WSOB UK Masters - Day 3

The game of backgammon has a new star, who announced himself on the world stage in sensational fashion on Saturday with play of incredible confidence, decisiveness and bravery. He made two plays which were so radical, courageous and unusual that he had the crowd gasping. His name is John Hurst, and he lives under four miles from the casino. The British flag is being waved twice over though. Kazuhiro Shino is in the semi-finals of a major championships again, and the two Brits are joined by German Christian Plenz, and Dane Alan Westerman, of whom more later.

But back to Hurst. First a little background about this humble, erudite, and deadly high-roller. His nickname in the Battersea Backgammon Club is: 'the smiling assassin', and he is renowned for being a maniac of a roller in a close race. We don't know how he does it, but Hursty seems to be able to call upon 'boxes' or 'snowflakes' almost at will, if he sees a race getting close. He, like many backgammon players, is a master of sports betting, and is very good at it. Here's a good tale: last summer he saw the odds flash up of England's chances to beat Pakistan deep into the match of the final Test Match. 50-1 against. Hurst pounced. England were doing badly, but not that badly. He stuck on £250. Little more than an hour later the Pakistanis were accused of ball-tampering, refused to play on in protest, and the match was duly awarded to England. 12 grand in the hand, thank you very much!

The only luck I have ever had against him was when a check I dished out to him last week was not accepted by his bank because I'd written the date in Roman numerals, and the cashier didn't speak Latin. Well…he ain't getting another one! Through dint of hundreds of thousands of games of practice and play – often for high stakes, Hurst is an incredibly natural, confident and smooth player.

Against Seong in the fourth round Hurst was 9-2 up, and in a complicated late position after having hit a shot in his opponent's bear-off, Hurst, with minimum fuss or delay, whipped the cube to 4. Who whips to 4 when there's still contact and volatility and a huge lead?! All the spectators thought it was a big error, including me for sure. Hurst was about 85% to win the game – easy take at that score. But you know what – the position was deceptive. Hurst was actually 89.9% to win, the cube was correct, and the correct response was PASS! Amazing, he had got it spot on.

Hurst's quarter-final against Maria Krancheva under the glare of the TV lights will live long in the memory of all who saw it. Krancheva had conceded an almost unbelievable tally of just five points in her last three matches, 13-0, 13-3, 13-2. Her highly-anticipated match against Peter Bennet was almost a walk-over as Peter had no answer to the electricity of her dice. Krancheva's only problem was that she hadn't been tested yet in the tournament pressure-wise, not asked any really searching questions under duress. That was all about to change. In 20 minutes against Hurst she had already lost 80% of the points she had lost in the previous 48 hours. 0-4 down. She grimly pulled it back to 2-4. Then came one of the all-time great games. Kranncheva took Hurst's cube when stuck on his 4 point behind a 4-prime, with Hurst not having any more gaps in his bear-in, and a whopping 28 pips up. Bit naughty to take that. She scuttles off the anchor with a 63. Hurst can't point on her. Bang – Krancheva nails her 66 dead centre – the race is on. But she's still not good enough to recube. She soon is though, as the sends over a delicious shipment to 4, in a position that has baffled many of the world's leading players. 54 pips-all it was, both with two borne off. Krancheva's distribution lovely and smooth: from the back 3, 3, 2, 3, 2. Hurst with ugly gaps on his 3 and 4 points: from the back 3, 6, gap, gap, 2, 2. Many think this means he must pass. Actually the cube from Krancheva is a magnificent one: correct by 0.003, and the take is trivial. Hurst responds instantly with 55. Wow! No longer six men on his 5 point anymore! Could we be seeing an 8 cube?!

Both players limp along somewhat, nip-and-tuck, far too close to put the match on the line surely, when suddenly BANG! Straight out of the clear blue sky, Hurst sends Krancheva a snowman. UNBELIEVABLE drama! It's not so much the position that had me gasping, or the fact that it was an 8-cube; it was the way Hurst did it. Absolutely no delay whatsoever: Krancheva hit her clock, and the cube came flying at her in under 5 seconds. There's thousands and thousands of pounds at stake here! I would have taken at least 90 seconds over the decision (and then not cubed), I suspect that's about average. I reckon less than 10 per cent of the players in the tournament would have had the balls to cube when Hurst did. Here's the position. Hurst from the back is 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 gap. Krancheva identical except that the checker on the 5 is stacked on the 6. Hurst leads 24-25 in the race.

And you know what?! Hurst's cube is CORRECT!! By 0.003 – the identical paper-thin margin of Krancheva's scintillating 4-cube. How did he do it? How did he know? The mathematics of the situation were far too onerous to be done over the checkers – especially in the four seconds Hurst gave himself. He did it by instinct. Like the way Agassi flicked his wrist at just the right moment to return a 140mph serve from Sampras for a cross-court winner. Or Botham hooking the ball off his eyebrows for six off Lillee in the famous Manchester Test of 1981. The commentator said that day: "Look at Botham's head, he's not even looking at the ball, but he still smashes it for six, almost like he's swatting a fly." Hurst was the same, he didn't look at the ball, he just made a natural, dynamic reflex action, to smash Krancheva for six (or for a home run, if you prefer). Hurst explained to me later:

"Although I didn't understand every facet of the problem, I did recognize it to be a difficult one – one that was hard to solve. So I decided not to solve it, and to let Maria solve it instead. I also felt that by cubing in such a dangerous, high pressure situation, I might just force Maria into an unlikely error."

