The 2024 Queensland Backgammon Championships was held on August 23, 24 & 25th.
Around 50 players from Queensland and interstate fought for glory in four tournaments.
Congratulations to the winners. Commiserations to the almost winners. Thanks for the hard luck stories everyone else 
Open tournament winner
Joanna Kerinya
Joanna lives in Brisbane and comes down to the Gold Coast to win our tournaments regularly.
She is regularly in the top 20 rated backgammon players in Australia.
Masters tournament winner
Malcolm Hutson
Malcolm dominated the weekend, making it to the final of 3 out of 4 tournaments.
It was a pretty grueling weekend, so the results are even more impressive.
Speedgammon
Malcolm Hutson
As part of his domination of the tournament, Malcolm won the speedgammon beating Hossein Haydari, who won the Sunday Showdown.
Malcolm is one of Australia’s top backgammon players and is a good bloke as well…as long as he is not opposite you in a match 
Sunday Showdown winner
Hossein Haydari
Hossein is consistantly one of Australia’s top players. He battled through a 32 player field to win this one.
If there was such an award, Hossein would win “most buy backs in a tournament” 
Doubles tournament
Trudi Hemetsberger &
Steve Roberts
(Beauty & The Beast)
The doubles tournaments have proven very popular with a field of 16 teams this year. After a loss in the first round, Trudi and Steve bought back in and fought their way to the final to face the Beast Eaters who had beaten them earlier. Beauty & The Beast Vs Beast Eaters – you couldn’t have planned it better.
Gold Coast Backgammon Club is celebrating the 3rd year in a row that our members have won this title.
Worthy finalists
Of course, for every winner, there is a runner up, most often with a hard luck story like “I would have won, except he rolled 33 on his last roll” (true).
Congratulations to all the finalists…
Open: Malcolm Hutson
Masters: Craig Duffy
Speed: Hossein Maydari
Sunday Showdown: Keith Gillette
Doubles: The Beast Eaters
William Van Pragg & Terry Christoloudo
and the semi-finalists….
Open:
William van Pragh
Steve Clarry
Masters:
John Mallon
Steve Clarry
Speedgammon:
Chris White
Vince Turner
Sunday Showdown:
John Mallon
Steve Clarry
Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all the players who made an effort to come along.
A particular acknowledgement to the Tournament Director Steve Roberts and Narelle MacKenzie who did most of the work, including designing the best looking backgammon tournament the world has ever seen.
