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New World Backgammon Championship
Posted By: Strato In Response To: New World Backgammon Championship (Achim)
Date: Monday, 28 July 2008, at 10:39 p.m.
Just to get the record straight, here is what Henrik Bodholdt and I are planning in Costa Rica:
Henrik Bodholdt is a former Vice-President and President of the Danish Backgammon Federation (DBgF) who now lives in Costa Rica: http://www.gammonlife.com/bodholdtcostarica.htm
He has also been the Editor of "Gammon", the DBgF's backgammon magazine, and the Tournament Director of the Nordic "Wide" Open: http://www.ibgdb.com/hbodholdt.htm
Henrik was the Director of this year's PartoucheGammon Nordic Open, which was the second stop of Season 2 of the World Series of Backgammon.
Henrik has lived here in Costa Rica for some eight years now and has run a backgammon club and also organizes poker events near the beautiful beaches on the northern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. He has been wanting to organize an international backgammon event here for several years – he almost did a few years back, and came up with the name New World - and I like it.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia... The New World is one of the names used for the non-Eurasian/non-African parts of the Earth, specifically the Americas and Australia. When the term originated in the late 15th century, the Americas were new to the Europeans, who previously thought of the world as consisting only of Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively, the Old World)...
In 1493, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage to the Americas, and on 1 November that year Peter Martyr d'Anghiera referred to Columbus in a letter as the discoverer of "the New World" (novi orbis).
Novi Orbis - I like that name too.
My wife, Marjorie, is Costa Rican (I lived in Costa Rica from 1976 to 1989) and although we have been living in Canada since 1989, Marj has to be here in Costa Rica to take care of some personal matters for the next year or so.
So I am living here again, most of the time, but am back and forth between here and Canada. I like to promote backgammon wherever I go and since I am here, I intend to find new players and organize more backgammon action in Costa Rica – where by the way, the game is registered as a sport. I intend to travel to other countries in Central and South America where small backgammon tournaments are played regularly, meet the players and perhaps eventually organize a Latin American Backgammon Tour. There are regular tournaments organized by clubs in Panama, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina and Brazil, as well as on a couple of the Caribbean islands.
Meanwhile, I am have also suggested to the Costa Rica Backgammon Association (CRBA) that we revive their previous activites - made a new website for them at www.costaricabg.com - and will help them to organize and bring players to their 7th Tournament of the Americas – therefore, our New World Backgammon event is not related to the CRBA’s, although the CRBA has endorsed our event. Some of the CRBA fellows are very busy with personal projects right now but I am still talking with them in order to find a venue, perhaps at a beach resort, to hold the 7th Tournament of the Americas, sometime in 2009. Five of the six previous Tournament of the Americas events in Costa Rica, were held at the Cariari Hotel, and were quite successful (perhaps 100-150 players attended), attracting many of the USA’s top players. As you can see in Daniel’s post, Costa Rica is Jake Jacobs’ favourite venue and Nack Ballard told me he also loves Costa Rica. Other top players I have spoken to in the past have good memories of their previous adventures in Costa Rica.
Henrik and I are exploring the possibility of holding the 1st New World Backgammon Championship during the last week of November 2008. We have our eyes set on the Ramada Herradura Hotel http://www.ramadaherradura.com/english/index/index.htm - the airport is some 10 miles from the capital city of San Jose, and the Ramada is about halfway in between both. For those that remember coming to Costa Rica, the Ramada is just few hundred metres down the road from the Cariari Hotel, where the other events were held. Being a Ramada, it has modern facilities, and free wireless access throughout including in the rooms. We hope to get regular rooms for under $150. There is a nice big conference room that should easily accommodate some 200 players or more. There is also the Cariari Contry Club, just minutes away, which has a beautiful 18-hole course http://www.clubcariari.com/english/index.html - a shuttle can be arranged for those who want to play golf in the mornings. There is also the Real Cariari Mall, quite big, with many restaurants, stores and theatres, and it is right across the highway from the Ramada Herradura Hotel - there’s an overhead pedestrian walkway from the Ramada Herradura Hotel to reach the Real Cariari Mall on foot – a three-minute walk. The Ramada Herradura Hotel also has a Fiesta Casino right on the premises.
Airfare from the USA is very affordable (for last week in November, from N.Y., L.A. or Miami - round-trip, I saw prices starting at just over $350 on expedia.com) and there are two or three direct flights from Europe, one from Germany, another from Spain, and possibly a third from France, which at that time of year could cost between $900 and $1,200.
The “high” tourist season here begins around December and runs until about April. This is also known as the “summer” or dry season while the rest of the year is called the “winter” or rainy season – so late November is a perfect time because hotel rates are still low, and while the Ramada does not raise their rates during the “tourist season” many other hotels do, plus this particular venue (Ramada) is quite booked in January or February. Also, the weather begins to improved in November (with luck, mainly sunny mornings for the golfers) – at this time, we do have mainly sunny mornings, but it is usually rainy late afternoons or early evenings.
So to keep things affordable, Henrik and I are hoping to organize the event for November. Right now we’re sending out feelers to see how many non-Latin American players, are interested in coming – if we see a lot plenty of interest, particularly from North America and Europe, we’ll commit with the hotel for those dates, begin seeking sponsors and start promoting and marketing the event further.
I personally believe that we can easily attract between 50 and 100 players from Central and South America alone. Peruvian players have come here to compete in recent years, Argentina has many backgammon players that would like to make the trip and backgammon is huge in Brazil. Henrik’s backgammon club in Costa Rica, once had over 30 or 40 players, mostly foreigners, and I am sure we can get some of those to attend, as well as find many other foreigners that live here permanently and play backgammon, by advertising in the local English newspaper.
All the players of Costa Rica Backgammon Association will surely attend as should Dan Wittkopp of the USA, who now lives here and plays in our chouette, as well as Backgammon Giant Dirk Schiemann of Germany, who has been living in Costa Rica for several years now. The main Championship event will likely have an entry fee of $1,000 to $1,200.
As for the dates, yes, we realize we’re just a week after Las Vegas and five days before the California event, but our dates do no directly clash with those ABT events. But, yes, it could mean that fewer players will be able to attend ours considering the expense and getting time off of work, which is one of the reasons why we are sending out feelers. Mike Svobodny’s event in Cancun is also the first week of December and we contacted him and have agreed to provide info to players coming to our event on how to attend his after ours and he will also do the same with his players, should they wish to come to Costa Rica before Cancun. Truth is when you look at any month on the calendar of events for backgammon, you’re going to find you’re close to one tournament or another. In fact, in the USA there are three ABT tournaments in a single month of the year.
One concern many people will have about Costa Rica is security. I also worry about this as I see that crime has increased greatly since I previously lived here. However, we’ll provide the players with security tips if they intend to travel to the big city or elsewhere. We can also arrange a group tour for those who would like to see some of the more famous attractions together. Meanwhile, the Ramada Herradura has its own private security all around the hotel.
While security is a concern, some 1.9 million tourists still chose to visit Costa Rica in 2007 – with a $1.92-billion-a-year tourism industry, Costa Rica stands as the most visited nation in the Central American region. Costa Rica is a beautiful country, a democracy with no army, and has all kinds of activities for tourists, such as hiking in the rainforest, horseback riding, mountain biking, white water rafting, snorkelling, surfing, sport, golfing and kayaking and much more.
So who's coming?
If you’re interested in attending this event feel free to contact me soon at backgammon@videotron.ca
Cheers!
Michael Strato
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