| |
BGonline.org Forums
Denmark v. the World - Post by Morty
Posted By: Stick In Response To: Denmark v. the World - Post by Morty (Stick)
Date: Friday, 26 March 2010, at 3:19 p.m.
I will try to cover some other points. As Morten mentioned, the World team was originally to be composed of representation from as many countries as possible. I thought ideally every player would be from a different country, if possible, if the talent existed. So off the bat we had me, Mochy, and Falafel. After this as Morty mentioned he tried to get in touch with some 'dinosaurs' who were at one time strong bg players but have since turned to other endeavors. I wasn't a fan of pulling people out of retirement knowing their games would be rusty and they would sink back into bg nothingness, but the names were big and would probably attract interest so I agreed. In the end, it didn't matter, none of whom I would consider dinosaurs were interested that we were able to get ahold of.
Francois Tardieu was an obvious choice for team World and he considered it but eventually declined. This was a tough blow as he's clearly the best and perhaps only player of that caliber to represent France. I thought of Fernando Braconi who is from Italy and I played last year. I was impressed with his OtB play when I met him in Europe and he had been playing quite stellar online. Luckily Fernando agreed and we had another player on board.
It was nothing less of an uphill battle from here trying to have other countries represented. When I was first approached with this idea I contacted several US players asking them tentatively if they were going to Nordic and if they were would they perhaps be interested in playing if the event happened. Morty asked if I minded if Peter Heitmuller came on board for the US team, he's German, and would represent another country. He was to come on board as captain though and originally the captain was to have no obligated playing role whatsoever. I double checked this with both Steen and Morty before accepting Peter on the team as captain. I have heard enough shit from people asking me why X or Y wasn't chosen when A or B was. These are the reasons basically - first we were trying to diversify countries and then we reverted to having the strongest team possible. I don't know Peter's game whatsoever and he has not played backgammon in the past few years from what I'm told. (poker) He was on the top 64 of the Giants list in 2007 but that's all I knew about him. He could be god's gift to bg or just another regular player so I would not have chosen him if I knew he had an active role. I hope this doesn't come off as negative against Peter, again, don't know him, don't know his game and have contacted him a couple of times via email about the event and he seems like a really nice guy. He told me he started playing some again so hopefully he has knocked some of the dust off and got his game in shape. From what I'm told though the most flak I've received and the biggest impact betting wise came when the backlash email hit my inbox informing me that the captain would have an active playing role. (and I was never consulted about it, just told after I had double checked, I wasn't happy to say the least)
So with Peter on board we now had, me, Peter, Mochy, Falafel, and Fernando. We decided it was too tough to keep the strength of our team in tact and represent two more different countries so it was decided we couple double (or triple) represent a country. Once we went this route I thought Michy was a top candidate. He's very strong, backgammon 24/7, a bg powerhouse that I knew would be attending. Thankfully he joined our team. The last spot was filled by MCG mainly to lure the Danes into a false sense of security.
As Morty said about the women, we tried a couple of different avenues before the World team got Katja. Katja would have been my #1 choice but there was the issue with her living in Denmark and being friends with all the Danes. I don't know that it was an issue for her, but if it could be avoided I didn't mind. We went one route then another, stone walled. Luckily we got Katja and the Danes took Pia and that should be one hell of a match up. (especially depending on how much carry over there is on the match)
There has been much discussion on who is the favorite at this event and how much being the home team is worth. John Koonmen was interested in backing the World team and finally decided to bow out. His stated reasons were basically home field advantage. There's the facts that the World team may be jet lagged, the World team doesn't have the opportunity to play and practice together as the Danish team has any time they want, the other comforts that come from home field advantage such as staying at a home, speaking the same native language for consulting, etc...and Morty is supposed to have some 'home field cheering and gags' lined up to put the pressure on team World. To me personally, not much of this matters, but it could matter to players on the team. I don't do jet lag and I could give a flying if someone announces to the entire room that Stick just made yet another blunder. These type of antics could rattle someone I guess though.
Morty said only 3k has been confirmed being bet on the World. This is true because none of us playing for the team have decided how much we're going to bet. We don't need to decide until the day of so rather than tossing out ballpark figures we just haven't said. It doesn't make a difference, it will come nowhere near what 'the Danes raised'. (200k at least guaranteed, I put it in quotes because I doubt it's the Danes so much as just Gus)
I'm off to Denmark tomorrow morning but will try to answer any other questions with the half day I have left here in Japan.
Stick
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.