Rhodes scholar
For 124 years Oxford have handed out their Rhodes scholarships to those of academic excellence and good virtue [hence Bill Clinton], but now Cambridge have one of their own.
The Open was yet another fine weekend of comradeship and searingly tense backgammon. I think a natural offshoot of merging the Inters with the Masters is that the whole thing becomes far more about nurturing goodwill and respect. The Masters are desperate for the Inters to remain in the game and continue to grow it, and the Inters are desperate to grow.
The event started in some disappointment when the tightly packed field of 80 with some 30 reserves started with just 70. This is a shame, and zero blame lies with Julia. Rather, it is with the system of tournaments exploding in popularity, playing arenas not being large enough, and people having to play “fastest finger first” to gain entry. I entered Nottingham 2027 nearly 10 months early, and got 7th reserve for my trouble – pretty crazy. It seems the issue will get worse before it gets better.
The problem with having to enter tournaments so early is that players are securing their spots with only vague ideas where there lives will be having lived another 2%. But they have their spots… and then a few days out decide, “naah, not this year”. And then it’s too late to find a replacement. One solution may involve keeping a dozen spots open for online qualifying – certainly worth a thought. Julia writes: “Short of rounding people up and stapling them to their chairs, or doing the airline thing of overbooking and taking the chance of being highly embarrassed, I don’t see a perfect solution.”
Superb turn out from Les Grandes Dames
We continue to push women’s figures up at tournaments and 21/70 is a cracking return. Well done to all the private mentoring groups and ongoing work behind the scenes. Masters fields continue to have around 5-10% women, but 30% shows that the gap is closing in merged events. Hopefully we can massage that figure by at least 1% a year for the next decade. I notice that the merged Blackpool field of 2016 had 17% women.
Of those 21, a trio made it to Sunday’s Last 16. Silver fox Rachel Rhodes – the doyenne of UK women’s backgammon for decades; Scottish skipper for the Worlds, Karen Slawek; and the ubiquitous Catherine Thome, hot-footing it in from France, where she had been carousing in Parisien gambling dens into the small hours. [Ok, the Paris Travellers’ Club tourney, but why ruin a good line].
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Classic Pay me now or Pay me Later
I love these plays that cost a match, or in this case really should have. They teach us so much, and are why we train so hard. 61 for white at DMP [double match point]:
Most are happy to clear from the rear here, but I persuaded myself to clear the tricky bar point vs Richard Furborough who was really starting to freak me out with his sniper dice. But of course now is the moment. Instead I cleared the bar, then brought a checker home, leaving him the 64, plus the ‘new kid on the block’ 55. And he was all too happy to oblige with that thunderclap. After I entered with an ace, Richard MUST hit loose with his 53, but he couldn’t bear to, even though I may well crack my board with a return shot. He gave me a very small race by not hitting and we arrived at the denouement: Richard two checkers on his 2 point, vs my 4 checkers on my ace. That’s 95.4% for Richard, but the dice gods were in a grump with him and served up the gruel of his 61 and my 33.
Becca’s eye-watering crunch
I got into even more trouble against Becca Bell in the next with us both looking to win 4/5 for Sunday. This is a baaaaad situation for me. Only a 11 fails to bring the match home for Becca, but there it is:
I failed to enter and she enjoyed the ‘snake eyes’ so much she rolled them again. This time I entered and all but won the game before getting hit in the bear-off. This is a very interesting play for Becca:
Becca is correct by 0.7% to take two off and leave the blot, well played, and although I wriggled home, she can hold her head high for that alone. I then won a gripping decider with an extremely dodgy 3,4 back game.
Majestic match of the tournament
We savoured a wonderful QF between two top players in Martin Taylor of East Kent and the jiving Andy Selby who moves his body in rhythm to whatever he’s piping through those huge cans [absent in photo]. I like to think it’s something violent and bloodthirsty like the Cranberries’ Zombie:
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are dyin’
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
But he’s probably listening to Chopin.
Anyway it was backgammon at its finest, totally gripping, with the sheer lunacy on overdrive. Thanks to Catherine T for this instant classic; a lot going on here, from the sneaky Mez side-peak checking for signs of life, to a double rendition of Rodin’s Le Penseur:
Here are three great moments – we could run a dozen.
This is a very testing 21 for Andrew, and at Crawford he is not worried about Gammons so must hit [Bar/24 18/16*], as wild and crazy as that looks. His Bar/23, 24/23 was too rigid despite a fairly solid structure.
I seriously flinched when Andrew blitzed here at 10-10 [11], with the double hit in board and thought that the prime was superior, and it is, but only by 1%. Andrew’s is the gammon play, but no gammons required:
It gave Martin a wee bit of wriggle room and he fought back manfully. I share this position merely to whamboozle you, and illustrate how tough top-level backgammon is. A game of luck? Plays automatic? What’s the 52 play for purple here then?
