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!
We had a record-tying turnout in April, as, for the second time this year, 11 players competed in the monthly tournament. Also notable was the fact that we had 3 people playing in our tournament for the first time – Michael O’Cain, Susan Marcus, and Phyllis Apple.
Continuing the trend that we have seen this year so far, we have a fourth different winner in as many tournaments! Mary Hickey wins first place this month, defeating Jason Marshall in the main final. In the consolation bracket, Bob Hickey takes third place with a win over David Rearick in that final.
The Masters Points race is still quite tight so far, owing to the fact that no one has been able to put together a streak of tournament wins or runner-ups. David Rearick currently holds the tops spot by 3 points, and only 33 points separate the top 5! The current Masters Points standings can be found here.
Congratulations to Mary on her win this month, and welcome again to our newcomers, Michael, Susan, and Phyllis!
Because of Mother’s Day, the next monthly tournament will be held on May 18th. Thank you to everyone who came out, and we’ll see you all next month!
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!
This year’s OVCC saw the Cincinnati Backgammon Players Club take top honors with an impressive 17-7 score, with the Columbus Backgammon Club winning a solid second place performance with their 14-10 record. The final scores were:
In a wild start to 2014, we have 3 different winners out of 3 tournaments. This time, Howard Shirey bested the field of 8 with a finals win over second place finisher Bob Hickey. David Rearick took 3rd place by winning the consolation final over Tad Mitchell. With the results from this month, the Masters Points race is very tight so far. Chris Yep and David Rearick are tied for first place with 116 points each, and Howard is right behind them with 110.
Congratulations, Howard, on your win this month!
The updated Masters Points standings can be found here. The next monthly tournament will be held on April 13th, 2014. See you there!
An ill-timed snow shower cut down on attendance this month, but we still had a respectable 7 players brave the snow and come play. The field included a newcomer to the CBC monthly tournament – Alex Gerding. A speedy tournament (thank you to everyone for keeping the pace moving!) saw David Rearick win his first monthly tournament in over a year with an exciting double match point victory over second place winner Howard Shirey. Current points leader Chris Yep placed third with a consolation final victory over Rhonda Beckett.
The current masters points standings can be found here.
Welcome to Alex, and congratulations again to David Rearick on his win this month.
Thank you to all who played this month. The next monthly tournament will be held on March 9th. Hopefully the weather will be more cooperative!
The Ohio Valley Cup Challenge for 2013 will be held in Dayton, Ohio on March 23, 2014, pitting the 6 highest ranked players from the Columbus Backgammon Club, the Cincinnati Backgammon Players Club, the Hoosiers Backgammon Club, and the Miami Valley Backgammon Club against each other in a round-robin tournament.
We currently have 5 player spots filled, and need a 6th as well as alternates, just in case. Time is running out, so if you have interest in representing the club, please reach out to me as soon as possible!
The OVCC is part of a weekend long event that everyone is invited to. More information can be found at the event website:
Mary Hickey has graciously donated 2 items to our library for lending to any club member interested. The first are print copies of articles that appear on Mary’s CD-ROM about chouette play, entitled “Chouette and More”. The second is of more historical interest – a VHS tape of a WQED-TV news story done on the 2004 Pittsburgh Backgammon tournament, featuring Mary Hickey and other players.
Thank you, Mary, for your contribution!
We broke a club tournament attendance record this month with 11 players showing up to start the year! This total also included 2 new players – Dan Henley and Jim Weitthoff, and 2 prodigal players – Howard Shirey and Mary Hickey. We got to break out the dusty 16-player bracket for this month, and after all was said and done Chris Yep came out on top over runner-up Tad Mitchell. Jason Marshall took third place as the winner of the consolation bracket.
Beginning this month was also start using our new Masters Points system. The current standings can be found here.
Welcome again to our newcomers, Dan and Jim, and congratulations to Chris on his win this month!
Thank you to all of the players who attended. The next monthly tournament will be held on February 9th. Let’s see if we can break the attendance record again!