Over the summer I was delighted to win my largest tournament to date, and probably the one that means most to me… and for a while I had loads of thoughts about who to pick as our 2021 charity. It wasn’t long after, though, that my mind was rather made up for me; Anna and I have routine scans every couple of years, and a few days later the dreaded call came through for her: “we’ve seen something a bit odd and we’d like to take a closer look”. That was the cue for six months of gruelling cancer treatment (with all the complications of COVID on top), and while the end is in sight with a positive outcome very likely now, it is an experience you would never wish to go through. You may have noticed I’ve been rather absent from live backgammon and rather subdued online recently, this is why. So, our 2021 charity is Macmillan Cancer Support – we’ve been through some very scary times but having ready access to people who have long experience of it, to get good information, practical advice, and many times just a friendly face to talk to, has been invaluable along the way. Please do sign up and play, have a lot of fun, and make a real difference.

So, I’m delighted to now be able to start registering players for the 2021 Charity Challenge! Registration is open now and closes at midnight on Christmas Eve. This year we’ll be adopting the same format to last year’s Challenge with multiple-elimination, starting with five lives. Each round involves an 11 point match. The first five rounds will start with random draws on December 28th 2021 – or possibly the day after if I have a really long run in the Worcester Christmas tournament! – and you’ll have five weeks to play those matches. Lose a match, lose a life! After that, we pair people up with opponents who have similar numbers of lives left; everyone still with lives intact gets another opponent every two weeks until we are left with just the one champion. Entry is open to all – you don’t need to be a UKBGF member.

Entry costs just a £10 donation to our cause – and every entry really will make a difference. The trophies are being donated by myself as usual, and I’m repeating my challenge to you to sign up: if we can reach 100 players like last time then there will be an extra £100 heading over to Maggie’s Centre, Cambridge who have been an absolutely invaluable support to me on many visits to Addenbrookes as well as keeping me full of tea. Please sign up now! Just email julia@ukbgf.com to register and get payment details, and you can find full information on the tournament here. The format is pretty relaxed and everyone gets a good amount of play; last year it was around in the summer that we had our final round.

There will be an optional £10 side pool again, just mention it when you register!

“Nothing can really prepare you for the first time you hear the C-word, yet a startlingly large proportion of us will be in that position at some point in our lives. We are fortunate to live in an age where there are likely to be paths to recovery, but navigating those paths will impact every aspect of our lives – our physical and emotional health, family, friends, jobs, interests. Having someone expert available at any time to talk through the pros and cons of treatment options, sources of practical help, or just be a supportive listening ear when the journey gets tough, has been absolutely invaluable to us.”