1st International Backgammon Championship

How it all works

The championship is an attempt to stage a truly global online backgammon tournament, bringing together qualifiers from many countries in all continents, with very low costs incurred by the individual players.

The event is being run on a non profit making basis, and is a ground breaking joint venture of three of the world's most prominent backgammon federations, whose representatives are Perry Gartner (USA), Steen Gronberg (Denmark), and Masayuki Mochizuki (Japan).

Each nation provides its own qualifiers (up to four from each), usually by staging live qualifying tournaments, which have to meet certain standards prescribed by the organisers. The bodies running the qualification from each nation are the national federations, or where there is no national federation, known tournament directors.

Each qualifier will have won a seat in the online event (known as the Grand Finale of the championship). This seat will have a value of 1,050 Euros (1,000 Euros entry plus 50 Euros registration). The 50 Euros registration covers event expenses, including creation and maintenance of the event website, which is still under development.

The federation or organiser of the qualifying event is responsible for forwarding the 1,050 Euros per seat to the Danish federation in a timely manner.

The Grand Finale

The Grand Finale is tentatively scheduled to begin on October 12th, 2011. The draw will keep players from the same nation apart in the early stages.

The organisers will decide which server is to act as the host for the matches.

The format is single elimination, with best of three first-to-nine-point matches, except for The Finals, i.e. the semi-finals and final, which will be best of three first-to-eleven-point matches.

While each round will have a two week window for completion, players agree on a mutually acceptable time to play matches, which must be announced at least three days beforehand. If no agreement can be made, the organisers will decide. Players must be accompanied by a TD from their qualifying organisation. And match files must be recorded on ExtremeGammon online and submitted by the TD to the organising committee immediately after completion.

Live play in the Grand Finale is also possible if the players can meet in the required timesacles.

The Finals

The finals may be played online (in the same way as the Grand Finale) or at a live event. That would be dependent on gathering the four semi-finalists together at the same time and place.

If live, the organising committee would pay the costs of travel, accommodation and food for the four players. This would be funded via a combination of the registration fees, corporate sponsorship (which is being sought), and auction fees (where events will have made bids for the privilege of staging The Finals).

100% of entry fees will be returned as prizes. If the Grand Finale is contested by fewer than 32 players, the prizes are split 70% winner; 30% finalist. If 32 or more, it will be 50% winner; 25% finalist; 12.5% to each semi-finalist.


Find out about the Bristol Qualifier
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