Michael Hirst captures fifth annual Strawberry Hill High Stakes Backgammon tournament
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- Category: Past events
- Published on Wednesday, 19 January 2011 16:15
- Written by Super User
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St. Andrew, Jamaica was the site of the fifth annual Strawberry Hill High Stakes Backgammon tournament, and for Michael Hirst, he used his 30 years of experience in the game to take down his opponent for the championship.
Hirst beat Andrew Issa, one of the last players to qualify for the main draw, 15-12 in the final match to take home the lucrative $455,000 first place prize.
For his efforts, Hirst also won airline tickets for two to London from Virgin Atlantic, weekend for two at Island Outpost properties, six months membership at Gymkhana, as well as a Sony Ericsson W810 telephone from Digicel.
All in all, it was a pretty good couple of days for Hirst, who also had to get by Alastair Macbeath, former two-time winner of the event, just to get the chance to face Issa.
Issa, who just recently starting playing backgammon, blamed a couple of bad moves on his part for the loss.
At one point, Issa was up 12-8 in the match, but then took a cube that he later regretted. "I got a little deflated, little tired. I let up on the game and my concentration went," Issa said.
Issa can't be too disappointed—he walked away with the runner-up prize of $260,000.
