How much does it cost to play in live in person tournaments.? That means entry fees and other costs.
And are they a good experience for beginning / intermediate players? Is it a good way to play against good players while avoiding some of the risk of money play? How much pressure is put on players to have side wagers. Personally I think I might enjoy it. As long as the costs are not very high. But I don’t want to feel like a lamb being lead to the slaughterhouse

I know they may have been affected by Covid-19. But lets assume things go back to normal.

Thanks for any information.

I am surprised not to get any replies. Perhaps live tournaments aren’t that popular.

I was motivated to ask this because I was on a site promoting the Boston open. And I was annoyed because the registration fee was not listed. I was typing a slightly nasty email when I decided a generic question about tournaments here would be a better idea.

There are lots of people who have only played against Xtreme or Gnu, or online against others. But have little face to face experience. Personally, I am not looking forward to having all my future experiences online. I would have thought there would be a lot of growing interest in face to face tournaments. But maybe that is only for elite players.

Just wait a bit and you might have some answers from experienced posters here.

Live backgammon has suffered a bit during the COVID era for obvious reasons. There are still plenty of tournaments, but not everyone wants to wear a mask while playing or show their vaccine passport to get in. (The Boston tournament you spoke of just announced that the hotel will not be serving lunch during the event.) There are still plenty of live tournaments, but attendance is definitely down compared to the pre-bot era.

At a live tournament, the players are usually divided into 3 sections: Open, Intermediate, and Beginners. Entry fees are highest in the Open, lowest in the beginners. A 'local' tournament is a one-day event with EFs around $50 for the Open and maybe $20-$25 for the intermediate. A 'major' event might take a long weekend with EFs in the $200-$300 range in the Open and $75-$100 for the intermediates.

In addition to the main event, a major tournament will have a number of side events with lower entry fees and shorter matches. There might be a doubles tournament (teams of two players), an Open Jackpot, an Intermediate Jackpot, a Senior's tournament, and anything else the director can think up to keep players busy. You can enter as many or as few of these as you want/have time for.

In the evenings, some players will skip the tournament action and get together for chouettes (money games with several participants). Stakes might range from $5-$50 a point. Spectating a chouette with some world-class players can be a great learning experience.

For more info, Google some of these:

USBGF - the U.S. Backgammon Federation, which runs the ABT tour and publishes a bi-monthly magazine.

New England Backgammon Club (NEBC) - runs monthly tournaments in the Boston area.

Backgammon Galaxy - the most popular online site, which lists almost 100,000 participants on its ranking list. It also runs two Facebook forums, Backgammon Strategy and Backgammon News.

Hope this helps.

That's a lot of great information.

Thank you.

I’m thinking about attending the Texas State tournament in San Antonio coming up in a couple of months. Haven’t played over a board in a long time and I miss it!

Are the tournaments well attended these days? I wouldn’t mind playing in a mask or showing my vaccination record, but it looks like those will not be required.

I think tournament attendance is roughly back to pre-COVID levels.

If you are looking for a lower entry fee tournament, you may also want to search for a backgammon club in your local area. If there is a nearby club, such clubs often play monthly tournaments at a relatively low entry fee. Sorry, but I do not know if any lists of clubs that are current off the top of my head, but Google is your friend

If a player doesn’t have a rating, can they choose their own tournament level at a live tournament?

I haven’t played over a board in a long time, or even against a human. Plenty of XG though. I can probably be moderately competitive at the intermediate level, but will that be my decision? Or are levels assigned? Obviously I have no clue about what to expect.

Not an expert so other posters please correct me if I'm wrong. You can definitely choose your level of play if you don't have a rating (ie new player).

You can play higher than your skill, but they try not to allow players to play below their level. So if you're a well known pro or have a good rating then it would be an issue (you'll likely be asked to play the open category)

The open category is for top players, so most people who aren't compete beginners will usually play the advance category.

Played my first tournament last year in the advance category. My rating wasn't that great, just a hair above average. There was a guy who was around my level who played open! He did manage to win a few matches though.

Thank you, good info. Makes sense that an open class player would very likely be a known quantity.

I’ll probably enter intermediate or advanced, and also senior tournaments. I’m looking at the Atlanta Classic.

Everyone is expected to bring their own board and clock, is that right? I assume that dice are provided.

Welcome.

They encourage players to bring the whole set (board, dice, clock). Believe almost everyone brought, I didn't bring it though.

For clock, you should check the tournament brochure, the clock is probably only mandatory for open and sometimes advanced.

I haven’t played over a board in years. Have read most of the books, but there are many areas where I’m weak. Lately, for the last couple of years, I have been playing a ton on XG and have ground my PR down to 9.5 playing strictly 7 point matches. My checker play is much better than cube play. I know that’s terrible, but is it too terrible for the intermediate tournament?

I’m vacillating between going to the tournament and grinding that PR down a bit more with study and practice. Wouldn’t want to play in less than an intermediate grade.

Does anybody here have a decent sense for what sort of PR you need to be to be roughly breakeven in the open division here in Vegas?

I think Vegas seems to attract an unusually tough field in both the open and intermediate divisions. Also the long matches (15 pt in the open) tend to favor the stronger opponents more than usual which makes it even harder to break even if you’re in the middle of the pack.

I would guess the average open PR is in the 5.5-6.0 range so to beat the rake or at least break even you’d need to be well below that (probably only a small percentage of the players who enter are breaking even or profitable and there are typically quite a few <4 PR players to compete with).

The intermediate also tends to be stronger than average because there’s no advanced division for players in the 7-10 range. I played in it in 2021 (and ended up luckboxing the whole thing) but there were a few sandbaggers with BMAB PRs of 6-7.

Thanks!

What’s more usual than 15 for match length? Or are they different lengths at different stages of the tournament?

15? OMG. Online I only find tournaments with match length 3 or 5. 15 would be a dream. Can tournaments with match length 15 (or 11 or something like that) also be played online somewhere?

11 points is probably the most common match length for open level ABT events, then usually the consolation and last chance brackets will have shorter matches.

I was also considering going to my first tournament and playing the intermediate. I was surprised to see this past weekend that the final of the advanced division in Texas was streamed. They played a 4.9 and 7.2 PR! The 7.2 PR won and it was a master-level player's wife. Is this typical for the players that do well in the intermediate? I have no chance if so.

I think Texas is another case of the intermediate field being tougher because there was no advanced.

I also don’t know either of those players personally, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those were below-average PRs for them.

Also, probably more importantly, even if you’re matched up against a much stronger player, you’re going to have at least 35-40% winning chances in each match. I would go for it if you’re interested and don’t let that example match discourage you.