Trip Report – Detroit Metro North Backgammon Club @ McCool’s Sports Bar

Because of this Forum I started getting the urge to play a little Backgammon. So I did a quick search of local Clubs

There are several clubs within an hour or so of my home - each seem to share some common members. The biggest, oldest, and apparently most well established club is up in Flint. It is also the furthest away from my home. I decided to try out the two more local clubs.

After tracking down the director of each club, I determined that Detroit "Metro North" Backgammon Club would be meeting on Monday at a local bar - Finny McCool's only about 15 minutes from my house.

Upon arriving and introducing myself to several of the players, I looked around. McCools is a "Sports Bar". They have converted their lower level into a Charity Poker Room with a number of nice flat screens. The bar allows the Backgammon Club to set up on Mondays which seems to be a relatively slow night for the Poker Room.

Upstairs on the main level they have Karaoke (ugh) and many more flat screen televisions.

The waitresses are super hot.

It had been 20 years since I had last moved a pip. One of the regular Club players offered to play a few warm-up games with me since it had been so long since I had last played. As we spread the board and went thru the standard Tourney rules (Crawford, etc...) I could feel the nerves and was grateful to get a few games in before the real tourney.

The regular was clearly a better player than me - but he was patient and complimentary of my play. I settled in and he introduced me to additional players as they arrived. He toyed with me for a few games and the tourney began.

The tourneys are generally $10 buy in, but once a month they have a "double club points" $15 tourney. Tonight was a $15 night. Double Elimination - but must be undefeated to bet the winner. Each match is a race to 7 points

From my cruising of the Web pages of the local clubs, I was able to identify several names and faces. One guy was the Player of the year of the larger club in Flint. In my "research" it was clear he was a very experienced and good player and active in a number of local clubs.

My first opponent was a nice older guy. My nervers were mostly calmed from my warm-up games, but I still quickly went down a couple of points. Then I managed a close win to make it 1-2. I had some insanely poor luck involving double ones (one game I had single blot remaining on the 5 point and failed to close out the game because of a roll of 1:1, and later failed to pass and again close out a game because of 1:1, there were at least 2 other times that 1:1 was the case roll to "screw" me and it hit) I wound up losing the match 7:5 (I think) - not too bad all things considered.

Next up was s skinny younger guy. Played very different than my first opponent - much more open and fast. I felt like I should be able to hold my own against him - and found myself staring at a score of 6:0

Uh, oh.

Somehow I went on a rush and found myself fighting back to 6:5. In the final game I managed to win and close out my first Tourney Match win in my life!

Next up was a SUPER Solid player. The Club Director introduced him as "One of the Five best Backgammon Players in Ohio" There was alot of friendly banter over this comment since it was apparently meant as sort of a left-handed compliment. He took the first game with solid play, paired with stupid hot dice. I teased him that he obviously "needed" good dice to beat me. He laughed and said "yeah, I'm a winning player just because of my wrist". Somehow I managed to take the Match lead, but could tell that the other guy wasn't really taking me too seriously. He fought back into the match. Then came a game where I took an early lead, he then started to roll some of the coldest dice imaginable. I closed out the game and he seemed slightly tilted. We fought back & forth, but somehow, I beat him to 7 points!

Next up for me was the POY guy. To make the long story short, I again through the miracle of lucky dice managed to beat this far superior player to 7 points. He was a little tilted by this and his anger came out a bit as we engaged in what I though was friendly post game chatter which quiclky turned into a slightly intense political discussion.

I was saved from any further debate by being called to my final match. This was for second place money. Again my opponent was a very nice guy - very analytical. I took an early 3:2 match lead then made an AWFUL rookie blunder where I dismantled a 5-point wall to make a risky hit in my own zone.

What a dope. Stupid stupid stooooopid.

My opponent didn't miss and I was lucky to save a Backgammon - turning what really should have been a 5:2 lead into a 3:6 trailing situation thru just awful play on my part.

I never really recovered from that and lost the match.

All in all a nice time. Probably burnt a bit of a bridge by getting into a heated political discussion with one of the most established players in the area, but hopefully no real harm done.

TL/DR Notes - First Backgammon tourney ever and first time playing in 20 years. Won 3 out of 5 matches against far superior players. As usual, couldn't keep my sparkling personality under wraps to avoid "political controversy" even for just one night. Hot waitresses.

yeah tl;dr (i will, just not right now)

Check out the ABT events
- Apr 3-5: Ohio State Championships
- Jul 2-5: Michigan Summer Championships

nice read.....

good read. thanks op.

nice post

nice read, thanks

Nice read, ty

this is real erie...i play poker my friend told me to sign up here at this forum... i come across this backgammon threads...i then see metro detroit(where i play MCCOOLS) im joe the guy that was up 6-0 on u lol what a small world

Dude. You had me crushed - I was WAY lucky to survive!

Small world indeed.

no such thing as crushed.u played well and battled back then went on to beat 2-3 top notch players