Saturday, May 18, 2013

Rusty

See, I'm so unused to regular blogging, I forgot to mention a whole lot of things I was meaning to. So here's a bonus second post tonight!

I think I've given myself repetitive strain injury, flipping discs. My right thumb is sort of sore.

Also, just worked it out - if I hadn't beaten Imre in our game at Cambridge, he would have won the BGP, despite only coming to two of the three regionals, so that is actually quite cool and makes me feel that the great honour is much more deserved!

Tomorrow, I need to finish printing things out for the Friendly Memory Championship next Sunday! Yes, I've been ultra-organised this year, and have split Printing Things Out Weekend into two semi-weekends, to fit around my schedule! If only my organisation skills extended to having the faintest idea who's coming to the competition and who's staying at my flat, I'd be confident that everything will go just swimmingly...

Oad-thello

See, it was realising my last proper post was about one othello tournament and that I was going to another today, that made me resolve to get back to blogging more regularly. Oadby, traditional home of the first regional of the year, every March, proudly hosted the last regional in 2013's abridged schedule in the middle of May!

It was basically the same lineup of players as in Cambridge - the shortage of people who want to play in these tournaments is a factor in there only being three regionals this year, but we are firmly planning to be back to five or six for 2014. The difference between Cambridge and Oadby was Steve Rowe instead of David, and instead of Adelaide joining us for lunch, there was Jeremy Das joining us for the afternoon. But we stuck with the same format - a round-robin of 20-minute games and then a double round-robin of 5-minuters.

The results were roughly the same, too, except that I didn't beat Imre, meaning that he won the tournament outright, with Iain second. I was third, which means that I'm officially the winner of the British Grand Prix! This is the thing where you get points based on how well you do in each regional, and the overall winner is the BGP champion. The traditional way to win it is to be the one who attends all the regionals in the year, and I successfully carried out this clever strategy this time round (we only had three, and they happened to all be within cheapish travelling distance) to win my first ever BGP title! I'm so proud. That means that I get the George Greaves Memorial Trophy! It cost a whole twenty pounds, so it's a great honour to have on your metaphorical mantlepiece!

I know how much it cost because I'm the treasurer of the British Othello Federation. I never know how much money has been spent on trophies at memory competitions, and I'm always a bit curious. They range from little glass things of the type that can be bought for a fiver on the market, to really big heavy metal things that look like they genuinely cost a packet.

Anyway, my perfect-attendance prize technically qualifies me for the World Othello Championship in Stockholm in October. I'd really like to go, but I can't really foresee having enough money to do that. Barring a lottery win or a surprisingly lucrative memory-themed job, anyway. It's at times like this that I always regret quitting my job and living a life of idle vacuity for months on end, but I'm sure I'll do it again the next time I've built up enough of a stash of money to afford it...

Friday, May 17, 2013

Resolution

You know what? I'm going to start blogging on a daily basis again. And every post will be crackling with wit and effervescent with interesting stuff. Starting tomorrow!