The latest edition of the Bristol Open was the first since 2019, due to the Covid pandemic. Although the Rainbow Casino had reopened by the usual time on the calendar last year, it just ‘didn’t feel right’ and I didn’t want a repeat of the last-minute cancellation that the Blackpool organisers were forced to do earlier in 2021.
The Bristol Open has been fortunate to have an excellent venue for the tournament thanks to the generosity of the Rainbow Casino. However, since the end of the pandemic, they have struggled with staff shortages and this eventually led to a reduction in their opening hours from 24 hours a day to 2pm until 4am. This obviously had a significant impact on the tournament’s overall playing hours. I managed to negotiate slightly earlier door opening times of 11:00 and 13:00 for Saturday and Sunday respectively, which effectively meant a reduction of planned playing time of 5 hours. As a result of this, I reduced the published match lengths for the Undefeated bracket in both Masters and Intermediates by 2 points. Other than that, we decided that with the players’ co-operation we should be able to play to a successful conclusion.
Quite a number of players came to Bristol a day early to join Bristol Backgammon players for their usual Thursday evening tournament at the casino, which was a GP20 event, £20 entry with optional £20 and £10 side pools and directed as usual by Ian Tarr. Matches are 9pts with a 7pt Consolation tournament for those who lose in the first round, which guarantees a minimum of 2 matches for everyone. Bristol players took the honours with Ian Hedges winning the main flight and Chris Rogers the consolation. The following day the Bristol Open got up and running with 2 x satellite events catering for Masters and Intermediate players. These were won by Kev Peters in the Masters and Rosemary Whitehouse, the intermediates. Before the evening activities the players were served a welcome buffet. Because of the previously mentioned time constraints, I decided to limit the Super Jackpot event to 8 players. As 11 had entered (an ugly number anyway) I decided to whittle them down to 8, by conducting a Camden Auction, starting at £250 and increasing until 3 had dropped out. This happened once the price had risen to £350. The remaining 47-players took part in the free to enter Warm-up, which resulted in Graham Sievers pipping Merrin Rose in the final and netting him the Erhan 869bg Backgammon board, which was the prize for the highest placed UKBGF Member. The Super Jackpot was won by Ary Nogueira from Brazil with Vasile Schiopu runner-up.
On Saturday, the main event got underway. As usual, we attracted players from all over the world, including the USA, Brazil, Singapore, Germany, Ukraine, Romania, Ireland and Switzerland. During the briefing before start of play, I reiterated the time constraints that we had found ourselves in and requested that players were proactive in getting their matches played as quickly as possible taking breaks together where possible and not ‘disappearing’. With a couple of exceptions, everyone got with the program and cooperated with me, for which, I am extremely grateful. By the end of the day the 59 strong Masters field had been whittled down to just 10 and the Intermediates from 37 down to 6. This allowed the planned evening activities to go ahead, with Poker players joining the Casino’s regular Poker tournament and a Consulting Doubles tournament capped at 16 pairs. The highest placed Poker award went to Brazil’s Andrea Quadros, whilst the Doubles was won by Team ‘Piggie Piggie Gammon Sq-Ealing’ (Dan Feeny and Alec Barr) defeating the regular partnership of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (Jon Barnes and Anna Parker).
On the Sunday, with 3 hours less play than usual, we had to complete both the main tournaments as well as the side events and The Tombstone Trophy (42 Players). The side events were a £5 entry 64-player DMP tournament, won by George Georgiou from Stephen Little and a Speed Gammon tournament (Bristol Blitz), which is basically 8 x 8-player jackpots (entry £20), with the winner of each taking £100, with £50 of the remaining entries going to the Final 8-player Heat, made up of the 8 winners. This was a challenge to get completed in a timely manner and was eventually won by James Newman.
In the main events, Gaz Owen became the 3rd Bristol player to win the tournament, following reigning champion, Stuart Mann. The first being Simonetta Herrera. He did so by winning the first match against Mike Ireland to take the crown. In the Intermediates it was Tom Thorpe who took the title the hard way, coming through the Fighters and having to defeat Bristol player Ian Anderson twice to take the title. In the Tombstone trophy (Last chance) Plamen Sivrev beat Daniel Rovira in the final.
I would like to express my thanks to the following people who assisted me greatly. Andy Boysan and Simon Tracy, who assisted in registering players and helping whenever they could, despite being competitors themselves. Mark Calderbank whose recording system is just fantastic and who remains calm under the most stressful circumstances and just gets the job done, despite also taking part in the main tournament. Finally Hazel Harper for her expertise in herding sheep (players) and working dawn till the early hours to make this thing work. I couldn’t have done it without her and she very much deserved the ‘Spirit of the Event’ award which was voted on by the players.
We are already thinking about next year’s event and happy to receive any feedback from anyone who has constructive criticism.
The winners are as follows:
MASTERS (59 players):
1st: Gaz Owen; 2nd: Mike Ireland; 3rd: Tim Paulden; 4th: Paul Statter; 5th=: Andy Boysan, Ian Tarr.
INTERMEDIATES (37 players):
1st: Tom Thorpe; 2nd: Ian Anderson; 3rd: Aydin Colcak; 4th: Simon Tracy; 5th=: Roland Archer, Merrin Rose.
SUPER JACKPOT (8 players after Camden auction):
1st: Ary Nogueira; 2nd: Vasile Schiopu.
SPEEDGAMMON (64 players, including rebuys):
1st: James Newman; 2nd: Dan Feeny.
ERHAN 869BG FRIDAY WARM-UP (47 players):
1st: Graham Sievers; 2nd: Merrin Rose; 3rd=: Ian Anderson, Can Cag.
TOMBSTONE TROPHY (Last Chance) (42 players):
1st: Plamen Sivrev; 2nd: Daniel Rovira; 3rd=: Reinhold Heinlein, Ary Nogueira.
£5 DMP (58 players, including rebuys) :
1st: George Georgiou; 2nd: Stephen Little; 3rd=: Daniel Molan, Mohammad Torkani.
I am assuming that the Speed Gammon tournament was played with 5 point matches? About a month ago I played in the Australian Backgammon Champs where every match of their Speed Gammon was 7 point matches, and it was so enjoyable and took hardly anymore time but was a better test of ability. You could suffer some bad luck but being more points meant that skill played more of a factor. The setting was a 3 minute time bank with 10 seconds per move.
Well done Tim and Hazel. Appreciation of your dedication and hard work cannot be over stated. Brilliant job matey. And what a joy it was to see our old friend Carter whose Herculean effort to attend with all that he has been through was truly staggering. M
Tim, and all the team – you were fab, managed a schedule, shortened by circumstances out of your control, with professionalism and a light touch – or some firmness when required! My first visit to Bristol for over 30 years, it won’t be my last. Great tournament, stunning city. Thank you.