East Kent Backgammon Tournament – 6th April 2024
Another great tournament at the Canterbury Golf Club with 42 players.

Disappointingly we didn't reach our maximum target of 48 as the tournament coincided with the West Yorkshire open and so we lost at least 6 of our usual players. Hopefully we can achieve a sell out in July.

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We achieved 20 club members and 22 visitors. We had 11 new players that have never been to any of our tournaments before. This is great to see as its a pleasure to meet new players and add some variety to the day.
There was some tough competition with 13 players over 1600 points and 4 over 1700.

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We continued with our current format as it works well to provide everyone with a good day of backgammon matches.

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I would really like to thank all the participants for their good behaviour and also all the positive feedback regards to the tournament.

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We had 4 of our regular club members go through to the 1/4 finals in the mains and 8 go through to the consolation knockout of which I am really pleased about as we have some really strong players in the club who have really worked hard to improve their game.

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Format
We played our usual Swiss format of 5 main rounds, ¼ final, semi final & final of which worked out perfectly with the timings for the day’s events including lunch at the end of round 2.

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Tournament Finalists
Congratulations to Andrew Ankrah who won the mains tournament against Anna Price .

I thought I was on for another tournament win until Mike Michaels won the race with a 55, 66 ,55. But I don't think it would have gone down well for me to win again.

Gary Lloyd was the only player to win all 5 matches in the mains but sadly got knocked out in the 1/4 finals by Derek Matheson.

Both Mike & Derek were knocked out of the Semi finals leaving Andrew & Anna to battle it out to the end.

Although they all decided to split the prize money with the winner taking an additional £100.

 

Andrew & Derek came top of the Silver side pools of  £200

Anna & Derek won the Gold side pools of  £170
Gary Lloyd & Anna Price won the Platinum side pools of £160

Semi-Finalist’s
Mike Michaels and Derek Matheson both won the semi's and a trophy

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Consolation
We also had 18 players who stayed on for another 5pt x 3 round swiss for a side tournament. 
Larry Smyth took 1st place against David Bugg.
They had a combined prize money of £150.

I think they split the consolation side pools of £70.

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I would also like to thank David Tingey for looking after the computer and entering the scores all day.

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Cheers to everyone who paid into the tips for the staff from the golf club for all their hard work bringing the meals out and topping up the endless supply or tea & coffee.

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We do hope you all enjoyed the day and hope you will join us for our next tournament which will take place on the 27th July. There are no other tournaments on that date so subject to holidays we are hoping to get full attendance.

We are looking to see if we can possibly set up live streaming of some of the matches for our next event. Further details will be provided nearer the date.

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The website is now set up to accept applications for both upcoming events, so sign up as soon as possible so that you don't miss out next time.
There will be a limit of 48 again, so don’t delay…

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Please feel free to provide any feedback on how the tournament went and if there are any improvements you think could be made.

Regards
Sean Thomas
The East Kent Backgammon Club

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