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Champions of the
20th Century
Don Morgan Lafferty
Edwin Hunt
Willie Ryan
Asa Long
Walter Hellman
William Edwards
Sam Levy
Sam Gonotsky
Dr. Marion Tinsley
Derek Oldbury
Elbert Lowder
Leo Levitt
Richard Hallett
African
Checker Champions
1st International Match
In Barbados
Checkers in The
West Indies
The International
Checkers Stage
“Men Only”
Checkers in The News
Checkers Pool
Checkers Champions
Of The Netherlands
Jannes van der Wal
Ton ‘Teunis’ Sijbrands
Checkers Champion
Harm Wiersma
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First International Checker Match
Friday, June 4
Alan Millhone and Alex Moiseyev got up bright and early to make an appearance on a local TV program about the match. The local Barbados paper also featured a long article about the match, including two large photos (one in colour). The article mentioned a $16,000 budget shortfall (Barbados dollars) for the festival of Draughts. The checker match was also on the news this week, naturally with the focus on Suki.
At this point I have a record of 4-0 and 10 draws in the match. All my wins have come with the white pieces. However, by luck of the draw, I have yet to play world champ Ron King or the formidable John Walcott. Clayton Nash and Alex were the other two starters who had not played King. If this indeed becomes a nine round event instead of ten (which is what we will request tonight), then one of us will 'get off the hook' and not have to play King.
This was the last afternoon that we would be together as a team. Some of the American players spent much of the day going over more play in anticipation of whom we might play tonight. By now, we had a running gag of my pulling the old 'clock trick'again on them tonight. Clayton Nash agreed to collect all our recorded games for typing so that all U.S. members would have a copy of the games. Al Tucker sported his new Caribbean shirt. For lunch we had a flying fish sandwich and pound cake (one of the few instances where dessert was included with our meal.
I walked a few blocks from the hotel to check out 'Walker's World,' a fairly large, upscale store with lots of merchandise, mostly house wares, assorted furniture, gifts, etc.
Our final session began in the evening as usual. Ron King's young daughter was on hand (and I understand she is a good checker player too). Gerry Lopez, promoter of our upcoming Las Vegas National Tournament, made an announcement about our back-to-back Nationals next August. Erskine announced that tonight's two rounds will conclude the competition due to the inability to make up the tenth round due to time constraints.
For my first match, I played the Barbados captain, Jeffrey 'Socks' Clarke to two good draws. But the big match-up of the evening was Alex Moiseyev vs. Ron King in their first meeting since the three move world title match last fall. Alex won a game from Suki with the red side of the Second Double Corner opening. The other game was drawn. For the last round, it was down to Clayton Nash and myself for Suki's next opponent. As Erskine read off the pairings, he said, 'Richard Beckwith vs. John Walcott.' Nevertheless, my streak of good play for the week came to an end. I made a few week moves throughout the game and eventually lost a marathon game on the ending to John. After completing play, I did my usual routine of checking with the other finished American players to see how the scores were looking. It sounded like we preserved the lead, but Barbados was winning the final day of play. We would await the final official score.
Erskine spoke first with concluding comments. The final score (based on 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw) was 183-177 in favour of the U.S. We had won three more games overall. Erskine noted that Barbados' collapse on Wednesday was the pivotal moment, as the deficit was too big to overcome. However, the Barbados team did win two of the five days--Tuesday and today. Alex carried the U.S. team and had the top record at 9-0 and 9 draws, with Suki nearly as good at 9-1. Alex, Suki, and Jeffrey Clarke all gave final comments. Suki hinted at a lack of preparation, but said he wasn't disappointed with the result. We closed the evening with group photographs and said our farewells. Alex proudly held the locally made wooden trophy on the bus ride back to the hotel.
The individual player scores are shown alphabetically in the Appendix. I have some of my own final comments on the match. Gerry Lopez had a difficult tourney, and his final score is not reflective of skill he has demonstrated in the past. Being a morning person, evening games did not greet him well. I also commend rookie Steve Jones. He opened 0-3 against King and Walcott, but came back well to finish 4-4, tied for second on the team in wins. I was extremely pleased with a 4-1 record against a tough team, even with the sloppy finish in the last game. However, I admittedly never had to play the Ron King. For this reason, my trip to Barbados was fabulous, but incomplete. Lastly and more importantly, the country of Barbados has 1/1000th the population of the United States, yet our margin of victory was very small.
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CHECKERS CHEST
Two Player