London Open day 3

… Radu Ciortan defeats Len Brown in the final of the London RAC Masters.

Have these words ever been uttered by a tournament director before?:  “Look… keep the board, it’s theirs, keep the dice, keep the clock, keep the scoreboard, in this envelope is the loser’s winnings, sorry nothing for the winner, but we’ve run out of cash…  if they kick you out, play somewhere else; if I don’t leave right now, I am dead!”

And off he drove.  The last Beamer out of Saigon.  One might be forgiven for thinking that TD Andrew Selby was having ‘a bit of a mare’ and was either late for his own funeral or 40th birthday party, I couldn’t quite tell; but nothing could be further from the truth.  It was just a case of huge numbers, an abundance of very long matches, every point being scrapped for, and those fighter’s brackets and progressive consolations giving everyone so much “bang for their buck.”  People have to lose four times to be finally snuffed out – make that 6 or 7 for the greedy.  

Let’s take my little shimmy, which resulted in a Consolation win.  I am no grandmaster but was still out there slugging for over 20 hours.  Is my game improving?  Times columnist Chris Bray paid me the first compliment he has ever given me, and it was worth waiting 19 years for:  “you were playing… you were playing… weirdly…”  Thank you Chris!  Finally someone has recognized my intangible genius.

Name	Event	Score	Playing time
Graham Sievers	Main	13-11	2:00
Afshar Sangari	Main	13-10	2:00
Simon Shamash	Main	4-13	1:45
Cristian Cozos	Super Jackpot	4-13	1:45
Tim Line	Fighters	9-6	1:40
Kazuhiro Shino	Fighters	9-7	2:00
Seb Wilkinson	Fighters	9-1	1:00
Afshin Foulad	Fighters	5-9	1:40
George Jacobs	Consolation	w/o	1:00
Engin Ongel	Consolation	11-8	1:45
Romolo Mudu	Consolation	11-9	2:00
Stephen Nelson	Consolation	11-8	2:20
Total		99-96	20+ hours

It’s an awful lot of action, and that’s with a fortunate bye after a shell-shocked George Jacobs left the coliseum after losing back-to-back in the Main and then Fighter’s final.  No way did he have any desire to become entangled with a randy Cockerpillar and four more matches in the Consolation.

Four of my matches went to DMP and I was lucky to nick them all, and several others were mighty close.  The 4-13 losses were basically 3.5 hours of sitting there having my opponent lob darts at me.  Merciless, and I couldn’t do a thing.

Every match was played in magnificent spirit, save for my fraught encounter with Seb – but what I did to him in that 9-1 was cruel and unusual, and I hope we can put the whole thing straight into the “f***-it bucket.”

Otherwise, did I get lucky with my oppos, or are backgammon players super kind and nice people?  We can have a reputation for being a tad sharky or hard-bitten at times, but there was absolutely none of it here, and I think that may all be a hark back to the 1970/80s.  My opponents that I was meeting for the first time in Graham, Afshar, Cristian, Afshin, Romolo and Stephen were all personality clones of each other:  18 karat gems, countless laughs, impeccable sportsmanship, and all willing to discuss and comment on some of the stone-cold bonkers things we were seeing.  

For Romolo, I was drawing dead not once, but twice after going 3-8 down.  Both times I needed less than a 1% parlay to stay in the match, and found it.  The whole saga seemed to amuse him enormously – what a gentleman.  And Stephen and I were lucky to have each other in the final as the conditions were terrible – an abandoned tournament, the staff smashing up the place with loud clattering of dismantling infrastructure, the hundreds of patrons long since departed, but we didn’t care.  Here’s our arena.  Lights still on, but nobody’s home:

We played a long, deadly serious match, but with a pleasant patter of observation, and plenty of mirth.  We capiche backgammon for what it is:  the game of life, with the high farce, tragedy, joy and bewildering clusterfucks that happen in nearly every game.

Stephen really wishes he’d taken this cube from me at 9-8.  Does he perhaps have 25% here?  He never got a sniff in the next…

The prize for worst sequence at a crucial moment in the tournament goes to Engin in the Fighter’s semi.  He had three rolls to bear-off two checkers from his six, to get right back into the match.  Out popped 21 21 32 for the old 2,750-1 anti-shot, and he was staring at 1-8 to 9 instead of 3-6.  

In our consolation semi, Romolo and I had to endure Shino and Aref Alipour next to us, who played out their punch drunk Last Chance final in a near endless stream of riffing, chiding, trash talk, laughter and fun.  They were at the end of a long road and it was time for revelry.  What a pair.  Aref won at DMP.

And the winner is…!

The grand final saw the charming Radu Ciortan dispose of the equally amenable Len Brown 13-6.  Radu, an alumni of Universitatea Spiru Haret Bucuresti, and a recent victor of January’s Tour Winners Invitational, is on a hot streak.  He was also part of the Romanian squad that won the 2021 World Team Championships.

I was touched Len made a beeline for me to discuss my recent article in the press about Richmond Park banning cross-country racing.  He struggled to comprehend the reason:  to protect the anthills.  “Ants gotta’ live too,” I proffered.  But for those worried about this – and I’m sure many of you are – we’re on the case and Richmond Park is again open to cross-country.  Maybe Andrew could kindly host a race for us, which if you lose you get to go round again.  Four times.

Bouquets and Summary

In summary, a truly great competition – on a par with the epic London Masters of November 2007 which some of you will recall.  It had the same buzz, camaraderie and elan.

Huge thanks to the RAC for their sumptuous surrounds and it’s great to be striking up a bond again with Geoffrey Parker, and they generously donated a magnificent board for the final.  Despite the above ragging, Andrew is a dreamboat TD and for three days he was a masterpiece in spontaneous diplomacy.  David Potter also worked tirelessly, as did all the staff.  We’re most grateful.  The future of tournament BG in the UK looks in fine fettle for these next 20 years, and we’re all doing our bit to preserve the legacy and future of the world’s greatest board game.