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County Cups Trophy (27)
Report by Michael Crane

Friday 500 (14)
The turnout would have been greater than 14 but the hotel was full thanks to them hosting a Pool championship; this meant that we were allocated fewer rooms . . . . and I keep telling you all to BOOK EARLY. In fact there are some venue changes you have to be aware of and these can be seen HERE.

Nicky Check, the 2007 defending County Cups champion got off to a cracking start after beating Vicki Pemberton in the Final. Thanks to this win, Nicky has now moved into 1st place (see here) with Myke Wignall moving down to 2nd. There's a long way to go but Nicky is now determined to remain at No.1 to pick up the £100 cash after November's tournament . . . . but I suspect others might also have such plans!

Main (14/27)
A lot of players were enjoying the sunshine in Portugal at the 3rd Portuguese Open directed by my good friend, Chiva, so numbers for the County Cups were down a bit. One person very happy to be there was Adrian Jones who walked off with the Consolation trophy and a nice handful of Euros! Well done, Adrian.

We had a star here this weekend in Daventry; not just a backgammon star, but also a movie star! If you've seen The Golden Compass you might have spotted Mardi Ohannessian playing a Gyptian . . . . who looks just like Mardi :-)

Unfortunately his super-stardom hasn't improved his backgammon though for he crashed out to County Cups defending champion, Nicky Check in the 1st Round.

Here's Mardi looking intelligently at Jim Carter . . . . what an actor!

And here he is in close-up!

With an odd entry of 27 we needed a spare player and this, for Round One, was my assistant, Deena Fawcett . . . . and her opponent? Tony Fawcett! She gave him a scare and could have finished him off but for her basic doubling knowledge. Watch out, Tony, I'm going to give her some doubling tuition! Tony then won his second match, this time against his pal. Arthur Wright. Here's a position from his 3rd Round match against Chris Purchase:

Chris, playing as yellow hasn't a single checker on his side of the board . . . and he's holding a 2-cube! Chris later turned the cube to 4 and Tony dropped. However, Tony had the last laugh after getting a 2-cube backgammon when Chris's backgame play went against him. This put Tony through as the first on 3/3. He was quickly followed by John Reddington. The next to come in with 3/3 was Peter Christmas after fighting back against Jon Barnes. These three were the only ones to get 3/3 on the Saturday.

Sunday began with Peter vs Tony and John against Mick Vacarey (an 'elevated' 2/3). Tony prevailed and came through 4/4 . . . and so did John - and they met in the 4th Round. From this match, John came out the winner and he then had to wait to see if Peter was able to win against William Spiers. However, it mattered not if Peter won for he still played John in the 6th Round because all other 4/5s had already played him!

Peter didn't beat William . . . and he didn't beat John in the 6th Round, in fact he gained only one point after John beat him 11-1, aided by a gammoned 4-cube. It was one of the shortest matches on record. After the tiebreak it turned out that Tony pipped David Nathan (also on 5/6) into 2nd place by virtue of Tony beating their shared opponent, Peter Christmas.

Main: John & Tony

The good news for everyone . . . . John wasn't in the Winner-Takes-All, so we have a rollover of £165 for the English Open next month! Thank you, John!

County Cups Consolation (13)
The second part of the weekend's Swiss got off with half the field playing to see who can get 3/3 today. After the 1st Round of the Consolation we had seven on 1 win. The last round gave us four on 2/2; Mike Heard vs Neil Webb and Dave Treacy vs Max Limb (Jerry Limb's son). Mike and Dave prevailed and, after a play-off between them, Mike came out 1st with Dave as Runner-up.

Consolation: Mike & Dave

(sorry about the quality of this picture)

Poker (8)
The Poker saw two entrants, Tony Fawcett and Myke Wignall entering their 5th event, thus being the first to qualify for the Championship. Tony also came 1st (it obviously helps to be the organiser!), and Stewart Pemberton came in 2nd. Paul Gilbertson and Myke came in 3rd and 4th; and the Championship is now hotting up. The full listing can be seen HERE.

Finally
It was a good weekend. I would have liked to have seen a few more turn out, but because of Portugal and the Biba room allocation being affected by the Pool Championship it was never going to be very big. It is anticipated that the PartoucheGammon satellite, English Open, next month, will be better attended and you are urged to book your accommodation NOW! In fact it's a good idea to book for all the events you intend to enter. Even if you have to cancel at the last minute the most you might lose is a tenner deposit.

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