In an entertaining final on Friday, December 19, Walter won the best-out-of-three-11-pointers confrontation with 2-1. The final two sets were played in the evening in front of a live audience and with commentary by Michel Lamote, assisted by Luc Palmans, who entered the moves in a computer. The players were sitting in a separate room while the audience could see the players and the computer analysis on two screens.
The afternoon session had ended with Walter winning the first set. When Walter seemed to be cruising for an easy win in the second set too, leading 9-5 at some point, Maurits fought back and took the set instead, 9-11. In the third and last set, Walter accumulated some spectacular wins to lead 10-1 Crawford. The Crawford game was the last one that Maurits make his, and by midnight, Walter was crowned winner of the Belgian Individual Championship Backgammon 2014. The champion of 2013, Geert Van der Stricht, was present as well, to hand over the title to his successor.
A big thanks to all players and to organizer Guy Van Middelem for a wonderful and exciting competition that started in January 2014. The technical set-up for the live-streaming during the final was realized by Patrick De Wilde and Geert Dooms, using equipment generously made available by the Provincie Vlaams-Brabant. A great thanks also to Maurice Vanderauwera of Café Sport in Leuven for making his meeting rooms and his audio and projection equipment freely available.
At the end of the evening, the draw was done for BIC 2015, setting off the third season of the championship. Let the dice roll!
