Kopenhagen 2016 : BGFed.be plans to send strong team.

In September of last year, Belgium more than stood its ground in the European Backgammon Team Championship in Budapest.  Chances to qualify for the Final Four were real till the last encounter (versus Italy), but evaporated as Germany gained a freaky 4-0 victory over Denmark.  Below is a picture of the team that valiantly represented Belgium :

(from top left) Maurits, Walter, Alain, Guy and Luc.
(from bottom left) Zsolt, Geert and Michel.

This year, the EBTC will be hosted by Denmark.  It will take place in Kopenhagen.  At the most recent board meeting of BGFed.be, it was unanimously decided that Belgium will attend this prestigious event.  It was also agreed upon that, like last year, efforts should be made to delegate the strongest team possible.  The responsibility of implementing this policy was accorded to M.

1. Selection criteria.

Selection of players will be based predominantly on empirical data, i.e. conglomerate PR’s as reflected in both the BMSB GT and the BPR RT.

Since (a) skill in backgammon dominates as the match length increases and (b) the BMSB GT reflects PR’s obtained in longer matches, a higher weight will be given to BMSB gradings than to BPR gradings.

In the case that Candidate Players have no official BMSB or BPR grading, selection may be considered based on data available in the BMS Archive.

Should the difference in PR between two players be too close to call, factors like international experience with longer matches will be taken into account.

2. Selection procedure.

Candidacies must be submitted by e-mail (kynos8000@gmail.com) at the latest on 30 June 2016.

Candidate Players should :

a) be BGFed.be member and reside in Belgium,

b) demonstrably play at Advanced level or better,

c) have an official BMSB or BPR grading or be BIC-player.

A first list of Candidate Players will be posted on the BGFed.be website on 15 June 2016.

On 23 and 24 July 2016, a BMS tournament will be played to give Candidate Players an ultimate opportunity to improve their BMSB grading.  This tournament will be played in Brugge and will consist of six 13-point matches.

The final selection will be made once the performances in this event have been incorporated in the BMSB GT.

M