Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
My journey to the Gibraltar Open side-stepped several players being bounced between Gib & Malaga like a pinball, with the captain saying stuff like, “we think there may be a window to land, so we’re going to have a crack, and see how it goes…” I will be forever grateful I didn’t run that gauntlet. My own journey was special in its own unique way, including a missed flight and all but scratching from the tournament. Lifting the 30 hour farce straight from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, I just about arrived with my faculties intact.
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Let the Sport Commence
The last thing you want after such a saga is a clinical world champion lying in wait, but I was pleased to see the suave phizog of Johan Moazed again. Such a lovely man, with all the calm reassurance of Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man, as he hovers over Dustin Hoffman in the dentist chair with that soothing voice: “Isn’t that remarkable? Simple oil of cloves, and how amazing the results. Life can be that simple: Relief… Discomfort.” That’s backgammon.
I beat Johan last year and we always felt destined to go to Double match point [DMP]. I thought this cube from Johan [red] was remarkably frisky, but some say it’s clear.
At 58% he’s too light though. And what about this 4 cube from me, for a brutal take for Johan:
It’s accurate by me [at a 0.003 no double], but he couldn’t find the take for the .328 blunder, and I certainly don’t blame him. But Stefan Paliwoda at once pointed out all my heavy lifting on the 21 point.
The DMP was thrilling as Johan perfectly timed his 4, 7 holding game, but I luckily bore in safely.
Out of the frying pan, but…
Up next was mildly terrifying stuff and I completely blew a great position against April Mesich, who has seen some of the Minnesota riots up close. From 7-1 [13] I snap doubled this, but it’s vastly premature:
My 22 was good to make the 4, but April found back-to-back deuces and hurled in the 4 cube. A good play, and my take, based on irritation was an octuple blunder:
Staring down the barrel of 7-9, I was fortunate to save the gammon. Matters were less fraught from there and Konrad Froschl awaited on the morrow.
Konrad used to scare me some 20 years ago with his sharp manner and would give TDs quite a hard time. But he’s mellowed and has become a kindly senior statesman of the game. I knew he’d be a real handful and is 94 on the WBGF ratings. We had a brutal, onerous match and the commentators lambasted me for two plays. But to my credit, Barnesy wrote to say he loved what I did with both of these:
Most are hitting on the ace here with red’s 21, but as I’m a back-game specialist, no chance. It was deemed an aberration in the comm box, and that I didn’t see the checker, and that “it happens to us all.” But I saw it. When I didn’t take him, Konrad told me the next day he was absolutely furious. Not hitting wins 8% more. To hell with a few less gammons.
The game progressed somewhat predictably, to this monstrosity for Konrad, and this is a fun 63. I tried 6/off, 6/3* which was also discounted as an option in the media. Yes, I sacrifice some wins, but the gammons leap from 14 to 26. Go big or go home.
Into the undefeated semis now, courtesy of an initial bye and the clinical Connie Eriksson lay in wait. I asked to do a deal. No chance, he said. He pinged into a 3-0 lead but then passed 9 of my next 11 cubes, and I had a good edge, but it always felt the match would ‘go deep’. This was a bad 11 by me at 13-8 [15].
I did well to avoid the trap of 7/5* (2) which the kibitzers crowed I should have naturally made, but the gammons rise to 6% from 3. Too profligate. My play was 8/6 (2). Far too wan. The correct play is 13/11 (2).
Julian Minwalla sauntered over at a ticklish moment. “Hello Jules, no 5 or 2 please.” Jules promptly ordered in this 52 hell in a handbasket:
What to do… what to do? Jules is slotting twice, but I couldn’t bear it, as it triples Connie’s gammons, which are so valuable. It’s too big – an easy play to make from the bleachers. I went for the scared 6/1, 3/1 but it achieves little except to keep the gammons low. One can sometimes neglect to try and win a game. I was punished later with a last gasp hit. The correct play is 7/2*, 6/4.
After stumbling home 15-10, surely a deal to be had with Misja Alma [18th/196,842 on Galaxy] in the undefeated final? But again no chance. It was a funny old match and Misja made one or two whoppers with the cube. 15-5 was a wee bit flattering to me, but hopefully if we then met again in the Grand final, he would do a deal.
We duly met again. No deal. I started to hyperventilate and dance about like a spaniel who needs to pee. He caught this and went to work. “Ok, we can lay off £3,000. But of that, 2,000 goes to me.”
I ran it by UK captain Chris Rogers at breakfast. “He wants to hedge at 66-33 Chris.”
“That’s generous,” said the oracle. “I’d’ve have gone 70-30.” Say what you see.
It’s a queasy business playing a match for a £4.5k differential but sometimes you just have to submit to “the blood… the noise… the endless poetry.” I asked the avuncular Thomas Myhr for ‘one pearl of advice’ before the final. He shot back a useful four letter word.
“Cube.”
Astonishing final
The final was by far the best match of my career at well over 3 hours and with many sensational games, stunning swings and highly complex moments.
Quite whether Thomas’ advice of “cube” included 8 cubes when leading, for .16 blunders, is open to debate, but to me this was a snap cube and a cash at 4-3 [17]:
Then Misja started to think… and think… He wasn’t seriously considering this baby was he? It started to dawn on me… a lot of overage on my gammons… and he can kill them all by whipping back to 16. I had a dead checker and given up the 6 point. Blimey.
It’s actually a .35 blunder to pass. Misja passed. Those 38% gammons had scared him off. In the words of Anna Price, “XG does not have a Masters in psychology.”
