XG Backgammon

It's my Birthday...woo Hoo.

Mrs Lansongammon didn't know what to get me so I helpfully steered her towards a download from those nice people at Extremegammon.

I have been wanting to play around with XG for a while now and after downloading the demo 14 day version I was hooked.
Luckily one of the benefits of being a premium member of the UKBGF is that I get a discount off of the full price.
So with my newly acquired licence code I fired up XG again. Entered the code and within a matter of seconds I was up and running.

To be honest even now, a week later I am still scratching my head over many of the features.
You see I am one of these people who

A: Hates reading help files.
B: If I do read a help file I have to print it to read.

Printing is out of the question as I would need a small loan to pay for the many many pages. So I will have to knuckle down and read online.


Don't get me wrong, I am loving the XG experience so far it's just that I want to get the maximum benefit from the programme and to do this I need to study the manual.

So get on with it I hear you cry...

I am also looking forward to being able to study other peoples recorded match play as well entering my own positions to analyse.. I will post further experiences of XG here, good or bad as they happen.

Club meetings.
You will be pleased to know that normal service has been resumed after our enforced May break. See the meetings page for upcoming dates.

Must Try Harder.

Hello all, It's well into the  year and I can safely say that I have been very slap dash with my blogg posts.
To be honest I just haven't had the enthusiasm to write anything.

We have started meeting at Number 8 cafe in Launceston but even that has not been going well, mainly due to me not doing much advertising.

Must Try Harder.

So as from May I am planning on reorganising and doing yet another Backgammon push here in Launceston.
Posters are being designed and I am in the process of locating an evening venue in Launceston for those who can't make in in the day at Number 8. 

Our currant afternoon meeting place. Upstairs at Number 8.

If you fancy a game then please come along.. We don't bite...Honest.

There are no subs or fees to pay. All we ask is that you buy something from the cafe as they have been very kind in letting us play here for nothing. 

Watch this space for a possible evening venue in Launceston coming soon.

 Next meeting tomorrow Thursday 27th April at 14:30

No meeting Thursday

Very sorry for the last Min post but this Thursdays meeting (30th March) is going to have to be cancelled due to a family emergency.
Hopefully we will be back to normal for the next meet in April.

Please watch this space for details before you travel.. 

Sorry for any inconvenience. 

New venue.

Hello.... After a short absence we are now back up and running at a new location.
We are now meeting upstairs every other Thursday at No8 cafe in Launceston town center at 14:30.

No 8 serves hot and cold drinks as well  as some very yummy food. Although if you are planning on eating when playing, bear in mind that the kitchen closes at 14:30. So best be early.

 

Members are a little thin on the ground at present, but we are hoping with your help this will soon be rectified.

If you can play or just fancy learning, come along, we wont bite.....Honest..
No need to bring a board but if you have one it can't hurt.




We are members of the UKBGF who very kindly helped us get started two years ago and who offer a very good Backgammon related website to keep you informed of all things Backgammonie. (is that a real word? no idea)

My long term goal is to have enough commited members to be able to run a league and maybe in the future send a team to the clubs championships.
But for now I would be more than happy to see new faces.

The next meeting will be on Thursday 30th March 14:30
Thats the plan for now but please please check back here just in case it's canceled for some reason.

On No....A page is missing

As you may or may not have noticed our meetings page is missing.

Don't panic normal service will be resumed soon.

However

we are also planning a Thursday afternoon meeting in Launceston town center. We have a venue in mind but are yet to finalise details. (watch this space)

The idea being that Thursday afternoon in a cafe will potentially interest a completely different set of people who may not want to go out in the evening to a pub.

So while we are sorting things out it's meetings as usual at the Pint & Post.

No meeting

Hi, very quick last minute post..
There is no meeting this Tuesday 8th due to work commitments etc..

Back to normal next week....

New club??

It's been a funny old couple of weeks.

We have had a new player come along for the last three weeks. Great I hear you cry, fresh members..

Well that didn't quite work out.

This week he came along to announce that he wouldn't be coming very often from now on as he had been chatting with some friends and they were planning on starting a club local to them.

So bad news that he won't be a regular. But at the same time I can completely understand this as his trip to us every Tuesday was roughly a 50 mile round trip.

On the plus side, good news that there is going to be another club in the south west  as well as somewhere else for me to find a game.

I'm hoping that when they are up and running a

Lansongammon. v. ??

match can be arranged.



I think he is planning on getting a mention on the UKBGF site club list as well as BIBA so keep an eye on their site for a nice new club in the area.

Xmas Menu

For anyone local to Launceston this is the Pint & Post Christmas menu.

Go on, treat yourself or someone else...You know you want to...

Beginners Backgammon 13 - 15

Last post in the Complete Beginners Backgammon series By ENSOR42

Below are videos 13 - 15


Backgammon fro Complete Beginners Part 13 (The Doubling Cube)

Backgammon fro Complete Beginners Part 14 (The Doubling window)

Backgammon fro Complete Beginners Part 15 (The Crawford Rule)

Beginners Backgammon 9 - 12

Below are videos 9 -12 of the Beginners Backgammon Series..

ENJOY...

