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TOURNAMENT REPORT: BMS (CZ) Ranking Tournament #1, Prague

Posted By: Rick Janowski
Date: Tuesday, 22 September 2015, at 5:55 p.m.

TOURNAMENT REPORT: BMS (CZ) Ranking Tournament #1, Prague, Czech Republic, 12-13 August 2015

Eight players participated in the first Backgammon Masters Series Tournament held in the Czech Republic, which was promoted, organised and directed by Honza Černý who also played in the tournament. Five Czech players were joined by two Belgian Players (Michel Lamote and Walter Meuwis) and the WBA International Tournament Director, Chiva Tafazzoli, who "came to play with his friends in beautiful Prague".

Besides the main event, a full round-robin tournament of 7 rounds of 11 point matches, the players managed to fit in a number of side events including warm-up, speedgammon and chouette tournaments. The results of the main event were as follows:

1. Michel Lamote 5

2. Zdeněk Žižka 5

3. Chiva Tafazzoli 4

4. Pavel Zaoral 4

5. Tomáš Kosička 3

6. Honza Černý 3

7. Eva Žižková 3

8. Walter Meuwis 1

Congratulations to Michel and Zdenek for performing so well in a very tough field.

These two players also had the best PR’s of the tournament, with Zdeněk achieving an amazing 3.53 and Michel an excellent 4.57. Zdeněk has achieved the best tournament PR at both the BMAB tournaments he has attended and is proving himself to be a star player, one to watch out for in the near future. The full PR results of the PR Tournament are given below:

Honza Cerny 6.08

Pavel Zaoral 7.58

Zdenek Zizka 3.53

Eva Zizkova 6.44

Tomas Kosicka 12.71

Michel Lamote 4.57

Chiva Tafazolli 6.76

Walter Meuwis 6.17

Four of the players who had previous BMAB rankings now have recalculated average PRs as follows:

Honza Cerny 5.53

Pavel Zaoral 7.60

Zdenek Zizka 4.07

Eva Zizkova 6.26

Honza and Pavel maintain their grades of Master (Class 3) and Advanced (Class 2) though both are very close to the boundary of the next level up. Congratulations to Eva and Zdenek, mother and son, who both achieve upgraded titles, to Master (Class 3) and Master (Class 1). Zdenek is now very close to achieving a Grandmaster title.

Of the new players, Michel achieves the title of Master (Class 2) with a provisional title of Master (Class 1) which he is expected to achieve after the next tournament or individual application if he maintains a similar standard of play. Walter and Chiva achieve the proficiency level of A1E, with Walter also achieving a provisional title of Master (Class 3).

Congratulations to all the participants for making this tournament a great success! The transcription, 2-stage analysis and reporting were completed in less than a week - many thanks to all participants in the chain.

Eva, Honza, Pavel and Zdenek subsequently represented the Czech Republic, and Michel and Walter represented Belgium (amongst others), at the EuBGF National Team Championship recently held in Budapest.