Perhaps the BGWC social media put it best, when it – somewhat brutally – listed players who fell on the first day in the field of 198 at Monte Carlo:
Michy, Mochy, Akiko, Azuki, Petko, Russell, O’Hagan, Wells, Tenland, Granstedt, Lylloff, Dogan, Snarheim, Pedersen, Royset, Zizka, Belene.
One might perhaps add Jacobowitz, Lund, Nowell, Gagua, Kaagen & Babillon to the list.
Monsters all and surely one of the bloodiest first and second rounds in BG history. About eight of those are by any measurement viewed as among the greatest players of all time. But they’re not on the scrapheap quite yet of course, as the cruel and unusual round of 1024 awaits them to try again in the Fighters. Shall we call it the “heapscrap” instead? Quite a nice ring to it.
“This is a mess, and I love it.”
Team GB had an outstanding day by throwing 12 souls at the problem, with 5 navigating the first two rounds. They are Rogers, Barnes, Rovira, Squire and Cockerell. You have to hand it us, we’re scrappers. After becalming the World’s youngest Grandmaster in 18-year-old Joe Bernaba, I got brutalized by Romolo as he took me for 13 straight points, and at one stage he even tried to shake my hand when he felt the game was up. I rejected the premature signal of my march to Hades, ground it back to 11-16 and tripled him. Efficient.
Ollie went 0-12 down to Justin Nowell in a brilliant match which was the perfect choice for a raucous streaming crowd. At one stage, Ollie is 8-14, 80% to lose the next, and down to 40 seconds on his clock. It’s a problem. Ollie’s delivery is so deadpan that you can’t help but smile when he observes he went “down to 3.9 seconds” for the match. Ollie is so used to time torture that he now breaks down the time he has left into 10ths of a second. To be fair JN was pretty much all out too.
A Youtube kibitzer put it best: “This is a mess and I love it”.
Others to evaporate their time were Rovira and Lund in a brutal match, with Daniel felling Benjamin at DMP.
After Barnesy snuck past the redoubtable Brandon Macklin, the biggest grind went to Chris. It was one of those matches that Kate Bush would have approved of, as he was “running up that hill” for four gruelling hours. Never ahead and always in big trouble. But he simply refused to lose. Finally at 15-13 up, Tristan Bettencourt [sounds like someone from Brideshead Revisited] could stand it no longer and shipped in a horror cube at 65% with 35% Gs. A relieved Chris took, rewhipped, and watched as the panicking TB horribly mangled his checkers on the bear-in, with Chris holding fort on the ace point with the 4 open. A double shot soon arose, Chris hit and that was that, at 2am on the nose.
His “reward” for all that is a hot date with me. It’s a slight shame we have collided but that’ll always happen when a nation has strength in numbers. Look at the Americans incoming today: Sax vs Snellings, blimey. My only previous match with Chris was played side by side, on Galaxy, in bed, in a swish hotel room on the Island on Love. It was as tranquil a scene as you can imagine, only disturbed when Cecilia facetimed Chris. She was given strict instructions not to talk lasciviously, lest it excite me.
Barnesy has John Rockwell, who partied hard with Marilyn Monroe at the Playboy mansion during the making of Some Like It Hot. Who will utter at the winning line, “Well, nobody’s perfect!”
Ollie has Eric Benichou whose bio at WBF is mildly terrifying and includes 4 wins and 11 top 5s; whilst Dan has the outstanding Turk Aykut Uzel, who has two huge global wins to his name since ’21.
Sander’s Self-Inflicted Gutshot
Sander Lylloff’s defence of his title could not have been more bizarre or contentious. Playing against newcomer Etan Ilfield [coached by Tim Cross], Etan could not manage his time, and with half the match still to play was down to 1:24. In a moment of gallant hubris, Sander then just allowed him to play out the rest of the match clock free. It was a bizarre thing to do, charitable for sure, but doing Etan no favours. If he wants to play on this stage he must learn how to do it properly. He also barely shakes his cup which really upset all and sundry, but not Sander. Anyway! You can see where this is headed. From around 4-9, Etan ground Sander down, taking loads of time in so doing [which you can do without a clock], and driving the streaming crowd to distraction. Sander went some 85% up at DMP but a horror 66 left a shot [a 6], Etan rolled 65, and one of the biggest shocks in Monte Carlo history was upon us. But you have to say, on this occasion, Sander was kind of asking for it.
It has been a fine and dramatic opening day, beautifully run and the stage is set for some very serious play on Day 2, where hopefully at least a couple of Brits can make the last 16 of the undefeateds.
There are two live streams throughout the tournament on Backgammon Galaxy’s Youtube channel with commentary from Phil Simborg, Bill Riles and guests. Oliver Squire v Justin Nowell is available here.
You can also stay up to date with results as they happen in both the World Championship and the parallel Intermediates where we have three more Britons still in contention.
Brilliant report, thanks! What a tournament!