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Eric the Eel wriggles to glory

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Blackpool Imperial Cup, June 7-9, 2024

It is a tad disingenuous to compare Eric McAlpine to Eric the Eel of 2000 Olympic fame whose alarming 1:52 for the 100 metres freestyle captured global hearts.  But this masterful matchplayer, formerly placing a solo 3rd at the Worlds, still negotiated some choppy waters of his own.  Eric has been largely absent from the scene post-Covid but it was great to see him, and his presence made the tournament that much tougher.  His errant hip afforded him prime real estate in the playing room, and by far the best light in an environ where those pesky Halogen bulbs are dropping like flies to give off less than optimum light.  A ticklish problem as mending a bulb requires a dolly, but there’s never a dolly around when you need one.

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In the footsteps of Diogenes

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Tournaments abroad can sometimes be a bit of an adventure – just getting to and from the venue. In mid-April, in search of some warmer climes, Rowena and I decided to attend the 2nd Loutraki Grand Prix International Backgammon Championships in Greece.

A delayed flight meant sharing one hire car with CJ and Rachel Rhodes fell by the wayside.  Fortunately, we then bumped into Chris Rogers and Julian Minwalla and we were able to jump into their car instead.  Our travel travails hadn’t quite finished – once at Loutraki we were faced with an hour-long detour, on foot, fully laden with bags and in the dead of night to get to get round some roadworks to our AirBnB…only to find the next morning that we could have used a path a couple of yards away round the roadworks.

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London Masters – One Fine Day

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30 March 2024, Clissold Arms

This was one of the best backgammon days out one could imagine, with glorious Spring weather and outside play for the hardy; a draw of 64 and a great mix of people from the old to the young; a broad range of ability; and a startling surprise for the winner.

On a day of shocks and drama aplenty, there was a fascinating four cube by David Lazarus [black 2-1, match to seven] vs Sara Sathyanandha.  Take or pass?  Or is it even a cube?  Answer at the end (with a Brucie bonus lesson to boot).

The third round saw a tense clash with David Brown having to let spouse Lady Seely down gently, whilst I drew Tim Line, just like last year.   We’re boxing at the same weight and enjoy complex middle games.  Both times I’ve squeaked through.  Tim has seen a lot in his career and has some remarkable stories, one of which is possibly holding the record for the quickest first round win at the World Championships at 24 minutes.  I am not going to claim Tim takes everything, but I’ve never had a pass from him.  He laps up the volatile, action doubles like they’re Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and frequently turns the game.  All rather disconcerting.  And what great one-liners.  In one game soon found himself with three on the 24 and three on the 23, with no points made by me. “Nackgammon with knobs on,” he observed quick as a flash.

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Clear as Mud – by Foxymoron

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A couple of my errors in my daily games against XG have been deciding whether to clear the six-point or to take two off when bearing in against an ace-point game, so I decided to investigate the issue. Many factors will influence the decision:

  • a) Whether gammons count
  • b) Whether the opponent is more likely to crash if we keep a five-prime
  • c) If gammons count, how many crossovers the opponent has
  • d) What our distribution is like if we take two off

Try the eight positions without looking at the solutions and then see how you scored.

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