right to play in the grand final. JUSTIN won the first match [of 3]. TERRY the second. And JUSTIN won the third and deciding match.

The grand final was between JOHN McLEAN and JUSTIN FREYTAG, in effect a rerun of where these two had been several hours before when JOHN had despatched JUSTIN into the left side of the tournament to play innumerable players to again get a crack at JOHN. It is worth mentioning that in the rules of this tournament, JOHN needed to win just one match [of 3] against JUSTIN to win the tournament by virtue of the fact that he had not lost a game in reaching the grand final. JOHN lost the first match [see score sheets below] – a close series of games with neither player getting a break. Game two was also lost by JOHN when JUSTIN won a game of 2 points twice taking a 4 point lead, a lead that JOHN closed but was not able to overcome. In game 3, another close game, as close as can be at 8 all to 9 points. A tough last game saw JOHN McLEAN gratefully slip over the line from a justifiably disappointed JUSTIN FREYTAG.

CONGRATULATIONS JOHN McLEAN.

CONSOLATION. The 5 point [boy, are 5 points tournament games different to play] Consolation Tournament had, finally, 16 entrants – and as usual, all those who lost twice in the main flight and who were hard doen by [including your correspondent who entered 4 times!!]. Multiple entrants in the Consolation were SIEGFRIED POHLENZ [3], NICK BEGAKIS [4], NICK PAPADOPOULOS [2], ELKE LEWANDOWSKI [2], VASSILIS [BILL] TOUBAKARIS [2], SHANE McNALLY [2]. ABGELO ALI who was the first to enter the Consolation went right through to the final. VASSILIS [BILL] TOUBAKARIS first entry ended when SIEGFRIED POHLENZ eliminated him in the first round. But BILL re-entered and met SIEGRIED again in the second round and repaid the favour and knocked him out. BILL then went on to the final and beat ANGELO for the tournament.

CONGRATULATIONS VASSILIS TOURAKARIS

30 YEAR CELEBRATION TOURNAMENT – “THE 30th”
CONGRATULATIONS to CHRIS BENHAM
Chris seems to feature heavily in the winner’s circle this year.

The final was between NICK PAPADOPOULOS and CHRIS BENHAM. Nick won the first of 3; 11 point games being ahead from the start [12/5]. Chris then took the next being also ahead all the way and won quite convincingly [11/3]. In the decider, Nick moved ahead but the loss of a couple of gammons with the cube on 2, caused significant damage to the score and although Nick was able to win and hence get past the Crawford game, Chris won 11/5 to take the Tournament.