With an extra weekend this year, the backgammon was expanded to 4 separate competitions: Weekends 1 & 2, Beginners and Olympiad Championship. John Clark (MSO Grandmaster) proved his new status by winning Gold in the Olympiad Championship, Silver in the Weekend 01 and coming 5th in the Weekend 02 - thank goodness he wasn’t allowed to enter the Beginners!

Beginners (34)
The qualification for this tournament is rather far reaching inasmuch as entrants must not have won a Biba, NBPS or foreign tournament. Playing a Swiss format, 4 matches to 5 points this was a tough little one-day tournament. Not only were the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals at stake but also entry into the Weekend Tournament No.1 on the Sunday.

Cliff Connick (England), Beginner's Silver Medallist

After the 3rd round we had 4 players with 3 out of 3, Colin Boother, Cliff Connick (Biba), William Stephens and James Turner. James was the favourite having won all three without conceding a single point! Behind him was Cliff with only 3 against, Colin with 4 and William with 7. True to form, James came through, dropping 4 points this time; leaving Cliff the task of having to win 5-0 to win or 5-1 to draw; unfortunately Cliff won 5-3 leaving James with the Gold and Cliff with the Silver. Taking the Bronze with a loss of 7 points was William. All three were included in the Sunday draw of the Weekend Tournament No.1 as part of their prize. After the 3rd round we had 4 players with 3 out of 3, Colin Boother, Cliff Connick (Biba), William Stephens and James Turner. James was the favourite having won all three without conceding a single point! Behind him was Cliff with only 3 against, Colin with 4 and William with 7.

In the Junior Division, Rajit Gholap took 1st place in 23rd position with Josiah Lutton 2nd (27th) and Costas Harris 3rd (28th). Only four points separated the three Juniors making it a close contest.

Weekend No.1 (25)
This Swiss format of 6 matches of 11 points was not as big a field as expected possibly due to the lack of prize money - after all, we all know backgammon is a game of luck and not skill, don’t we!

The format wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Not the Swiss, that was ok; but the use of the plus and minus scores being used as deciders in the event of the same number of wins being held by two or more entrants. It was for this reason that I altered the Biba Swiss format a couple of years ago, now when two players sit down in round 6 with 5 out of 5, they are 99% certain to be 1st and 2nd (with smaller fields it sometimes doesn’t work out so well).

George Stephanoupolos thought he’d clinched either Gold or Silver when he sat down to play Darryl Artt in the ‘final’ in which each had won 5 out of 5. But, sadly George was mistaken, in fact due to the 9-1 defeat he suffered not only did he not take Gold, that went to Darryl, he never took Silver or Bronze either! With a score of 5/46-33 he in fact dropped down to 4th place missing out on the medals completely!

George’s misfortune was John Clark’s good fortune, with John taking the Silver with 5/51-29. Another beneficiary of George’s misfortune was Helen Helm-Sagar coming in at Bronze with 5/48-45, just 2 points ahead of George. I personally don’t like the criteria currently used in the MSO and I’m trying to get it changed; but, as I wasn’t involved in the 1st MSO (I had my own tournament to run that year) the format was used and seems to be set in stone - but don’t despair, I have a cold chisel!

Cliff Connick faired the better of the three Beginners but failed to get better than 4/40-36 leaving him in a creditable 8th position.

Olympiad Championship (30)
This is the main Olympiad tournament, the one recognised as Olympian Champion - which is a shame as it was a shambles in the early stages, due entirely to the ridiculous qualifying format of knockout groups of 8. Having already paid an entry fee of £20, which was acceptable considering other competitions had a similar fee, it caused plenty of problems with players being told that

"that was it; you’ve lost your first round, you’ve failed to qualify (even for the Bronze category) and if you want to continue cough up another 15 quid!"

This wasn’t the end of the qualifying problems, apart from numerous complaints of having to fork out extra cash to re-enter (9 players totally refused to do so, whilst those that did, did so reluctantly); on the final qualifying day, in a draw of only 2 players, we faced the problem of who will the winner of the first round actually play? If no one else came into the draw he’d have to go through to the Gold on byes. I know they shouldn’t have been allowed to play in the first place without a full, or half-full draw, but it was out of my control. So, when no-one else turned up, the winner went to Gold on byes - that was of course until the bona fide qualifiers found out! Without exception they all pointed out that if we allow a late entrant to nip in through the back door then why bother at all trying to qualify until the last day? [This couldn’t happen of course as there would then be plenty of ‘late’ entries to fill up the draw. Ironic isn’t it?]

Johns Clark & Slattery enjoy the champagne reception.

Rather than face a mutiny from 9 players the decision to elevate the late entrant to Gold was reversed and he was demoted to Silver. Neither decision was a happy one to make and it inevitably caused ill feelings between players and Directors.

