The UK Backgammon Federation
The 2023 Charity Challenge drew to a close in October after 19 rounds and nearly a year’s worth of play with a superb final performance by Alastair Woods, beating Kevin Jones. Having lost the first two points, Alastair then completely dominated the match to win 11-2 and become the seventh player to claim the title. Alastair’s overall record was a superb 14 wins to 4 losses.
The UK had a heart-warming success story at the Merit Open as the somewhat unheralded Ali Al Daftari placed 4=/200 in the Masters, and then promptly went and won the Speed. What a remarkable achievement. Ali is dedicated and passionate and by all accounts a handy player, but had yet to really show us what he can do. He has now. I got good insight into his firm and technical read on the game once in Monte Carlo. I was 4-1 [5, post-Crawf] in the Last Chance 4th round vs a Grandmaster and the starting roll was 21 to me, and I split and came down and the cube sailed over. 21 is sub-optimum and I’ve sprung 3 checkers naked and exposed. Do you know the answer to whether this is a pass or free drop? Ali did. Many would drop the free pass, but I took and never played again in the match. I felt awful.
For the first time in its 11-year history, the UKBGF is inviting you to participate in a national online survey of backgammon activity.
We are pleased to announce an exciting initiative to boost the number of UK players at Monte Carlo 2025, which is the brainchild of UK captain Chris Rogers. Chris has been the last remaining Brit over the last two years (4th and 9th respectively), whilst, only in his opinion, probably not being in the top 10 UK players!
At Monte Carlo 2024 the UK only had nine representatives compared to 36 from the USA and more from other nations! Part of the UKBGF’s mission should be to find the next UK World Champion, and to this end we need more representation in Monte Carlo.
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“Listen, we’re here to have fun, as a family,” was the gist of Papa Line’s opening remarks to the 80-odd souls [thank goodness for hyphens], who made their way Westward Ho!
And I think fun was most certainly had. Wall to wall backgammon – if you were spied to be thumb-twiddling, you better have good reason. Some get too greedy and gorge. This means they have a queue forming outside their office door of people demanding action. In the Tombstone [Last Chance], I had to wait for my opponent to play not once but thrice in the Speed, and then in the next round, exactly the same thing happened. So a queue of six matches for the little old speed, ‘eh?! But the balance is hard to strike, and of course it was a freak that both of my opponents were winning fiends… until they ran into me, of course.
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