Have you had your dose of Kool-Aid and plumped for the glorious 18/16, 10/5*? Riotous stuff and a play so very few are finding with a host of other options queued up, about half a percent behind.
Outnumbered, ganged-up on, and loving it
After Andrew saw off a fine run from John Bass and Rachel had a fairly comfortable 11-5 vs Cristi Cozos, we had our final.
Selbs writes of a gripping match:
“Andrew, surrounded by an entirely female watching crowd, sadly for him not due to his own good looks and personality, but, more appreciatively due to wonderful camaraderie in the UK’s female section, including a constant livestream via text from Merrin to all their respective teammates in the women’s UK team, fought a fair fight against a tidal wave of wonderful support for Rachel.”
We perhaps should never have arrived at 9-9 as Andy ships here at 8-7 [thanks to Merrin for the image]:
Andrew, a self-deprecating player would be the first to admit this is charitable. He has plenty of spares, his wins are 77%, gammons 53, and RR’s timing is worse than a German penalty-taker. Getting to 10-7 is 85% match winning chances, whilst 9-7 is horribly vulnerable. A great example of a skittish lunge under duress. Rachel took full advantage of the Selby largesse to claim a brilliant triumph, and she can now look Bill Clinton in the eye again, having skulked in his shadow for so long.
Less cowbell please
The Saturday Night Live skit of Christopher Walken demanding more cowbell is all well and good, but nowhere in Julia’s literature does it warn how annoying the Cambridge cows are at 4 in the morning for those sleeping under the stars. I was going to commute back into town on Saturday night for a dinner, and when I decided against I couldn’t resist the glorious meadows all around. My view at 0319 [already getting light] was a treat, but then the cows came a calling, and I was summarily dismissed from my nook. Alex Polden had little sympathy: “Ever heard of a hotel? You’re willing to risk getting trampled in a cow field, and the UKBG obit would merely read, “death by tightness.”
Results:
It’s a very cool question Tim, and less prosaic than “the greatest” which we can look up swiftly on BMAB and get Seb 2.79, Oli 3.38, Aref 3.40, Cross 3.41, Reece 3.56, Barget 3.69, Heskett 3.76. And I think it’s fascinating that Chris Rogers has the most wins by the UK, quite comfortably, on Chicago point for the 21st Century. Not renowned for his PR, but he sure knows how to win.
But your question is who has won the the most backgammon tournaments in UK history – and I love it! I think to qualify for consideration you probably need around 50 years of steady attendance under your belt, which is no joke. Peter B’s first tournament was 1975 and had a deep run on Saturday. Richard Olsen is still active and a remarkable 18th UK on Galaxy, he’s another 1970s man. The likes of Kershaw, Broomfield and Barkwill must be up there somewhere and all still active. Mr Bray will have won a lot, but not a regular in the last 20 odd years. Paul Lamford? Joe Dwek?
But yes, loads of possibles are not included due to under 35 years of play.
Great stuff Will, especially that bit about Peter playing in 1975, I didn’t know that. Despite Chris Bray being a great player for all the period I think he will fall short on the number of tournaments entered but I would certainly be interested in his opinion. Paul Lamford, Julian Fetterlein and Raj Jansari must all be considered but all of them have had large periods of inactivity in UK BG weekend tournaments. Fascinating, I hope other opinions are brought into this debate. Julian Minwalla has been near the top for a long time he may have some input.
Yes, I think JM may contribute, and mentions Mardi, Rick Janowski and Mark Adkins.
I suppose it depends what you count as a tournament win but “12 players with 50 tournament wins of some ilk” sounds a bit high? I think Tim estimated once that even a GM, you’re doing well if you win once out of every 15-20 events. So I’d count stuff like consolations, super jackpots or things like this as side events rather than a main tourney win. Not too familiar with pre BIBA days but 20-25 wins sounds more likely?
Yes, an absolutely massive difference! Night and Day. The reason we all invest so much in tournaments is that the directors give us plenty of bites at the cherry.
All backgammon tournies are difficult to win and it is churlish not to count them just because they’re not the main event. The Speed in Montenegro this year was brutal, and I had to beat two top grandmasters and a Korean-Danish prodigy in the final. About 100 players – it counts!
Some big guns are winning 2 or 3 times at a single event.
This is where the idea of people submitting the 12 top wins in their career becomes very interesting. It sorts the ‘wheat from the chaff’, and one can see what exactly it is that people are winning. The original question is: “has RR won the most backgammon tournaments in UK history?”, and for sure she’s up there somewhere, but a much deeper, more profound question is who has the top 12 BEST wins in history. It’s all well and good to win a Saturday afternoon lucky loser, but it’s better to win the main event.
