Friday the 21st of March 2008 (20 p.m.):The Nordic Open was greater than ever. This Year the NO had more events than ever before, the prizes are bigger than ever and there is full TV-coverage from Eurosport. Personally I should go for "no. 3", but expectations were small as the field contained a record number of 154 players in the Champ Flight and 33,500 Euros for the winner.
The draw was made and I received the worst possible draw. No buy meant the round of 256. I was in the same quadrant as Gus Hansen, Goetz Hildsberg, Falafel (2007 giant of backgammon), Mochy, Thomas Hansen, Marinos Hindkjaer and Lars Nielsen.
I began with trailing 0-6 (to 17 points) against Marinos (DK) but eventually I managed to turn the table around and won a tight match. In the 2nd round I played Lars Nielsen (another strong Dane) and again I was trailing 0-6 but same story as against Marinos ;-)
Shake your money maker
Saturday the 22nd:
7 hours of matches on a Friday evening (night) were hard and 9 hours later I should play the former Danish Champ Thomas Hansen. When I again was trailing 0-6 I got a good feeling in my stomach.
The match became close at 11-11 and ended up in DMP, where I was trailing with 26 pips in a straight race without contact. But Thomas kept on rolling aces and with just two sets (33) I managed to climb into the 4th round, where I should meet a traditionally lucky player, Goetz Hildsberg.
Hildsberg is the old table-feeling-kind-of-guy and today was not an exception. I threw lousy dice and only got 4 points and after 4 long matches I could now concentrate myself on the last 64 in the consolation.
Phillip Vischjäger (ex World Champ) was the first to taste the Bredahl-style. Trailing 3-7 (to 11 point) I received an early 2-cube and after a misplayed 6-5 I could reship the 4-cube. Take and attack and a sure gammon to the round of 32.
Sunday the 23rd:
In the round of 32 I played Maric Zoran who began with winning a 2-cubed gammon, but trailing is my specialty and I won a tight DMP (again). In the last 16, I played another strong Dane (Klaus Switon). Klaus usually plays good backgammon but in this match it didn't quite work for him, and he only got 2 points.
Denmark was represented by 3 Danes in the quarterfinals and 2 of them played on the same team (Mama Lustra) and should, of course, play each other. Jakob H. Simonsen is one of the very best Danish experts and, obviously, he got a 4-0 lead. Need I say more about that match? In the Crawford game, I was up 10-6 and Jakob only got 2 more points before resigning.
Monday the 24th:
In the semifinal I should have played "the consolation-champ" Rida Hassan (Egypt). In London, he won the consolation and now he is in the semi at the strongest tournament in the world (The Nordic Open). I began with absolutely natural dice and got ahead 6-0. Now I began to feel my own medicine and all of a sudden I was trailing 6-9! I needed a short break to get some sugar ;-)
I cashed 3 times after the break and we came into DMP. I needed a quick six from the bar to stay alive. In the second attempt I managed to roll a 6-2 and after that I forced Mr. Hassan down to an acepoint game with borderline bad timing. He never hit any of the 2 shots I left him and I was in the final where some unknown guy from Japan was waiting for me.
The final against Mochy never became exciting as I only managed to get 4 points, but it didn't feel like a defeat as I was a part of the winning team from The Nordic Nations Cup (16 teams). On top of that I was also one third of the winning team in the Team Event.
Summary
After all, the Nordic Open was a very good event and the next challenge is probably the World Championship in Monte Carlo and the Cannes tournament right after.
Showe'm whacha you got
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