Backgammon News

June 15, 2008

Greek Backgammon Federation 7th Monthly

by tournament director Manos Mastorakis

The 7th monthly tournament of the Greek Backgammon Federation (GBgF) was won by Andreas Kourouklis of Athens who in the final match faced Greece’s strongest female player, Filomila Karantzali of Thessaloniki. The two-day event was held on May 10 and 11 at the Bridge Club in Athens and was attended by 31 players.

Andreas and Filomila both play internationally - Andreas won the 128-player Seniors event at the Las Vegas Open in 2000 and has organized live tournaments in Greece in the past. Filomila, who won the Athens monthly in January, has played in most of the World Series of Backgammon (WSOB) and PartoucheGammon Tour (PGT) events this year.

Kourouklis victory moves him up from the 26th to the 19th spot in the GBgF National Ranking List while Filomila picked up 21 points for her efforts to maintain the 5th spot in the standings. Costas Costopoulos won the Consolation for the second consecutive month in a row is 4th in the ranking. Meanwhile, Giorgos Klitsas maintain his stranglehold in the #1 spot.

We had three more newcomers in May, bringing the total to 78 different players that have attended our tournaments in the past seven months. Here are the full results of the May tournament:

Main Winner: Andreas Kourouklis

Main Finalist: Filomila Karantzali

Main Semi-Finalists: Costas Mitrelis and Herbert Bornand

Consolation Winner: Costas Costopoulos

Consolation Finalist: Yiannis Valianos

Last Chance Winner: Pavlos Thanopoulos

The next monthly GBgF backgammon tournament will be on Saturday, June 7. It will be a one-day event with €100 entry, hopefully again at the Bridge Club... this venue rocks!

The higher-ranked players will be competing fiercely in the June event because the top three players on our GBgF ranking list after June’s tournament will be going to the WSOB in Cannes, France in July to represent Greece in Eric Guedj’s annual Nations Cup, part of the Riviera Backgammon Festival organized by the PartoucheGammon Tour at the Palm Beach Casino from July 15 to 21, 2008.

7th GBgf tournament winner

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