Krancheva warily studied this poisonous 8-cube as though it were a snarling, spitting cobra which at any moment might lurch forward and sink its fangs into her fragrant neck. Her hand slowly reached out to take the cube, but her fingers failed to close around the lethal paperweight. Instead they bypassed the cube altogether, and sought out the tiny pause button on her clock, signalling a pass.

A mesmerizing sequence of backgammon then, stretching back to Krancheva's poor take of the original 2-cube. Her pass of the 8-cube is of course catastrophic. It is almost a TRIPLE blunder, and reduces her match winning chances from above 26% to around 21%. Exactly 5.75%. The players decided to take a break.

When they returned Krancheva gammoned Hurst in the next, but you've got to get radical with the cube at 2-8 down - she wasn't and never got the chance to ship. 4-8. In the next Krancheva made a dodgy take and quickly had a back man stranded behind Hurst's 6-prime. Then the game swung with a juicy 33 for Krancheva to counterprime Hurst. Then she crunches him, and puts him on the roof, and escapes. Wow! Hurst staring down the barrel of another gammon which would put us at 8-8. A dreaded 26 from the bar would be nice now, to enter, hit, leap the 5-prime and hit again. Out it pops, no problem, and the gammon goes to Hurst. What a sicko. 12-4. But, well, it was a ropey old take to begin with.

In Crawford, Hurst dominated before Krancheva threw a last gasp boxes to leap over his 5 prime with her two stranded men. However, John had just one man to scuttle past Maria's two lone sentries, 5 pips away. Out popped 32. Oops. Krancheva duly missed and went into a 3% race. But then, kaching – another 66 for Maria, and she goes about 70% in the race. 5 checkers left each but Krancheva's by far the more advanced. Only boxes would really work for Hurst now – well 55 perhaps. Nah – he preferred 66, just to make sure ya' know? Krancheva offered him her hand which Hurst – in a delightful piece of sportsmanship – rejected, pointing out that he could yet roll 21, and her a double. But he rolled 63.

There were two other real thrillers yesterday. Mike Heard felt he could be in line for a 13-9 win against Piergiorgio D'Ancona by dint of his previous results of 13-7 13-7 13-8. [13-9, 13-10, 13-11, 13-12 for his next four matches would do very nicely, thank you]. Heard duly went 12-9 up – no sign of a hangover for him after the previous night's binge. Jerry Garcia crooning away in his ear. He stopped for a ciggie, and out came the day's first bottle of beer. "Don't do it, Mike!" I implored. "Ah," he sighed, taking a sup of the amber necter, "I'm home." But he wasn't quite home in the match yet, as Piergiorgio won a very tense Crawford game, and then wriggled like an eel at 10-12 down. Heard very calm and clinical, D'Ancona visibly shaking at the tension. Finally Piergiorgio was on life support when he danced on Heard's 3-point board, missing a crucial ace-shot. Heard had a 1,2,3 cover to settle the account. Out pops 54. Piergiorgio nails a 16. Heard fans. Alarm bells suddenly going off big time. D'Ancona picks up Heard's final straggler, Heard keeps on dancing. D'Ancona closes his board. Heard's vital organs screaming in protest. And he gets gammoned for match. So, so unlucky – a gut-wrenching loss for this fine ambassador of the British game.

It is hard to begrudge Piergiorgio his win though, he beat some big names to get to the quarter-final, plays a solid game, and is charming and friendly. He hung on to Germany's Christian Plenz well in the quarters before going down fighting. Plenz has been playing the game for 10-15 years, and rocks at poker as well. He is described by teammates as very concentrated and collected over the board. He wears ear-plugs in his matches to drown out the noise, and tends to grind his opponent down. Like John Hurst he is a master at sports betting. His business partner is the best sports bettor in Germany, Christian particularly excels at tennis and football betting.

Britain's other survivor into the semis is Kazuhiro Shino, he of Monte Carlo semi-final fame. Shino ground down his two opponents yesterday, the double Swedish Open winner Atle Von der Fehr, and Henrik Veje (Bahamas Million quarter-finalist), both 13-10. Most of Shino's matches have been long and gruelling – it's how he likes to play. Not to blow his opponents away like a Hurst or a Krancheva, but more to anaesthetize them into submission.

The semi-final line-up is completed by Denmark's Alan Westerman. He plays in Copenhagen's second division, was the Danish champion last year, and qualified for the Japan Open by right, by winning a Danish satellite. He is noted for always being totally relaxed in tournament play – treating a match exactly the same whether it for 25 euros or 25,000 euros, which is what he's about to play for.

The biggest match in the Consolation tournament came in a last 16 showdown between BG giants Falafel and Francois Tardieu. It was a long and gruelling encounter (to 9 points). At double match point 8-8 Tardieu fell into real time difficulties. He rolled a 66 and had to do a count to consider whether to partially or completely break contact. The difference in race was just 2 pips. Whilst Francois was deciding upon this tricky little conundrum, he took his eye off the clock which ran out of juice. Ping it went, Tardieu was timed out, and Falafel took his place against Krancheva in the quarters.

It was that sort of day.

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