Backgammon Club Leuven

With six players present, we decided to try out the new 4 Cubes format. The two teams were formed with the dice: team "Leuven", Henri Pollet, Johan Segers and Marc Van Haverbeke, versus team "Brussels+", Alain Chif, Guy Van Middelem and Patrick De Wilde. The clash consisted of three rounds, 7-point matches, each player of team "Leuven" meeting each player of team "Brussels+" exactly once.

After round 1, the confrontation seemed all but over, with team "Brussels+" scoring 3 out of 3. However, team "Leuven" recovered fully, taking round 2 with the same score. The last round then had to bring the decision. Team "Brussels+" repeated its achievement of the first round and thereby won the battle 6-3.

The timing went well: although we started at 20:45, all matches were finished by 00:15. Clocks were used: 14 minutes per match plus 12 seconds per move. Nobody got in serious time trouble.

            |       "Leuven"    |
"Brussels+" |  Henri Johan Marc |
------------+-------------------+-----
Alain       |    L     B     B  |  2/3
Guy         |    B     L     B  |  2/3
Patrick     |    B     B     L  |  2/3
------------+-------------------+-----
            |   1/3   1/3   1/3 |

B = "Brussels+" wins
L = "Leuven" wins"

Report from tournament director Johan Segers.

At the start of our Club Championship 2012, we were happy to welcome two new players, Ilyas Essadek and Georgio Stavrakis, as well as two friends from Brugge, Isabelle Goeman and Michel Lamote, winner of the 3rd Leuven Open 2011. Expectations were high also for Patrick De Wilde, winner of the Club Championship 2011 and of the 2nd Leuven Open 2010, for Toon Van Herreweghen, winner of the 1st Leuven Open 2009 and the highest-ranked player from Leuven in the rating list. Further present were Guy Van Middelem, tournament director of the Brussels Friendly tournaments and the new 4 Cubes interclub competition, Brussels players Alain Chif and Zsolt Tasnadi, the tournament director of the Club Championship 2011 Marc Van Haverbeke, and the tournament director of the 2012 edition, Johan Segers.

With 11 players, the tournament format was a classical main/consolation/last-chance with 4 rounds in the main and 5 players being bye in the first round. With some effort and some luck, Johan overtook newcomer Ilyas. The other newcomer, Georges, was sent to the consolation by Brugge player Isabelle, while Toon won from Guy. Johan continued his path to the final by beating first Zsolt and next Michel, who had defeated Patrick. The other finalist was Alain, winning consecutively from Isabelle and Marc, who had beaten Toon. In the final, the winds blowed continuously at Johan's back as he sailed comfortably to the tournament victory.

The consolation culminated in a final between Michel and Marc, won by Michel, who had also beaten Toon. Marc had to overcome Georges, who had recovered from his initial loss in the main by defeating Zsolt and Guy. Ilyas won his match from Isabelle but then lost from Toon.

In the last chance, Isabelle was kicked out by Guy, who himself was sent home by Toon. Patrick, not winning a single match in the main nor in the consolation, reached the final of the last chance thanks to victories over Zsolt, Ilyas, and Georges. In the final of the last chance, Toon defeated Patrick, securing some precious championship points.

Thank you all for participating. Looking forward to the next tournament on February 24!

Podium:

• Main (5-point matches): 1. Johan, 2. Alain.
• Consolation (3-point matches): 3. Michel, 4. Marc.
• Last Chance (1-point matches): 5. Toon, 6. Patrick.

Full rankings on the Championship 2012 page.

With 7 participants for the first club evening of the year, we decided to try something else rather than the traditional round Robin with 3-point matches. We played 4 rounds in an incomplete round Robin of 5-point matches. The initial pairing was decided by the dice, and the person that couldn't play, the bye, met the winner of the first completed match, the loser of that match then waiting for the next opponent, etc. until everybody had played four matches. In this way, we could play 5-point matches rather than 3-point matches, with minimal waiting times in between matches.

Michel was the only one to win 3 out of 4 matches, confirming his status of rating leader. Congratulations!

          J   Ma  Mi  T   H   G   P  total
------------------------------------------          
Johan     -   J   .   .   J   G   P   2/4
Marc      J   -   Ma  .   H   .   P   1/4
Michel    .   Ma  -   Mi  .   Mi  Mi  3/4
Toon      .   .   Mi  -   H   T   T   2/4
Henri     J   H   .   H   -   G   .   2/4
Guy       G   .   Mi  T   G   -   .   2/4
Patrick   P   P   Mi  T   .   .   -   2/4