Press Release, 23rd December 2009

Gus Hansen has delivered an early Christmas present to backgammon fans around the world by signing up to play the WSOB Championship – the 'Shootout' – the finale of the third season of the World Series of Backgammon® tour, which takes place in London in February 2010.

Gus Hansen is probably the most highly regarded and certainly the most famous multi-discipline games player in the world. He will join up to 49 other backgammon high rollers in the draw, vying to take home a slice of the US$480,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The draw will be made up of the seven players who have already qualified from the WSOB tour this year, plus up to 50 others, who will either buy-in for $7,500 per seat, or make the grade online during a series of online qualifiers, starting in January 2010 on the WSOB backgammon platform, or via live satellites being played in notable backgammon clubs from Tokyo to Chicago and from Cape Town to London.

“I can’t resist the draw of taking part in the Shootout,” commented Gus Hansen. “Not only are we competing for one of the biggest purses available in the game, but I’m excited to be going head to head with some of the very best players there are, including World Number One Falafel, Sander Lylloff, and World Champion Mochy. I’m looking forward to commentating on the webcast live action, but most of all, I’m looking forward to playing!”

Players who have already qualified for the Shootout hold seats worth US$15,000, as they will enter the action in the second round. All other qualifiers will take the hot seat in round one to stand a chance of finishing in the last eight, all of which will win a share of the prize pool.

“I’m delighted that Gus Hansen will be playing the Shootout and pitting his wits against an extremely strong field. Let the games commence!” said Andy Bell, WSOB’s Director.

Event Details:

The shootout will take place on 6th and 7th of February 2010, at the Adam Street private members’ club, just off The Strand in Central London. The event will include live webcast action of some of the key matches, supported by expert commentary by Gus Hansen and John Clark.

Players interested in securing a seat at this exclusive event or clubs wanting to run satellites, should email Event Director, Will Cockerell at willcockerell@googlemail.com

Ends

For more information or images please contact WSOB Director Andy Bell at ab@worldseriesofbackgammon.com or +44(0)7980 122344


for more detailed information about the WSOB Championship

WSOB

Nice Promotion! GL Hansen take it down!

degen gambooler ..

I've understood that he has lost immense amounts playing roulette and craps.

Gus had a pretty awful 09 with online poker, reading the stats on HighstakesDB. Then again so did Tom 'Durrr' Dwan. Very volatile hairy stuff.
I really doubt whether he has spent any time whatsoever shooting craps or playing roulette. Gus is extremely studious on poker and backgammon and other skills games. I know he was 'caught' rolling out bg positions in his hotel room during a poker event in Vegas a while ago; some time before he returned to the game with WSOB.

he gets over his crazy big losses quite easily

you can now see who's expected to play in our daily updating, intended player list.
WSOB website

This should be good for backgammons publicity. I'd like to see this.

I will publish regular reports from this weekend's event here at 2+2. you can also follow the live draw sheet at World Backgammon Ratings and we will produce some video reports including interviews and views of top players like Gus Hansen and Mochy, to be published at WSOB

I presume we got the day to day rule changes that Mr. Bell's events have become famous for.

Slowkey, if you'd care to describe some of these so called 'inconsistencies' in applied rules, I would be glad to answer any concerns here on 2+2.

We take our responsibilities extremely seriously running these events. Players committing to our tour, are expected to invest a minimum of several thousand Euros in buy-ins and expenses, ergo we would be negligent in the extreme to make ad hoc rule changes to our big money events, which we don't. In any instances when we have made mistakes, we have been quick to correct and make amends.

Wow.

http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbb...mes;read=50666

hi again, regarding the link posted; this was an unfortunate situation between myself and Stick Rice, who runs that forum. Stick had been reporting/ blogging for us in Cannes and Prague.

Though I know he means well, his ideas about WSOB were incorrect at the time and I feel he misconstrued my own thoughts that certain posts should be removed from his site, because they were basically defamatory and damaging the the WSOB brand, causing wide-spread worry amongst players. As a result, many players decided not to play the 3rd and final stop in London, giving up considerable equity in the WSOB Race, for which we added €40,000.

Indeed, we did unfortunately have to move the dates of the finale, the WSOB Championship, to protect the online business. But we were open about the reasons. Indeed, with hindsight, I feel I should have scheduled the finale to later date anyway. The tour was launched/ announced at the Nordic Open in 2009.

In the end we delivered a much bigger finale event ($480,000 paid out) than originally promised, with an extraordinary field of players, which was terrifically exciting to watch and now provides an exciting platform for us to deliver big events in the future, supported by online, that opens up tournament backgammon to everyone.

We will be announcing plans for 2010 / 11 in the near future.

Andy

I sense you understand the intuition being expressed. Procedures and dates being changed, players dropping in and out etc. Didn't feel right last year.

I hope you are successful in growing the game.