Backgammon in Greece - Tournament #3

Girl Power Prevails at Greek BG Federation's Third Monthly Event

by Director Manos Mastorakis - 9 January 2008

FILOMILA KARANTZALI

The third monthly tournament of the Greek Backgammon Federation took place in Athens on Saturday, January 5, 2008 and was won by Filomila Karantzali of Thessaloniki, the only one woman that participated!

“I'm so happy about winning the Main, yesssssssssss!!! " Filomila exclaimed when it was all over, "It was really exciting, I loved it! Especially because I won against five males, three of them very strong players - they couldn't believe it, lol. I played 10 hours in a row, and was really exhausted! We played 9-point matches in the early rounds, the semi-finals were 11-point matches with a final of 13 points - all in one day!"

Filomila played in the UK Masters of the World Series of Backgammon tournament held November 15-18, 2007 at Casino at the Empire in London, England and says she will be going to the next WSOB event of Season 2, which will be the 20th Nordic Open in Denmark from March 20-24, 2008.

Filomila also wrote this note to GammonLife Editor Michael Strato and BackgammoNews Editor Carol Joy Cole: "It felt so nice beating all the Greek guys :-). I'm already studying (quite hard) for Denmark and training with GNUbg! I hope you'll manage to attend Nordic Open."

Filomila Karantzali - now heads to Denmark to face more exciting

challenges at the Nordic Open, which this year is part of

Season 2 of the World Series of Backgammon (WSOB).

Meanwhile, we had another great turnout with 34 people participating - this almost tied our record of 35 players at the first event in November of 2007 - meanwhile, 20 attended the second event in December.

New faces this time around were Andreas Kourouklis, who has played internationally (has cashed in Las Vegas) and George Vadiakas, who amongst other international cashes, was a semi-finalist at Monte Carlo World Championships on two occasions (in 2000 and 2001).

Five other new players have found us through contacting Michael Strato at GammonLife and two of these did come to this January tournament - one of them was John Pasialis, the Consolation Finalist who won €310.

George Kleitsas, the current leader on the Greek National Ranking List, made it to the semi-finals where he was knocked out by Charis Christidis. However, Kleitsas picked up another 21 points at this event, to increase his lead and maintain the #1 spot. The match between Kleitsas and Christidis was recorded and analyzed by Snowie 4 Professional software - click on the following link to see this semi-final match.

Here the results of the January 2008 tournament:

Main Winner: Filomila Karantzali

Main Finalist: Charis Christidis

Main Semi-Finalists: George Kleitsas and George Sotiriadis

Consolation Winner: Nick Sapountzakis

Consolation Finalist: John Pasialis

Here is the updated ranking list after three events:

HELLENIC NATIONAL RANKING LIST

Rank	Player	Points	%	Wins	Matches

1	Kleitsas George	70	80.00	12	15
2	Groutsos Christos	56	69.23	9	13
3	Manolios Michalis	47	53.85	7	13
4	Sakalis Takis	45	70.00	7	10
5	Christidis Charis	44	66.67	6	9
6	Kostopoulos Costas	43	60.00	6	10
7	Chiotinis Costas	42	50.00	6	12
8	Theologitis Giannis	42	40.00	4	10
9	Sapountzakis Nikos	41	75.00	9	12
10	Sotiriadis Giorgos	40	66.67	6	9
11	Karantzali Filomila	39	75.00	6	8
12	Mitrelis Costas	39	62.50	5	8
13	Mastorakis Manos	35	33.33	3	9
14	Mastroperros Nikos	34	57.14	4	7
15	Sarakakis Aris	34	25.00	2	8
16	Avanidis Philippos	29	50.00	3	6
17	Kousis Stelios	29	42.86	3	7
18	Panagakis Nikonas	27	42.86	3	7
19	Stephanopoulos Giorgos	26	85.71	6	7
20	Aggelopoulos Petros	26	66.67	4	6
21	Thanopoulos Pavlos	26	33.33	2	6
22	Kolonias Alexandros	26	33.33	2	6
23	Pasialis Giannis	25	71.43	5	7
24	Makris Thanasis	25	42.86	3	7
25	Chatzelis Takis	24	33.33	2	6
26	Politis Alexandros	22	66.67	4	6
27	Aggelopoulos Takis	22	33.33	2	6
28	Meimaris Thodoros	21	60.00	3	5
29	Argitakos A.	21	20.00	1	5
30	Katogiannakis Stephanos	21	20.00	1	5
31	Ladis Charis	18	50.00	2	4
32	Michael Strato	16	50.00	2	4
33	Akrivos Simos	16	50.00	2	4
34	Zisis Vassilis	16	50.00	2	4
35	Alexandrakis Vagelis	16	50.00	2	4
36	Deliakis Alekos	16	50.00	2	4
37	Vallianos Giannis	16	0.00	0	4
38	Giannakopoulos Constantinos	14	50.00	2	4
39	Dikaros Nikos	13	33.33	1	3
40	Sarris Constantinos	13	33.33	1	3
41	Kasidopoulos	13	33.33	1	3
42	Kourouklis Andreas	13	33.33	1	3
43	Efthimiadis Costas	11	50.00	1	2
44	Vamvakaris Antonis	11	33.33	1	3
45	Kraniotis Giorgos	11	33.33	1	3
46	Matsoukakos	11	33.33	1	3
47	Selelis Petros	11	33.33	1	3
48	Pournaras Andreas	11	33.33	1	3
49	Petropoulos Costas	11	33.33	1	3
50	Tsiris Giorgos	11	33.33	1	3
51	Christofidis Michalis	9	33.33	1	3
52	Iakovidis Iakovos	8	0.00	0	2
53	Tarapatsopoulos Nikos	8	0.00	0	2
54	Dimitropoulos Christos	8	0.00	0	2
55	Vionis Sotiris	8	0.00	0	2
56	Bonanos Stephanos	8	0.00	0	2
57	Vadiakas Giorgos	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

Our next tournament will be held on Saturday, February 9, 2008. For details on the venue and how to participate, contact me, Manos Mastorakis, by email at manostop@hotmail.com

Things are getting better for backgammon in Greece since 57 different players have participated in the three different tournaments so far. Special thanks to GammonLife Editor Michael Strato who came to Athens last October and helped to start these monthly events and the creation of the Greek Backgammon Federation - we all appreciate that.

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

November 2007

December 2007

GO TO NEWS HOME