In Aberdeen on Sunday, Mike Ireland was crowned winner of the Scottish Open – the first champion for 12 years.
Fifty two players took part in the tournament at the Holiday Inn in Aberdeen, a tournament that was last held more than a decade ago. Participants travelled from across the British Isles to take part.
Brenda Rafferty, one of the members of the organising committee, said: “We hope everyone had a great weekend of backgammon.
“We’re very grateful to all the people who came to the event and a special thank you to all of my colleagues – in particular treasurer Ian Cukrowski and TD Graeme McPhee – who did such a lot of work in the year before the event.”
The Scottish Open has been resurrected after matches between Glasgow and Aberdeen clubs. Brenda said: “The matches went so well, we decided that we needed to do something bigger, especially with our club growing so much. There was a lot of support for having an Open here.
“We had the Granite City Open last year and the thought the venue at Westhill was perfect for the national Open. It was a good dry run for the weekend’s tournament to learn the ropes. We’ve still got a lot to learn but we’re really pleased with how it went.”
An added bonus for the participants in the Open was a talk by Tim Cross on leaving an advanced anchor.
Aberdeen were helped by members of other clubs in Scotland, including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Ayr, with setting up the tournament website, the pop-up banners and brothers Evan and Gareth Williams providing the whisky as part of the prizes.
| Champion | Mike Ireland |
| Finalist | Paata Pkhutkaradze |
| Semi-Finalists | Dean Lawson & Neil Webb |
| Consolation Winner | Chris Palmer |
| Consolation Finalist | Keith Gill |
| Last Chance Winner | Karen Slawek |
| Last Chance Finalist | Mike Snowdon |
| Warm Up Winner | Liam Quinn |
| Warm Up Finalist | Rory Collier |
| Doubles Winners | Karen Slawek & Brian Lawrence |
| Doubles Finalists | Norman Hessler & Warner Solomon |