Tomorrow’s Stars Today

A good old fashioned hike up to the Muswell Hill badlands was well worth it for your eager scribe, as an intriguing list of the hugely experienced mixed with the up-and-comers made for a kaleidoscope of technicolour backgammon.

The most use I can be to the Inters in this report is to proffer sharp insight of what I see occurring here, compared to the Masters, which in turn could hopefully inspire tweaks to be made.  The play is fluent and inventive, but there are clear markers as to where improvement can be swiftly made.  Here are some hot tips:

1)  When contact is broken and checkers scuttling round the board, or in the bear-off, plays are being made too fast and not enough thought is going into real, forensic accuracy.  At Inters level there is more of a vibe of:  “what’s the difference?”  An old wag at Fulham recently barked at me:  “Will, I had no idea you were such a bean counter.”  But I make no apologies for obsession with accuracy and looking under every stone for those little shards of added equity and value.  And this is where the Inters can inject some rocket fuel into their game.  Take this perfect example.  Ace to play in the race, with opponent near certain to be off in two rolls:

The player swiftly played 5/4, overlooking that 4/3 gives him 33.  Such a seemingly simple idea, but 2.8% straight down the swanny.  A kibitzing Chris Hamilton also noted that his opponent wasn’t completely ‘Gin’ to be off in two, and that the flexible 3/2 is also worthy of attention, and he’s absolutely right.  But 5/4? Never.

2)  Action Doubles.  Janette Hodgkinson carried much of her Tashkent form to here and ended up in the semi-finals of the Consolation, where she missed some “action doubles” and confessed to not knowing what such a thing is.  Action doubles are a major stepping stone to more advanced play, and in brief are a cube which to the naked eye looks a tad premature but has potential of great things quickly should the dice be kind.

But I’ll let the great Bill Robertie in his Gammon Press blog define them as only he can:

Action doubles are particularly dangerous and incisive when one is behind on the scoresheet, as Janette was at 1-4 [7].

Earlier in the match, I thought this was a good, pugnacious cube by Janette at 1-1 [7]:

However, closer analysis shows it to be a frisky.  She is 98-91 down in the race, and the minor bear-in issue.  Ticklish one.

Classic position!

This was a fascinating 55 for Fraya Dravern at 0-0 [3].  What is your play?

Fraya tried 14/9 [2], 7/2 [2] which is too gappy and involves checker burial.  I am, in the words of Steve Martin, “a wild and crazy guy,” so like the 5 prime of 13/8 [[2], 14/9 [2], but leaving the shot is too much largesse.  The correct play is the somewhat vanilla 14/4 [2].

Shake rattle, ‘n roll on your own patch

Another little thing I picked up on is that when there is no clock, players are shaking the dice too much when their opponent is in action.  The theory being, “that looks like the obvious play, it looks like they’re going to do it, so I’ll start shaking.”  This is premature – and it happens a little in Masters too.  Players should not be shaking dice when the move is in motion.  The opponent may only be “having a look” or “experimenting” and thus the shaking is off-putting at best, and if incessant could border on sharp practice.

Cube action of the day

This was a wonderful take by Aydin Kolcak, leading 5-1 [7].  I am running a mile here at the quintuple shot and collapsed position.  But passing is a huge blunder.  Pick the bones out of this!

It won’t surprise you to hear the next 10 minutes of Aydin’s life were fairly fraught, but he kept wriggling free and even took a couple more checkers off before then getting hit again, and losing a close race.  What a position, though.

Levis Back in Trend

The tournament was won by Guy Levi, whose eligibility was legal when the calculations were made [average rating between October 2024 & 2025], but far ahead of the curve now and heading, like quite a few in the event, to the top 200 in the land and beyond, which is no joke.  Guy had a fine, double match point final with the ever friendly Ritchie Newbold, but too many missed cubes on either side.  Pull that trigger folks.  Or as Karsten Bredahl eloquently says:  “just jump into the cold water”.  A shock at first, but then it’s fine.  You want to maximise equity by doubling, with the additional benefit that you could induce a significant error from your opponent into the bargain.

All in then it seemed to be a splendid affair, run with Andrew, David and Jill’s insouciant charm, and played in comradely spirit by the lifeblood and grassroots of the game.  Players are much more willing to laugh, joke and be merry and that somewhat severe vibe of Masters events did not permeate through here.

Having said that, we look forward to welcoming many of these players in the Masters very soon, and of course many are old hands, but were just swimming in less shark infested waters.

Results:

Champion:  Guy Levi
Runner-Up:  Ritchie Newbold

Semi-finalists:  Paul King, Tom McMahon

Consolation
Winner:  Burak Karavert
Finalist:  Luke McAuley

Last Chance
Winner:  David Bugg
Finalist:  Mustafa Guzel