The UKBGF Tour and the TWI Finals – An End-of-Year Report

With the conclusion of the Bristol Open and the Worcester Intermediate tournaments, the curtain falls on our first full year of live UKBGF Tour Backgammon after the horrendously extended period of lockdown.

Huge congratulations to all our winners this year and a big thank you to all tournament directors whose never ending commitment to the cause keeps live backgammon thriving in the UK.

Here is the final picture in the UKGBF Tour and TWI Finals qualification:

Masters Division

 

A truly worthy 2022 UKBGF Tour Champion in Rachel Rhodes. The only player with multiple tournament wins during the year, Rachel becomes the 5^th different Tour winner proving just how tough it is to be a top level consistent performing tournament backgammon player.

Yours truly (Steve Bibby) did his best to compete to the end and, save for the pesky Gary Bratton who decided to make a rather annoying comeback in the Newcastle Open semi final, would have been playing a likely duel for the title in the final!

Cat Bucur had an outstanding start to the season and would have been much closer in the final deliberations had he been able to attend more events. He still finished an honourable 3^rd overall.

Martin Barkwill deserves a mention as the most consistent performing player without a win, missing out in 2 Finals (Cambridge and Liverpool).

It is with great regret that I must report that Rachel in unable to take her seat at the TWI Finals due to previous commitments and the tournament will be poorer for it. Still, there is no shortage of talent at this year’s event including the following:

Gaz Owen, Bristol Winner, BG Grandmaster and first-time attendee who was unable to take his place at previous event. Kev Jones, 2019 Tour Winner and returning qualifier. First time Tour winners Rich McQuillan, Reece Hodges, Dan Rovira and Oliver Squire also join this year’s line-up. Consistent performers throughout the year who also make the grade include Mike Ireland, Tim Line, Andy Darby, David Nathan and our three Shrigley full time residents (who have all qualified every year to date) Radu Ciortan, Alex Polden and Sean Jones.

Intermediate Division

In an extremely competitive Intermediate division this year, victory was finally achieved by a rising talent in our game, namely Thomas Thorpe. He had to survive a serious challenge from the likes of Sarah Jolliff (2^nd), David Sanders (3^rd), CJ Uttley and Michèle de Havilland who all went into the final event at Worcester with a chance of claiming the UKBGF Intermediate Tour Champion title. A tremendous achievement for Thomas in his first full year of tournament backgammon and one of several players in this division who will be making the move up to Master level very soon.

Other winners and finalists to reach Shrigley include Liviu Ionescu and Merrin Rose from the Memorial event, Becca Bell from Brighton and Aydin Kolcak and Gregge Madan from our Worcester event.

The remaining places were filled by some very consistent performances from Peter Hodson (thoroughly deserving after missing out on a previous TWI event due to travel commitments), Christoph Deiter, Rosalie Johnson, Roland Archer and Simon Tracy.

Unfortunately, Nick Thorpe (UK Open Intermediate Winner) cannot make the TWI due to work commitments and (at the time of writing) the invitation for the final place is still outstanding so if you are one of the players just outside the qualifying places, keep an eye out for an late invite!

A couple of players miss out due to UKBGF non-membership and it is worth mentioning that the TWI is funded by the UKBGF for our members’ benefit so if you are keen to play please ensure you are a UKBGF member BEFORE any qualifying tournament.

Full qualifying criteria can be found on the UKBGF website under “Events: TWI”.

 

TWI tournament organiser/director – Steve Bibby

Full Details/Website here