These problems highlight the unfairness of a system of playing knockout qualifying rounds and charging an extra fee to re-enter if you don’t make it first time. In my opinion it has to change in two ways; 1. Get rid of the knockout qualifying format (or knockouts altogether), 2. Allow free re-entries. I know a lot of you were reluctant to pay re-entry fees and wanted to know where your money was going - even suggesting that it was probably a Directors’ perk. I can say in all honesty that not one penny of the £255 re-entry fee was offered to me and that to my knowledge it was passed onto the MSO. If it had been offered to me I would have refused it; in my opinion it’s an unfair extra charge and should be dropped.

Back to the tournament: The finals were in three categories, Gold, Silver and Bronze. In the Gold, John Clark triumphed for the 2nd time (he won it in 1997) beating his former pupil, Graham ‘Grasshopper’ Brittain. It was a bittersweet victory for John, he wanted to win but he was reluctant to have to do it by beating his friend - though I’m sure such sentiments were soon shelved! Chris Baker, a new Biba member, took the Bronze. Chris’s comments upon receiving his medal summed up the true spirit of the games, he said that the Bronze medal he won at backgammon was worth far more than the £200 he’d won at chess; he’d soon spend the money but the medal would be with him for ever. Also, his 6 year old son was far more impressed by a medal than by a cheque.

In the Silver category, Nick Thomas beat Lawrence Powell to take the Silver leaving Lawrence with the Bronze.

The Bronze category caused more problems with players dropping down into the Bronze from higher categories. We (the Directors) had decided to make the Bronze a draw of 8 (only 4 had qualified by right) and that, when the 8 were ready we’d start. This intention was properly announced and all players heard it. We got the extra 4 entrants and we started. Then the problems began. Two players came up and asked to be entered and were told that we had a full draw and it had already started. This wasn’t accepted and a ‘discussion’ ensued. One Director said they could enter the other asked, where?

Having already started it wasn’t possible to slip in an extra couple without doing a full redraw giving all entrants a chance of any byes going. The original entrants didn’t want to stop already started matches and so we reached an impasse. One says yes another says no! Unable to have my authority as a Director accepted I left it to my equal (I use the term reservedly) and I adjourned for a much needed break. Upon my return the two extras were ‘fitted in’ in such a way that no-one understood the draw. Of the original 8 starters (who were expecting to be in the 1/4 finals after winning the first round) two of them were re-entered into the first round after winning the first round! Decidedly unprofessional and not the way to run a knockout. The eventual winner of the chaos was John Slattery taking the Bronze medal away from Alexander Baron in the final; at least John was a happy man.

Weekend No.2 (28)
Having learned a lesson during the knockout qualifying rounds of the Olympiad Championship I asserted my ‘Directorial authority’ and insisted that the proposed knockout qualifying format for Weekend No.2 be scrapped and replaced with a Swiss format. My suggestion was not readily accepted by my colleague but my determination not to go through again the problems caused earlier in the week with entries and re-entries (at an extra cost of £15, £10 and £5) as well as ‘late entry’ qualifiers finally clinched the argument and we had a (very popular) Swiss format qualifier in which the top 8 went into the Gold category, the next 8 went into the Silver category and all remaining players went into the Bronze category. This format was especially popular due to the fact that players were not out of the tournament in the first round as in the knockouts, but were very much alive, giving all players a chance to qualify with 2 or 3 wins.

An incentive to continue playing when qualification was a certainty was the decision to seed the categories, 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc. This worked perfectly with the Gold and Silver (8 each) and gave the top 4 in the Bronze, 1st round byes. This proved to be a very successful format (though the finals were knockouts; there’s no reason why they can’t be changed to Swiss) and went through without a single hitch, problem or complaint - a victory for common-sense and fairness.

In the Gold category Chris Andrescu emerged victorious from a final against Nigel Gibbions, leaving Nigel with the Silver. In the play-off for Bronze, Keith Boniface narrowly beat Nick Thomas (Silver in the Olympiad Championship) with a score of 9/8 leaving Nick in 4th place and just out of the medals.

In the Silver category, Bill Pope took the Silver in the final leaving James Vogl with the Bronze. Darryl Artt came 4th (11th overall) with Chris Baker coming 4th (12th overall).

John Slattery won the Bronze category beating Gary Lee in the final. John’s second Bronze of the games qualified him for Candidate Grandmaster, just one silver or gold from International Grandmaster status.

Although the games were, on the whole, satisfactory, I for one was considerably unhappy with the knockout formats in the MSO, a competition in which backgammon is alone in having such a format and I am actively campaigning to get it changed. I am now a member of the Mind Sports Council, as an authority on backgammon and as the representative of the largest body of backgammon players in the country. I’d very much like to hear comments from members regarding the MSO and the formats; I’d especially like to hear your reasons for not entering as dozens of ‘local’ players once again failed to enter. Why? I am now - hopefully - in a position of some influence and will do my utmost to better the lot of backgammon players (be them Biba members or not) within the Mind Sports Olympiad.

Dates have been set for 2000, the games will be from Saturday 19 August to Monday 28 August; mark your calendars accordingly.