Below are Parts 9 - 12

Backgammon for complete Beginners Part 9  (Bear of Basics)

Backgammon for complete Beginners Part 10  (Playing through a bear off)

 Backgammon for complete Beginners Part 11  (Gammons and Backgammons)

Backgammon for complete Beginners Part 12  (The Pip Count)

Beginners Backgammon 5 - 8

The second post where I am adding links to a series of introduction Youtube videos.

ENJOY..

Below are Parts 5 - 8




Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 5 ( Rolling Doubles)

Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 6 ( Blocking and Primes)

 Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 7 (Hitting and Re-Entering)

 Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 8 (Dancing)

Our Venue... The Pint & Post.

This is where we meet on a Tuesday evening.

The Pint & Post.. Small and cozy.



Wood burner for those long winter evenings


A warm welcome always received from Tim & Lorraine.






















              Bar serving local ales and some not so local...                                                    

 

Cozy snug area..

 

Good pub grub available.





We start playing at about 19:30 so if there are any munchkins that you want to bring along during the hols for a game they are more than welcome.




 
















 
We usually play here. Room for everyone.
 

 

 Ready for action..

 

Beginners Backgammon 1 - 4

Youtube is a great place to learn Backgammon.. Here I have added the first Four in a Beginners series posted several years ago now. But still a great series in my opinion..

I will add all of the videos here over the next week or so. I know you can go to Youtube to find them but if they are here, you don't have to go searching..

Below are videos 1 -- 4 

Big thankyou to Ensor42 for producing these videos.



Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 1. (Introduction)

Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 1. (The Rest Of The Kit)

Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 3. (Basic Moves)

Backgammon For Complete Beginners Part 4. (The Opening Moves)

Hitler reacts to the UKBGF publishing their financial position

Found this on Youtube the other day..Just had to post it here..

Still chuckling as I post it....

Keep up the good work UKBGF

Tomorrow evening it's Backgammon as usual at the Pint & Post. Why not come along for a game.

Food available until 21:00
Good selection of local Ales..

Why not come early to eat, then finish the evening off with some Backgammon.

The perfect evening..

Links

The Links page is now up and running. Only a few links at present as I don't want to just load the page with random websites for the sake of it.

Next meeting will be on Tuesday 18th Oct at the usual location "The Pint & Post" St Giles.

Update

Hello all... Just a quick update with all things Lansongammon... It's been a little up and down over the last couple of months.
We only have a few members so if one or two can't make it for some reason. Work / Holidays etc then we usually cancel the meeting. This makes it hard for new members to join as well as losing valuable playing time. :-)
Now that winter is closing in fast I'm hoping that things will get on track.

New members are ALWAYS welcome.. We run a very laid back meeting, playing a few games, drinking and chatting as we go.
As soon as we get enough members I would like to set up a league such as the one run by the London Backgammon club.
The ultimate would be to get a team together to play in the "UK clubs Championship" next year. I'm not holding my breath though...But it would be nice.

Hope to see you down the Pint & Post very soon...

Links Page

So, every website seems to have them.

Here on our newest page I am going to list the main sites that I like, of Backgammon interest around the world.
It may take a little while to complete so after the MAIN sites of interest I am going to make the page live and work on it as and when I find sites of interest.
I am planning to take it out of draft by Monday the 25th July.

 

You are probably saying "why bother when there are so many lists already"
Well, apart from doing it for my own amusement it will hopefully help any new members that we may get here at Lansongammon central to find information quickly rather than relying on a Google search.

Lansongammon Central......The Pint & Post. St Giles On The Heath, Launceston, Cornwall


Meetings every Tuesday...Check the meetings page above before travelling.

Members Area

We now have a Members Area. The page link is above. Just use your google account to log in.
I will be adding elligible google accounts very soon.

The purpose of this "members area" is to provide somewhere to display club photos that we may not want generally thrown out there, as well as anything club related that may not be that interesting or appropriate to put on the main Blogg.

We don't have loads of members at the moment but I'm hoping in the future that this small corner of the Blogg will be well used.

The NSPCC Board Game Day Results

In this post I was going to write a long in depth analysis about our NSPCC #BigBoardGameDay event way back in June.

Then I thought "Why bother" 

After spending several weeks on advertising, telephone calls, driving around Launceston scrounging some really great raffle prizes. And generally everything involved in organising an event of this type, the big day arrived. 

All was set, these photos taken 5 mins before opening the doors. What you can't see very clearly is the tea urn, and table of homemade cakes etc on the right of the picture.

                                                Some great prizes on offer.

We were open from 10am to 5pm and apart from friends and family who made the effort to come, our total was 4 people who popped in out of curiosity on their way back from getting their pension.

So, with some fierce last minute raffle ticket buying by certain people (Did I mention the great prizes) our grand total for the event including some very generous online donations was £149.40  for the NSPCC.
Although this is still a nice amount for the NSPCC I know that if we were supported by more people it could have been so much better.

New Titles Arriving

Several new titles arrived for the Lansongammon Library.

I have been busy buying Backgammon books for the Lansongammon library..
Ebay seems the place to be to get value for money. It always amazes me what sort of discounts you can get even after paying postage.






I have chosen a couple of very basic books as well as intermediate titles.... 


All we need now is a few more members to help the club along. If you have any sort of interest in playing this great game why not come along to our next meeting.. Check the MEETING page above for details and before traveling as I always try to update the page if for some reason its cancelled..
No meetings for the next few weeks due to work commitments..

Most importantly there's good pub grub and some great local ale available...