I started to babble… “if ever you want to lay something off, the offer still stands.” He said, “fine, we can lay-off 2 grand”. I gladly accepted. Geoff Hall fell off his chair when I told him later, and said I should have called him up and he would have purchased a far kinder hedge off Misja. “You’re 8-3, for goodness sake!!”
But I had a warmer feeling in my belly, and just to annoy Misja, I “let” him recover to 8-8, so he then had to say, “good hedge.” S’all clever stuff.
“It’s a 9 point match!” Said I…
The 8-8 game was pure bloody gelignite. Misja has 61 to play here and opted for 16/9, which is far too bold:
I was rather stunned and did consider the cube, but only had 2s and 9s. Simon Barget in the booth smelled blood: “Stop! Stop! Have a little think! I mean, come on!” The footage shows I stopped and thought for 19 seconds. Sufficient.
I hit with 62 and Misja fanned and this is clearly too good, but again I got pilloried in the box, after a roll diabolique, 65!:
Simon opined, “this is why you’ve got to take time. Unless you’re a very quick player and in the zone, you’ve gotta’ take time over that cube decision. Because there were so many numbers that didn’t cover. This is a disaster.”
Merrin observed, “there are certain positions where you have to just count through the rolls.” Rest assured that I got to 30 good rolls in about 3 seconds and that was enough for me. Sometimes in BG, you roll a lemon.
After 18/7 the jeopardy was thru the roof. Misja kindly missed from the bar, but just scrambled off the gammon.
At 11-10 I was in a poverty-stricken race when I peeled off 44 55 55 55. Meh, it’s 20 pips shy of what I wanted, but I’ll take it. Bizarrely, Misja played off a 31 PR in the game; improving to 30 in the next. It had become a right mash-up:
At 14-13 I cubed at too good. It was pretty bad, but I was panicking and down to 2 minutes. I was “only” 68% and “only” a .06 error but far too many gammons. 15-13 to me. I helpfully pointed out to Misja that this was a dangerous scoreline and that he should be very careful. “Ok, thanks professor,” he replied. He then cubed like Rambo without a jockstrap:
I get the premise, but 4-away, 2-away is not a free cube. Misja is only 48% and has not given me a decision to make. The error is .06. I’ve got more gammons than him.
The position opened up a cute little 55 [which I’d telegraphed I was partial to]. Diana Sulimirski would approve – she named her club after it. The 55 came on cue, and here I am bowing to the patrons on the yachts who were peering in, hanging off our every roll:
Arda magically appeared in the room. “Go away Arda! You’re like the angel of death,” I chided. How was he to know I’d win the 50-50 race? But the angel was right.
“Did you believe you could win a major backgammon tournament?” Arda asked. He clearly didn’t catch my Gammonitis 3rd birthday triumph of October 2006. I sense a pattern. Look out for me in 2046.
Thanks to Karsten for transcription insight
The Great Dane Karsten Bredahl has done a brilliant and humorous commentary of the match which he also kindly transcribed. The stats make for an interesting read. My checkers are some way behind Misja’s, but I do enjoy deliberately provocative plays, like for instance, “coming under the gun” in the final game with 63, where I played 13/7, 24/21, instead of running a checker out to the 14. It duped Misja into the early cube. In the 8-8 game we had 9 blots between us; just the sort of chaos I thrive in. But my cube was superior to Misja, and one of my Doubling blunders was probably the best play of my career:
Karsten has released a grim looking video called Gibraltar Final blunder review, here, which will slice and dice us both, but improve us as players.
Speech!
I was allowed to speak at prize-giving, but Arda warned the crowd, “he hates talking you know”. After thanking the organizers for a magical event and saying it’s my favourite, these were my closing remarks:
“Backgammon in the world at the moment is in an incredibly special place. It’s exploding… we in this room are pioneers and ambassadors – for the best game in the world – and it’s really exciting where we’re at, and hopefully in this next few years we can go on a hell of a journey. But it’s up to us – and the rest of the community.”
Superb from Team GB again
As ever, the Brits were in good number here, and we found numerous finalists, perhaps most pleasing being Sarah’s romp to the ladies final against the ubiquitous Marianne Husum:
Ian Anderson: Intermediate Last Chance finalist
Afshin Foulad & Afsaneh Koohestani: Doubles finalists
Ginge Fullen: Intermediate 2nd Chance Finalist
Sarah Jolliff: Ladies finalist
Stefan Paliwoda: Seniors finalist & DMP finalist
Chris Rogers: Seniors winner & Last Chance Finalist.
Congratulations Will, obviously such a great result is the noticeable thing. However I got the opportunity to watch a couple of your matches on You Tube and was struck how sporting your were at such an important moment in your BG career. You represented UK backgammon with determination and sportsmanship which in my opinion is just as important as the result.
Many thanks Tim. The oddly rolled 63 was a curious incident, and I got sucked into it all a tad, as James was right there with his phone, offering to check, and then saying, “let me check with Arda.” My first instinct was right to let it stand, but we had VAR right there.
No issues with the decision at all, but a massive swing on the roll!
Otherwise, I’m always happy to chirrup a “well done” or a “good game” at the conclusion of a game – and so many were thrillers. It costs nothing and the most important thing is that Misja and I were never anything but comrades, despite his tough approach to hedging. I never really understand players who treat it all with such serious and grave ferocity. One can play hard and still be light and pleasant.
Onwards indeed.
As always, hilarious and highly entertaining; And the best bit, proof that you don’t need a low PR to be a Champion, but luck, chutzpah, skill and very large cojones – not necessarily in that order.
Congratulations on having the full package Will.
A very well-deserved win.