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Sperti Trophy begins, Warm-Up continues 3rd Caribbean Open
by Michael Strato - 1 November 2006
LARS TRABOLT
Live backgammon action continued here last night at the 3rd Caribbean Open in St. Maarten with the draw and start of the Sperti Trophy event, which has a free entry for all players and a first prize of an elegant board contributed by Italian sponsor and board maker Alfredo Sperti.

We have created a 64-player ladder for the Sperti Trophy tournament and its progress so far can seen at this link.

Play also continued in the Warm-Up tournament and we’re down to the semi-finalists - the Warm-Up ladder is updated and can be seen here.

Several other players arrived yesterday and more are expected today for the start of the main flights. So far there are about 40 players but the official attendance total will only be known tonight after everyone has registered for the main flights.

Worldwide Backgammon Federation tournaments usually use the following categories or divisions for their main flights:

– Masters: for World Class players

– Champion: for Advanced or Expert players

– Intermediate: for Beginner or Intermediate players

However, any player may choose to play in any division according to how much they are willing to spend. In this event, several players that normally play in lower divisions have said they will play in the Masters to take a shot at winning the free seat to PartyGammon Million worth $10,000 and sponsored by PartyGammon.

One such player is Simonetta Barone of the UK, who normally plays Advanced. She just celebrated a birthday and her first anniversary of marriage to Roland Herrera, so she's in a real festive mood and says she wants to go for it all!

Simonetta wants the experience of playing pros - and quite a few are here - such as Francois Tardieu, Lars Trabolt, Werner Schmuck and Rainier Wiit, just to name a very few.

In additional to the added prize from PartyGammon, Casino Royale is guaranteeing that the payout to the winners will be a minimum of $40,000. So there is great equity in this event, if you win two or three matches in a main flight you’re just about in the money and if not there's also good equity in the Consolation or Last Chance events.

The way the minimum payout of $40,000 works is that all entry fees are totaled and if there is less than $40,000 then Casino Royale will toss in the difference as added prize money. The added prize money by Casino Royale at the 1st Caribbean Open was $18,500 and $17,800 at last year’s 2nd Caribbean Open.

Here are photos of some of the players in action last night:

Sperti Trophy event starts at Casino Royale.
 
Werner Schmuck of Austria.
 
WBF President Alberto da Pra and...
 
...his wife Maria Grigris of Italy.
 
Mirio Branzanti of St. Maarten.
 
Simonetta Barone of the UK and...
 
...husband Roland Herrera.
 
Manoocher Fateh of Iran and...
 
...his son Amir.
 
Lars Trabolt of Denmark.

More news from this event to come tomorrow!

 

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