Backgammon in Greece - Tournament #7

Kourouklis Outrolls Karantzali
at 7th Athens GBgF Tournament
by Director Manos Mastorakis - 21 May 2008

ANDREAS KOUROUKLIS

The 7th monthly tournament of the Greek Backgammon Federation (GBgF) was won by Andreas Kourouklis of Athens who in the final match faced Greece’s strongest female player, Filomila Karantzali of Thessaloniki. The two-day event was held May 10 and 11 at the Bridge Club in Athens and was attended by 31 players.

Andreas and Filomila both play internationally - Andreas won the 128-player Seniors event at the Las Vegas Open in 2000 and has organized live tournaments in Greece in the past. Filomila, who won the Athens monthly in January, has played in most of the World Series of Backgammon (WSOB) and PartoucheGammon Tour (PGT) events this year.

Kourouklis' victory earns him 28 points and moves him up from the 26th to the 19th spot on the GBgF National Ranking List (see updated list below) while Filomila picked up 21 points for her efforts to maintain the 5th spot in the standings. Costas Costopoulos won the Consolation for the second consecutive month in a row to move up from 6th to 4th place in the rankings. Meanwhile, Giorgos Klitsas maintains a stranglehold on the #1 spot.

We had three more newcomers in May, bringing the total to 78 different players that have attended our tournaments in the past seven months.

Here are the full results of the May tournament:

Main Winner: Andreas Kourouklis

Main Finalist: Filomila Karantzali

Main Semi-Finalists: Costas Mitrelis and Herbert Bornand

Consolation Winner: Costas Costopoulos

Consolation Finalist: Yiannis Valianos

Last Chance Winner: Pavlos Thanopoulos

Andreas Kourouklis - GBgF Champion May 2008

The next monthly event will be held Saturday, June 7. It will be a regular one-day event with a €100 entry, hopefully again at the Bridge Club... this venue really rocks!

The higher-ranked players will be competing fiercely in the June event because the top three players on our GBgF ranking list after June’s tournament will be going to Cannes, France in July to represent Greece in Eric Guedj’s annual Nations Cup, part of the Riviera Backgammon Festival organized by the PartoucheGammon Tour at the Palm Beach Casino from July 15 to 21, 2008.

Also, after June’s tournament, we will take a two-month break for summer and around mid-September we will do a tournament in Thessaloniki in northern Greece. People come from there to Athens regularly to play in our tournaments so it is only fair that we do one of the monthly events over there.

We will resume regular monthly events in October in Athens but we shall organized a special tournament in November with a lower entry fee of only €50, which we hope will attract some new and younger players.

Finally, in December we will have another €150 tournament to decide the final rankings for this first year and then we'll begin our 2009 season in January.

When I attended the recent PartoucheGammon Tour event in Paris, I spoke to Mario Sequeira, Matvey “Falafel” Natanzon, François Tardieu and many other players and they all want to come to Greece. Therefore, we will try to organize a big international event here next year, perhaps at a luxurious island resort with a casino.

The new updated ranking list after seven events:

HELLENIC NATIONAL RANKING LIST


Rank	Player	Points	%	Wins	Matches
1	Giorgos Klitsas	150	68.57	24	35
2	Charis Christidis	128	67.86	19	28
3	Christos Groutsos	123	58.06	18	31
4	Costas Costopoulos	119	68.75	22	32
5	Filomila Karantzali	113	64.00	16	25
6	Costas Chiotinis	108	48.28	14	29
7	Manos Mastorakis	106	52.00	13	25
8	Yiannis Theologitis	98	41.67	10	24
9	Stephanos Bonanos	93	62.50	15	24
10	Michalis Manolios	90	40.00	10	25
11	Thanassis Makris	84	45.45	10	22
12	Costas Mitrelis	77	64.71	11	17
13	Yiannis Valianos	75	47.37	9	19
14	Takis Sakalis	74	62.50	10	16
15	Charis Ladis	74	58.82	10	17
16	Yiannis Pasialis	74	42.11	8	19
17	Stephanos Katogiannakis	72	44.44	8	18
18	Antonis Vamvakaris	70	60.00	9	15
19	Andreas Kourouklis	70	60.00	9	15
20	Theodoros Triantafyllidis	68	62.50	10	16
21	Pavlos Thanopoulos	67	41.18	7	17
22	Takis Chatzelis	64	35.29	6	17
23	Alexandros Kolonias	63	31.25	5	16
24	Stelios Kousis	61	31.25	5	16
25	Nikos Mastroperros	59	50.00	7	14
26	Nikos Sapountzakis	54	66.67	10	15
27	Takis Kassidopoulos	53	38.46	5	13
28	Giorgos Tsiris	51	21.43	3	14
29	Costas Christou	49	53.85	7	13
30	Giorgos Vadiakas	42	44.44	4	9
31	Costas Efthimiadis	42	40.00	4	10
32	Giorgos Sotiriadis	40	66.67	6	9
33	Giorgos Kafetzopoulos	40	60.00	6	10
34	Nikonas Panagakis	35	33.33	3	9
35	Nikos Psaroudakis	34	50.00	4	8
36	Argiris Argitakos	34	25.00	2	8
37	Aris Sarakakis	34	25.00	2	8
38	Vagelis Alexandrakis	30	50.00	4	8
39	Philippos Avanidis	29	50.00	3	6
40	Herbert Bornand	29	50.00	3	6
41	Giorgos Stephanopoulos	26	85.71	6	7
42	Theodoros Dimakis	26	80.00	4	5
43	Yiannis Doukakis	26	80.00	4	5
44	Petros Aggelopoulos	26	66.67	4	6
45	Vasilis Zisis	24	33.33	2	6
46	Alexandros Politis	22	66.67	4	6
47	Andreas Pournaras	22	40.00	2	5
48	Takis Aggelopoulos	22	33.33	2	6
49	Theodoros Meimaris	21	60.00	3	5
50	Neculai Draganuta	19	60.00	3	5
51	Matsoukas Fanis	19	50.00	3	6
52	Petros Selelis	19	20.00	1	5
53	Stavros Petmezas	19	20.00	1	5
54	Vasilis Mitkidis	19	20.00	1	5
55	Simos Akrivos	16	50.00	2	4
56	Alekos Deliakis	16	50.00	2	4
57	Michael Strato	16	50.00	2	4
58	Proukakis	15	25.00	1	4
59	Constantinos Giannakopoulos	14	50.00	2	4
60	Kostov	14	50.00	2	4
61	Yiannis Antourakis	13	33.33	1	3
62	Nikos Dikaros	13	33.33	1	3
63	Constantinos Sarris	13	33.33	1	3
64	Maria Panou	13	33.33	1	3
65	Kridas	13	25.00	1	4
66	Gabriel Brescan	11	33.33	1	3
67	Nikos Kouroublis	11	33.33	1	3
68	Giorgos Kraniotis	11	33.33	1	3
69	Giannis Matsoukakos	11	33.33	1	3
70	Costas Petropoulos	11	33.33	1	3
71	Panagiotis Strangas	11	33.33	1	3
72	Michalis Christoforidis	9	33.33	1	3
73	Stamatis Chatzigeorgiou	8	0.00	0	2
74	Christos Dimitropoulos	8	0.00	0	2
75	Iakovos Iakovidis	8	0.00	0	2
76	Nikos Tarapatsopoulos	8	0.00	0	2
77	Sotiris Vionis	8	0.00	0	2
78	Manolis Kanakaris	8	0.00	0	2


Tournament Point System
Sign up for the tournament	3
Main match participation	3
Main match win	2
Consolation match participation	2
Consolation match win	1

See previous GammonLife articles on the Greek Backgammon Federation’s monthly events at these links: