Newsletter for 6 July 2004

Happy 4th of July!!!

On Tuesday, 6 July 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met. Patriotically, we held a tournament.

Tournament News

9 people entered a 16-player bracket and a four-player blitz tournament on Tuesday night. We had the following tournament results:

Main Tournament (16 player bracket)
  • 1st place:  Sho Sengoku

  • 2nd place:  Jason Lee

  • 3rd place:  Fred Kamgar / Bruce Haight (split)
    • Blitz Tournament (4 player bracket)
  • Winner:     Tom Fahland

    • For the second straight week, we failed to reach double digits in attendance -- the first such time since March. We did, however, manage to run a blitz.

    Current Master Points Standings 

     1. Sho Sengoku      74
 2. Jason Lee        57
 3. Bruce Haight     48
 4. Adrian Costa     41
 5. Tom Fahland      33
 5. Osman Guner      33
 7. Fred Kamgar      29
 8. Eric Sedehi      20
 9. Cyrus Mobedshahi 18
10. Henry Chaboki    12
11. Marcia Karen      9
12. Ned Cross         8
13. Greg Kopp         6
14. Bruce Discher     4
14. Vito Volpetti     4
16. Chris Rosin       3
16. Mark Weiner       3
18. Ryan Knowles      2
19. Maira Costa       1
19. Sam Mehri         1

    By winning the tournament, Sho has opened up another big lead -- he's ahead of Jason Lee by 13 points.

    The point leader at the end of the year will be named the BCSD Player of the Year, and the top 16 in the Master Point standings will be invited to the 2004 BCSD Tournament of Champions, to be held in early 2005.

    Problem of the Week

    Here are two problems with similar themes:

    +-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+
    | '5X2X1X2X4X|   |2O ' ' ' ' '|
    |                   |   |                   |
    |                 | 1 |       2 1       |
    | '2O3O2O2O3O|   |1O ' ' ' '1X|
    +--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

    Match to 11, White leads 8-0. Pip counts: White 67, Black 92
    Position ID: vrUHBAB22wXAAA Match ID: cAllAYAAAAAA

    And the second position:

    +-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+
    |2X5X1X2X1X3X|   |2O ' ' ' ' '|
    |                   |   |                   |
    |                 | 1 |       2 1       |
    | '2O2O3O3O2O|   | '1O ' ' '1X|
    +--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

    Match to 15, Black leads 2-1. Pip counts: White 59, Black 93
    Position ID: +1oHBAC2uwnAAA Match ID: cAnlARAAEAAA

    Last Week's Problem of the Week

    +-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+
    |1O1O '2X2X3X| 2 | '3X ' ' '3O|
    |                   |   |                   |
    |                 |   |       2 3       |
    |2O1O2O1X2O3O|   | ' ' ' ' '4X|
    +--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

    7 point match, tied 1-1. Pip counts: White 133, Black 124
    Position ID: 2M7BAwRrdsABKA Match ID: QQntABAACAAA

    This problem actually isn't all that fancy. It's just a question of making the best of a bad situation. 6/4* is right because Black has to do SOMETHING to stop White, and 13/10 is then right to give a checker to cover. Lifting the blot just lets Black's situation go from bad to worse. The path to victory is the sequence following this play of dance, cover. Then life isn't so bad for Black! That's optimism for you.

    Virtually any other play allows White to fire a cube over -- this play can at least stave that off for a while.

    # Ply Move Equity
      1 4 13/10 6/4* -0.515
      0.385 0.193 0.002 - 0.615 0.249 0.024  
      4-ply cubeful  
      2 4 6/4* 5/2 -0.745 ( -0.230)
      0.340 0.156 0.002 - 0.660 0.273 0.020  
      4-ply cubeful  
      3 4 13/8 -0.843 ( -0.327)
      0.308 0.101 0.001 - 0.692 0.197 0.012  
      4-ply cubeful  
      4 4 6/4*/1 -0.854 ( -0.339)
      0.316 0.099 0.001 - 0.684 0.242 0.013  
      4-ply cubeful  
      5 4 24/22 6/3 -0.881 ( -0.365)
      0.312 0.116 0.003 - 0.688 0.251 0.011  
      4-ply cubeful  

    See you next week! Keep tossing those cubes,
    J. Lee

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