Andrew Wins First Swiss Tournament, New League Announced
There were 23 players in action at the Slow and Steady last night including 4 first time players and one I’d not met previously having swanned off on holiday two weeks ago. So it’s a big Oxford Backgammon welcome to Alice, Damian, Gregory and Zev and a belated big Oxford Backgammon welcome to Gulen.
OxBG11 & OxBG7
We’re in the dog days of the first Oxford League Season with just a handful of matches left to play before the final cut off on 31st August. No league fixtures were played last night. Whether all of the outstanding matches can be completed in the available time remains to be seen. The outstanding fixtures could yet affect the substantive outcomes of both OxBG11 and OxBG7 with Ben retaining some hope of making it into the OxBG11 runner-up spot and Toby clinging onto the remote prospect of overhauling Ardi into the top spot of OxBG7.
MNB Tournament News
A new departure for Monday Night Backgammon (hereinafter MNB) was online sign-up and management of a Swiss Format Tournament. It seems that Oxford Backgammon really is leaving the 20th century behind (unlike the World Championship in Monte Carlo steadfastly hanging onto their felt tip pens!). There were 8 players signed up and ready to play the Swiss before 7pm so the tournament started earlier than its advertised start time of 7.15 (apologies to Lucila who had signed up but was running late and consequently got bumped out of the tournament). After 3 rounds the winner, with 3 wins from 3, was Andrew Smith. Congratulations to Andrew, who will forever be recorded as MNB’s first Swiss Tournament winner.
Backgammon Hub - Sign Up Now!
Online tournament sign-up and management, provided through BackgammonHub.com worked well and will be used again. Players wanting to join future tournaments are advised to register with Backgammon Hub now. Its free and easy and will save time for everyone in future tournaments. Backgammon Hub is also a good place to play online either against humans or just to practise against a full fat backgammon bot. The earlier start time turned out to be a good idea as some players were struggling to complete 3 x 5 point matches in the time available. Future MNB tournaments will now be scheduled for 7pm to allow enough time to complete matches.
Monday Night Requests?
As well as the Swiss there were a couple of four player Round Robins and the ever popular Chouette, as well as a few players playing socially. It seems that we now usually have sufficient boards and enough different options for everyone to be fully engaged with the beautiful game on a Monday Night. Please do let me know (in the comments, via Whatsapp, email or in person) what you like doing on a Monday night or if there’s something you’d like that’s not currently on offer. For instance, I’ve been asked about coaching, which I’m happy (if not entirely qualified!) to provide. There’s also talk of some of the game variants, which might be interesting (e.g. nackgammon, speedgammon, Acey-Deucey, Shesh Besh etc). Let me know what you'd like!
2025/26 League
In advance of last night’s session I finally published (incomplete) details of the new league season to start in September.
Key details include:
Three tier league with small divisions arranged in a pyramid
Three “term” season (Autumn, Spring and Summer) with promotion and relegation at the end of each term
Entry £15/term for Divison 1, £10/term for Divisions 2&3
Prizes (trophy and cash) for Division 1 winner and runner up and Divisions 2 & 3 winners
Initial division allocations based on OxBG11 and OxBG7 final placings
New players can join at the beginning of each term
More details of the new league will be published soon. We already have quite a few sign ups. Anyone wishing to join who hasn't already can sign up by joining the OxBG League 2025/26 WhatsApp Group or by emailing oxfordbackgammon@gmail.com and I can add you.
Chouette
In response to popular demand we’ve introduced a monthly (?) chouette night. We had the first last month on July 12th and there’s another scheduled for Wednesday 6th August. However there’s talk of shifting to 13th August. Those interested in playing chouette are advised to join the OxBG Chouette Whatsapp group to keep up with potentially variable arrangements…
UKBGF
The observant amongst you may have noted the UKBGF (UK Backgammon Federation) logo lurking on various parts of the website. UKBGF is a nationally run federation supporting groups like Oxford Backgammon. We received a UKBGF grant last year which partially funded the purchase of four tournament boards. Anyone who is interested should have a look at the ukbgf.com website which has a wealth of useful resources as well as club and tournament listings. UKBGF also hosts various live and online ratings. Provided we adopt a compliant results policy we will be able to submit Oxford backgammon league and tournament results so that Oxford players can start to assess how they rate against the rest of the UK.
Membership of the UKBGF is encouraged – its £25/year or £60 for three years. If you want to know what you get for your money, as well as a warm feeling that you’re supporting the growth of the beautiful game in the UK, have a look here: https://ukbgf.com/join-the-ukbgf/
