We had 30 players tonight.
We welcomed to new players to our ranks, Payam Zekabat and Peymon Most.
John Symon was the drawn jackpot but was thwarted by Peter Voulgaris in the second round.
Gary informed the players that this would be John Symon's last regular night as he is moving out of Sydney. Gary took the opportunity to give this short potted history of the club.
Gary first joined the group when John Hedge was running a very successful weekly tournament at the Persian Rose.
John Hedge decided to split from the Persian Rose and take the tournament to the Woolloomooloo Hotel. A sizeable group followed him.
After disagreement regarding the running of the Federation, John Hedge removed himself from the group.
By then our numbers had dwindled to 5 regulars, Eva Bitel, Carol Wakelin, John Symon, Jim Bean and Gary Stavrou; the Magnificent 5 (just short of being the Magnificent 7)
The Hotel advised us that they were going to do renovations and we would be displaced.
The Magnificent 5 decided not to give up the game and instead look for a new venue. Fortunately, Carol found North Ryde RSL.
For some weeks the Magnificent 5 played among themselves with Gary emerging as coordinator. The name Sydney Backgammoners was chosen for the group and Gary established a web page.
In the early days, even as numbers grew, play was a combination of round robins with scores kept on pieces of paper.
Eventually grew this format became unwieldy.
Gary developed a new scoring system and a computer program that incorporated the scoring into a Swiss format. The system proved popular and our group grew over the years to our current players being regularly numbered in the 30's making Sydney Backgammoners one of the busiest clubs in the country.
| FINAL | TOT |
| R3 RANKING | PTS |
| David Reitzin | 313 |
| Mehdi Kiani | 312 |
| Morteza Shaabanifar | 307 |
| Peter Voulgaris | 306 |
| Mahnaz Rostami | 211 |
| Yalli Pleshet | 208 |
| Susan Wan | 206 |
| Sean Ghodsi | 205 |
| Jim Bean | 203 |
| Zhiman Rahmati | 202 |
| Angelo Voulgaris | 202 |
| Mike Baldwin | 202 |
| Payam Zekabat | 201 |
| Ben Anderson | 200 |
| Peymon Most | 196 |
| Kee Yio Wan | 103 |
| John Symon | 100 |
| Antonio Andolfo | 99 |
| Paula O'Connell | 97 |
| Mohammad Nejati | 97 |
| Robin Lanesman | 97 |
| Nick Macoun | 96 |
| Michael Raptis | 96 |
| Carol Wakelin | 95 |
| Gary Stavrou | 94 |
| Koosha Hedjripour | 93 |
| Jeremy Whitelaw | -7 |
| Ken Kershaw | -10 |
| Robbie Baudish | -11 |
| Sarah Bauling | -16 |
