The Columbus Backgammon Club

A new location was the venue for our second tournament of the year, as we test drove the Polaris Mall Food Court. KDB, our normal home, is temporarily closed for some renovations for the next 6 weeks or so. The confusion around our last-minute location change limited our participation to 8 players. In addition, we welcomed 2 spectators who we hope will soon join the ranks of our regulars – Blanca Simandan and Edwin Jones. Those present saw David Steinberg win his first tournament of the year over last month’s winner, Jeff Boester.

In the consolation final, Chris Yep won over Mike Rezai to take 3rd place.

The current Masters Points standings can be found here.

Congratulations to David, Jeff, and Chris and welcome again to Blanca and Edwin!

Thank you to all those who attended. The next monthly tournament will be held on March 8th at the Polaris Mall Food Court. See you then!

With the final tournament of the year complete, the Masters Points for the year have been finalized! Bob Hickey has won his second Columbus Backgammon Club Player of the Year title in a row, and with it a customized doubling cube as a trophy. Bob finished with 3 tournament wins for the year, and a total of 401 points.

In a year that started out with no one taking a commanding lead, Bob won 3 tournaments over the summer and held on until the end, despite Jason Marshall nipping at his heels most of the way. Jason Marshall holds onto second place with a total of 301 points, and Chris Yep completes the podium in third place with a final total of 235 points.

Congratulations to Bob on a well earned victory!

We had a full bracket of 8 players show up today for the December tournament, including a new player to our ranks – Dan Cook. After having to relocate to a different location in KDB to accommodate a party taking place in our normal location, Jeff Boester defeated Jon Stephens in the main bracket to win his second tournament of the year. In the consolation final, Bob Hickey put a stamp on his 2014 title chase by defeating Chris Yep and taking third place.

The 2014 final Masters Points standings can be found here.

Congratulations to Jeff, Jon, and Bob; welcome again to Dan; and thank you to all who attended this month’s tournament.

Our next monthly tournament will be on January 11th. See you there!

A light turnout of 6 players showed up for the penultimate monthly tournament of the year. This month gave another another different winner as Jon Stephens won in the final over second-place finisher Dale Berlin. In the consolation bracket, Jason Marshall won over David Rearick to take third place.

This month’s results didn’t cause too much change in the Masters Points standings, but Bob Hickey‘s lead has been reduced to 75 points. First place may be all but decided, but other positions are still up for grabs with one more tournament to go for the year.

The current Masters Points standings can be found here.

Congratulations to Jon, Dale, and Jason; and thank you to all who attended this month’s tournament. Our next monthly tournament will be on December 14th. See you there!

The cooler weather did not bring more people inside for the tournament this month, with only 5 members showing up this time around. We played a round-robin format, and the king of the hill this time was current points leader Bob Hickey with a final record of 3-1! This is Bob’s third first-place finish this year, and his second in a row. This extends his lead slightly, but was not a runaway result with Jason Marshall, Chris Yep, and David Rearick all tying for second place at 2-2 and earning Masters Points of their own.

With only 3 tournaments for the year, the race is solidifying, with Bob being the man to catch! The full Master’s Points standings can be found here.

See everyone at the next tournament which will be held on October 12th!

Mary Hickey had a couple of great results at the ABT tournament in Charlotte, NC this past weekend. In the swiss-format main tournament, Mary earned a second place finish after losing to  Don Faix. Mary also won the USBGF National Championship East event which occurred during the weekend as well, with a victory over Bob Koca.

The full results from the weekend can be found on the Chicago Point website here:

http://www.chicagopoint.com/results.html

Congratulations, Mary!

This month’s 8-person tournament felt like a Who’s Who of Columbus backgammon with a couple of older faces making an appearance. Stick made a surprise visit this time around – giving us 2 Giants in the field this month, and Jon Stephens made this his first tournament under the new club format. Welcome back to both!

Out of this very strong field, Bob Hickey rose to the top to become the first 2-time winner this year, pulling away from the pack a little in the Masters Points race, by defeating Jeff Boester in the main bracket. Jeff is coming on strong with 2 top-3 finishes in 2 appearances. Jason Marshall took 3rd place this month with a win over Jon Stephens in the consolation final.

The current Masters Points standings can be found here.

Congratulations to Bob on his win this month, and thank you to all those who attended, and we’ll see you all next month on September 14th at the next tournament.

The Giants of Backgammon is a biannual ranking of notable players and figures in the worldwide backgammon community, determined by ballot and published on the Flint BG Club website, here.

Please congratulate Columbus’ own Mary Hickey and Stick Rice on their making the 2013 Giants of Backgammon list, placing 43rd and 10th respectively!

Bob Hickey becomes the fifth winner this year out of 5 tournaments, coming out on top of a field of 10 participants this month. Bob’s opponent in the final, Dale Berlin, placed second. This month’s turnout included 2 new tournament players to our club – Jeff Boester (who placed third today!) and Seth Bartlett.

With this month’s turnout, we have already had 20 unique players in our monthly tournaments, which has already exceeded last year’s total. I am so pleased to have such a great response to our club events!

Congratulations to Bob on his win this month, which currently puts him in first place in the Masters Points standings for the year! Welcome again, as well, to Jeff and Seth.

The updated Masters Points totals can be found here. See you next month on June 8th for the next tournament!

The 20th Ohio State Backgammon Championships were held over this past weekend in Cleveland, and the Columbus Backgammon Club was very well represented in both attendance and results. A total of 7 members were there to compete, with 1 in the Open, and the remaining 6 in the Advanced tournament. With those kind of numbers, it’s natural to think that we should get at least 1 result – but in fact we got 3!

On Friday night, David Rearick won the Amateur Jackpot tournament to grab the clubs first honors of the weekend. On Sunday, the Advanced main event featured an all-Columbus semi-final with Bob Hickey and Jason Marshall squaring off (which happened to be their second meeting of the tournament). Jason won that match to advance to the final where he lost to Champion Ghazi Al-Kanani, taking second place overall. Bob moved to the Consolation bracket and finished as the winner there for third place.

We have a few photos of the weekend, and I will be working on getting an album online of those soon!