For me it all started with attending BIBA tournaments in around 1998/99. From memory there was a tournament every month, usually held in the Coventry area, and typically there would be 60-120 players. Michael Crane kept immaculate records of results, so we have a lot of data going back to the early 1990s. There was also a period in the mid noughties when events were held under the Gammonitis umbrella. To identify the player with the most tournament wins in UK backgammon, I think you have to start with the BIBA records, and then look to see which of the tournament winners of that era are still playing and winning. Rachel won 5 BIBA main events, and holds the distinction of winning the British Open twice, in 2000 and 2005. 9 other players won 5 or more BIBA main events: Brian Lever (6), John Hurst (5), Julian Fetterlein (9), Mardi Ohannessian (12), Jon Barnes (5) Paul Lamford (6), Peter Bennet (6), Tony Lee (5) and me (7). I don’t have access to the Gammonitis records, and UKBGF doesn’t summarise results in the way that BIBA used to do, so it’s hard to know for sure who our most prolific winner is. And there was the pre-BIBA period too which I don’t know too much about. But in any event, for the BIBA era up to the present day, Rachel, Peter and Jon may well be our most prolific winners.
Thanks Julian, an excellent summary, I am strongly of the opinion that without the records of NBPS or Gammonitus, we are missing my main point of longevity and success.
Yes, we have good data now, and Chicago Point picks up an incredible amount, but certainly a long way short of complete.
There has also been a influx of UK masterblasters in the last 15 years, and it means that someone very steady over 40-45 years can get taken out by someone devastating over 10-15, as the likes of Gaz, Seb, Oli and Chris Rogers have shown.
They may not quite yet touch the wins of the likes of Peter and Rachel, but are clearly closing very fast.
My feeling is there are around a dozen UK players who can claim some 50 backgammon tournament wins of various ilk, but the speed in which they win them ranges from one a year, to about 5…
In summary, the clash between the greatest and most wins is acute and ask a very different question. Perhaps the purest way to go about it is to take the 12 best results of any player over an entire career, grade them and weight them… which is sort of what the WBGF ranking tries to do, but only over a 3 year period.
I believe this method could just be the way to identify the most successful UK player of all time…
I have made the following observation a couple of times on facebook but I make no apology for repeating it on the UKBGF website. I am almost certain that Rachel has won more tournaments than anyone else in the history of UK Backgammon, the only person that could possibly run her close from my perspective was the Manchester gentleman Brian Lever who we sadly lost 3 or 4 years ago. I have been saying this for a decade or so now and Rachel continues to prove me right. Congratulations again Rachel , if there ever was to be a UK Backgammon Hall of fame you would be my first inductee.
What lovely words Tim, and it’s a fascinating question about the most winningest Uk tournament players. I wonder how active or successful Rachel was in the 1990s. But I’ve done a sweep on Chicago point for UK winners in the 21st C, and the list comes out as Rogers, Wilkinson, Squire, Jansari, Owen, Biddle, Line, Rhodes, Barnes, Barkwill, Powell, McAlpine, Bennet. So she’s right up there, but that top 4 are some way detached from the pack – Monsters all!
Just looking at the BIBA stats spreadsheet, Rachel won 5 main tourneys (not including cons/LC etc). There will be others that don’t appear in Chicago points list like 2x Liverpool Open or Manchester 1 day and those are just the ones I can think of. It’s not an exhaustive list of all tourney wins everywhere. Also some of the big names in your list never won a BIBA event.
Sure thanks, yes, they don’t pick up anyone by all means, but it is the same for everyone, so to speak. I think the list is a good crib sheet to 21st Century UK Bg. A nice mix of the master-blasters and the addicts, and tough to argue with any of them. One great stat is that Oli won 10 events in 2024. Quite incredible.
Chicago point generally does not include British Isles results. I am talking full weekend events at NBPS, BIBA, Gammonitus, UKBGF and full weekend backgammon tournaments in Ireland not sure whether to include BMABs as even though they are full weekend events most players are more interested in how their PR comes out. Chicago Point includes all side events in USA and occasional results Worldwide and therefore has a strong correlation with the Giants list. If a full list of results from all the organisations I mentioned was correlated I would accept that otherwise I honestly can’t think of a UK player with as long and successful a career as Rachel.
Sorry Will, I forgot to answer your question, Rachel was not only playing in and winning tournaments in the 90’s but 80’s also. I have not mentioned Peter Bennet either, Lawrence came onto the scene slightly later and there also are players like me that won a lot in the 80’s and early 90’s but then took a big break from the game. I am interested if there are any other winning backgammon players who have played right through from the 80s to currently without a break other than Rachel, Peter and Brian until he passed.