Backgammon News

September 15, 2009

Swedish Backgammon Open

The Swedish Open Championship, held from September 11-13 at the Elite Palace Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, was one of the most entertaining and innovative backgammon tournaments in recent memory. Director Johann Mestell, assisted by Sora Utku and Ingrid Soederstjerna, presided over a field of 62 championship players (paying an entry fee of 4000 Swedish kroner, about 400 euros) and 42 intermediates. The new online backgammon site Dicearena sponsored the event, adding 5000 euros to the prize pool.

Article author, Robert Wachtel, at the Swedish Backgammon Open Championship in Stockholm

Encouraged by favorable reports from the 2008 Oslo Open and his experience with last year's Swedish Championship, Mr. Mestell decided to once again employ a Swiss-style pairing system, the “Monrad” (named after its chess playing Swedish inventor). This format does not formally eliminate anyone over the first seven rounds of the event. Instead, it matches winners against winners and losers against losers, selecting the top eight finishers – those with the best win-loss record over the seven rounds – to compete for 80% of the prize pool on day 3. All of the remaining competitors are then placed in a “last chance” flight, also on day three, with the remaining 20% of the prize pool at stake.

I used the term 'formally' in the last paragraph because in fact the system does eliminate players well before the end of the second day, leaving those with poor results obliged to play one, two, or possibly three meaningless matches. This and a few other technical problems have convinced the Swedish organizers to revert to a more conventional format next year.

Just as unique were the tournament's cutthroat time conditions. All matches were clock-regulated, which is normal enough; but in this event there was no free (“Bronstein”) time or cushion allowed for each move. You were given 35 minutes for a 7 point match – a generous enough amounts – but the penalty for any over-consumption of your allotment was deadly indeed: forfeit of the entire match. What this means, as world champion Masayuki Mochizuki (“Mochy”) learned to his chagrin in the quarterfinals, is that you may, through poor planning in the beginning of a match, reach a situation where you cannot physically make your moves in the proscribed time. Remember, the rules of backgammon require that you shake your dice a few times -- a process that takes at least three seconds to complete! In a long, complicated 15 point match, Mochy reached two-away – two-away with a minute or so on his clock; but he neglected to double immediately. By the time he did, it was too late. His opponent simply passed, and Mochy was unable to complete the next game before his time expired.

World Backgammon Champ, Masayuki “Mochy” Mochizuki (right) playing the Swedish Backgammon Open Championship

And then there was the unlimited rebuy blitz, a deceptively cheap and apparently simple event that no loser could resist. One point matches, initial entry fee 50 kroner (5 euros). Rebuy as many times as you like, but each time it costs you twice as much as your prior buy in. The rebuy period lasts until the field has been narrowed to four players. Mochy (who else?) won it after getting to the final four with only five rebuys, the same number that your correspondent used before he failed to answer the bell for round six.

It was while I was toiling away in the blitz mines that the main tournament itself came to its spectacular end. Last I had looked my old friend Kazuhiro Shino, a Japanese national who resides in London, was down 14-10 Crawford against Dane Andreas Becher. The crowd, watching the match on closed-circuit TV, startled me as it roared – then roared again – and again – and again! After I dropped out of the blitz, I asked one of the spectators to tell me what had happened. He knew that Shino had won, but could not quite remember the exact sequence of events. Nor could the next spectator. I recalled a series of experiments that had demonstrated the unreliability of witness testimony to crimes: it seemed that no two witnesses to a staged bank robbery ever gave the same description of the perpetrators.

After a lot of detective work I was finally able to reconstruct the circumstances of this theft. From 14-10 Shino had fought back to double match point. But things did not go well for him at all in the final game, and he reached this position:

Shino, with the black checkers, was on roll here. He shot a 65. Becher rolled a 61, Shino a 55, Becher another ace, Shino a 11, and Becher rolled another ace!! Mr. Shino, more than a 300 to 1 underdog in the diagrammed position, had pulled off the longest long shot in a final that any of us could remember. “You were lucky,” someone had the temerity to say to him. Shino did not miss a beat. “Yes, but do you know how lucky he was earlier?” he replied. “It was most improper.”

But perhaps it was just karma. On his way to the tournament, Shino announced on Facebook that he loved Stockholm, that it was his favorite, “beautiful” city, and that he was very pleased to be visiting it again. Apparently the Swedish capital returned his love. The 500 euro superjackpot event was won by the other Japanese superstar, “Michi.” Semifinalists in the main were Swedes Thomas Ronn and Robert Lindbom. The last chance was won by Stig Landstrom.

Shino is awarded Swedish Open backgammon champion for 2009

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