It's always easier to do a write up of a tournament when you win something. It's not so fun when you get to report 'I went 2-5 and got to watch a lot of bg'. I purposely didn't get there until later in the day Friday because I was playing tennis in Columbus in the morning and then again in the afternoon. I told Mary I'd be sure to get there in time for doubles but if not she could just carry us.
Now this tournament as long as I've known it has never been a big event. I was hoping to get 32 in the main but that didn't happen. (hasn't happened since 2007) Also, when I later saw the calcutta sheet it seemed overall like a weaker field. I was paired with David Rockwell in my calcutta grouping and Linda bought us for the same price as a lot of other groups went for. I considered David one of the top 5 players there and I thought our grouping was the strongest. I was sitting with David and Linda during the calcutta and once Linda bought our team I joked that was the sure fire way to assure that I drew David in the first round. We all know what happened next...
So Friday night we squeezed in quite a few doubles matches. It was a weird distribution of matches. In one match Mary and I had a lot of disagreements on plays, a good deal of which ended up being just small errors, and then the next match we'd play we wouldn't disagree on anything. I can't remember all the doubles teams we played but other than Dale and Mike who we played in the finals, an all Columbus, Ohio final by the way, we played Bill Davis and Carol Joy Cole, Phil Simborg and Dmitriy Obukhov. Phil and I had made a bet at the beginning of the tournament who would last longer in doubles. Once we got to them, in the third round I think, I offered to let him out for $49 but he wouldn't take it. That'll teach him.
I was rolling like a phenom on Friday and if I continued rolling that way all weekend I could win the tournament probably even if I played like trash. I hope I played well all weekend but only 1 match was recorded, my finals match in the main v. Dmitriy. I'm not even sure whose equipment it was. I thought it was Dmitriy's but maybe I saw Bill Calton(?) picking it up after our match. Hopefully it will be made public.
I woke up early on Saturday for Phil's lecture and it was a hit. I saw somewhere people thanking me or telling me how well the lecture was done. Don't get the wrong idea, I did nothing other than wake up. Phil put in all the work and did all the entertainment. His lectures are always a great combination of fun and learning.
In my first round match with David Rockwell we made an agreement, if either of us made a second roll error we would forfeit the match! It never happened so we played out the entire match with it getting to virtual dmp at 4 away 4 away I believe. I rolled better than David and the Stick snowball continued to build its weekend momentum. Ask anyone I played all weekend and they will tell you they were just shaking their head at my dice at some point. I remember two specific times with Dmitriy and Bill Davis.
Fast forward to Friday night. I had two finals matches to play the next day but didn't have to play until 2pm. That left plenty of time for drinking Saturday night since I finished my matches by 11pm. I was rooming with Jason Lee and Ben Friesen. Jason didn't feel like going not having the hottest weekend but Ben and I stumbled to the bar area.
We ended up at an Irish pub called PJ Mcintyre's. We walked in and from the front to back of the building was pretty far. There was a long bar in the center and enough people there as it was a Saturday night. We heard Michael Jackson and saw people on the dance floor. We made our trip to the other end of the bar, got drinks, and were checking out the rest of the place. Some other song had since come on, I forget what followed up Michael, and then we saw it...a band was playing!?
It wasn't MJ playing on the jukebox like we thought when we came in, it was a band. This second song, same thing. It continued like this on down the line from Lady Gaga to Journey, Joan Jett to Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson to Pat Benatar. You can check out a few of their covers if you want on Velvet Shake's Youtube account. I know what you're thinking, it's just because the singer is hot, and that didn't hurt, but the band could play their instruments and her voice was sweet.
We did the usual, bar, late night Mcdonald's, back to the playing room and ... nobody. That's something that happens when there isn't a big turnout, not a lot of late night action. So Ben and I broke into the bg playing room and played some backgammon to lose and other self invented variants. While I'm at it I would recommend never leaving anything valuable in the playing room even if they're going to 'lock it'. The last three tournaments I have been to I have been into the playing room after it was 'locked' in the middle of the night.
The format of the tournament was you could lose once and still win so when I was undefeated in the finals Dmitriy would have had to beat me twice to win the tournament. I didn't know this until the end of the day Saturday, I forget how it even came up. People are surprised I don't know something like this but it doesn't matter one bit does it? My job is to show up and win every match, I don't know how the format, whether it be Swiss or double elimination or standard makes a bit of difference. Anyway, having played Phil and Dmitriy in doubles we got into a discussion about a position I thought it was 100% a must recube for them v. us. It turned out to be only a small recube, about .010 technically, but I knew there must be some PR difference between me and the Hickster and Dmitriy and the Simborginator. I was overjoyed not to see the cube at the time and later talked to Dmitriy about it and the skill differences. Going into the tournament I didn't have much of an idea how he played only having played him as far as I know some late night drunken dmp matches so I asked him what he played on average PR wise, he never answered.
Now the first game of our finals match and this position comes up:
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| XGID=-b----E-D---eD----bbbb-A-A:0:0:-1:00:0:0:0:11:10 | |||||
| Blue on roll, cube action? | |||||
He doubles me and I think for a few. I get to my conclusion and start laughing and say "You never did tell me how you play" hoping to get an answer. In other words, I thought the decision was close. As close as I thought it might be I have to pass against almost everyone anyway so I let it go and Dmitriy never supplied me with an answer.
We had a couple other interesting positons. Dmitriy had a 63 to play if he would post I thought it was interesting at the time. My gut feeling was that he needed to hit something but he didn't. He spent some real time on the problem though and I didn't waste my energy giving it any real consideration.
We were playing on a clock and at the start of this next play I had 2 mins 45 seconds remaining leading 10-3 Crawford. Knowing that, how much time do you think is acceptable to spend on this.
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| XGID=-BaCCbCBB----------bbbcba-:0:0:1:11:10:3:1:11:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 11 | |||||
I spent around 40 seconds on it and ended up making the two point and leaving the 53 shot with the last ace played 8/7. Guess what tumbled out of Dmitriy's cup? Wouldn't be backgammon without some joker excitement. It didn't phase me at all though, I shook, I rolled my ace and after he danced immediately rolled a six. That's how the weekend was going for me, even when things went bad they went well.
The hotel had an indoor pool and a hot tub but unfortunately this weekend was also some kids hockey party. There were a ton of kids always running around and I never got to fat in the pool The hotel is right beside a Denny's which I love because I can roll out and get some breakfast. It's also a mile from the bars and around 10 minutes from any restaurant you could want so a good location. As far as I know everything went smoothly (discounting the lengthy brutality of our doubles finals match). I played two clocked matches in the Open, one with David and the other with Dmitriy. Everything else was not clocked.
Thanks to all who congratulated me either on the forums, on Facebook, or via emails. I probably won't reply to any of them because I'm still so behind on everything I will never get caught up. Even now I'd like to babble on more but have to move on to other things so see you in Vegas hopefully.
Stick