In the second iteration of the Genud Cup, a contest pitting the top women backgammon players of the U.S. against the top players from the UK, the US emerged victorious by a score of 150 to 106. The contest, organized by Joseph Russell of the US and Julia Hayward of the UK, and directed by Julia Hayward, featured the U.S. Women's National Team against 8 of the top women players from the UK. It took place on December 3rd and 4th and was played online on Heroes.BackgammonStudio.com.
It was a round-robin event with a total of 8 rounds and 64 matches played. Sixteen of the matches were streamed and commented upon. The scoring was three points for a win and one point for a XG Performance Rating (PR) win. The US won the most matches by a score of 38-26 and they also won the PR battle 36-28.
The US also won the inaugural Genud Cup in 2020, but it was a much closer contest that was decided in the last round of play. The event is named in honor of Lee Genud, the first woman backgammon world champion in Monte Carlo in 1981.
Karen Davis was the captain of the US Women's National Team and Julia Hayward captained the UK team.
The US participants and points scored: Karen Davis (c) 25 Irina Litzenberger 23 Mary Morse 21
Marcy Kossar 19 Antoinette Williams 17 Kate Elmore 16 Kara Schultz 14
Teri Harmon 14 April Mesich 1 The UK participants and points scored: Cecilia Rogers 21 Julia Hayward (c) 15 Safi Tracy 15 Anna Parker 14 Rachel Rhodes 12 Anna Price 10 CJ Uttley 10 Rebecca Bell 9 Karen Davis and Irina Litzenberger, led the US with 6-2 records and received the Most Valuable Player awards for the US. Cecilia Rogers led the UK with a 5-3 record and received the Most Valuable Player award for the UK Kara Schultz and Kate Elmore led the US team in PR with 6.29 and 6.41, respectively, while Cecelia Rogers and Julia Hayward led the UK team in PR with 5.46 and 6.79, respectively. Kara and Cecelia received the Best Performance Rating awards.
The Best New Team Player award in the US went to Mary Morse and in the UK to Safi Tracy.
The match pairings for each round and the tally of points earned per team may be found on the Scoreboard at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H81FRNTyLIS5dN7ProJ09FDqP0j4-i_s90Fos3PLnAk/edit?fbclid=IwAR2NpKPf9R-5IZQwsewNYnFcaG6LbuSPKwR9CyRJj-kcLvhF20t-izZZc0o#gid=0
Streaming and commentary were arranged by Andrew Selby and David Potter from the UK. Many thanks to the commentators who included Simon Barget, Jon Barnes, Chris Bray, Tim Cross, Geoff Hall, Dan Rovina from the UK and Bill Riles, Rory Pascar, Steve Sax from the US. Matches were streamed on facebook.com/ukbgf
Many thanks to Julia Hayward for directing a superb event.
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