BNN Breaking News: Beijing, China 3-16-21
What started out as a back-and-forth brawl, ended in a runaway victory for team JohnnyU.
Urogdy opened Tourney #31 with a win Tuesday night at The Dice Center in Beijing. Mac won the next two, going up 2-1. But the first blow to Molly came in game #4 where Urogdy earned a 3-point Backgammon, landing a late set of Dub-3s to seal the deal.
JU was up 4-2, but Mac, undaunted, won the next two to tie the contest at 4. JU took a gummy time out before going up 5-4. On the next game Molly outran the Ghost with 2 sets of box cars to tie the match at 5-5. Molly hit another set of 6s to take another game, leading for the first time since being up 2-1.
Now up 6-5, little did she know that she wouldn’t score again in Beijing. In game number #10, Molly had a big pip lead, with neither player having well built boards. She cubed Urogdy which was readily accepted. After the match, JohnnyU explained his reasoning for accepting the cube to BNN’s Chip Checker.
“I was behind in pips, but the strength of my board was better than Macs. She had one dead checker, owned only her 1-2-3 points (4-5-6 were barren) and three stripped points in the outfield. I had an army to play with and knew I’d have opportunities for Blots. Fortunately, I read the board right and Mac didn’t humiliate me with big doubles to leap to safety.”
JohnnyU did hit and put Molly on the defense, flipping the cube to 4. Molly accepted the 4 which turned out to cost her dearly. JU marched beautifully in, closed the board and won the 8-point gammon. It was the biggest point win in the 31 tourneys played between these rivals in the modern era. With a 13-6 lead, Urogdy kept the momentum and won by gammon to finish the tourney 15-6. Back-to-back gammons for 10 points was how it would end.
Mac didn’t have a lot to say after the loss. “I didn’t see what he saw when I cubed him. His board looked a mess. I was surprised how enthusiastically he accepted. Then my pride cost me another 4 and ultimately the contest. Sometimes pride gets in the way. I wanted to be right!”
Hot Hanna caught up to Urogdy on the Concord Jet to San Francisco. During the flight, Hanna got an exclusive interview. “We’re happy to get out of China with that big win. Molly had her mo-jo rising in March and we needed that big 8-banger to stem the tide. A backgammon and two gammons is a good night, we’ll take it.”
After the jet-set players settled down at the SF BG Hall of Fame, action resumed. The stars opened tourney #32 on US soil. The pair played 6 games before calling it a night.. JohnnyU leading 4-3. The final game of the night went to Mac, a 2-point cube she offered.
BOX NEWS- Wire- Justin Rolls Reporting
Chinese Mafia Chases JU! Mac Implodes at Dice Center!
The US backgammon players are all happy to get out of Dodge, and by Dodge, I mean Beijing.
On Friday night JU suffered a 15-14 loss at the hands of MacIntosh, then got into a scuffle with locals over the weekend. It was the work of BNN intern Tymora Tric to help Johnny and his entourage narrowly escape disaster. By being in close contact with his people, sources say that Tric worked with social media star, Arial Blitz to create a cyper-diversion. Her ploy had fans clogging the streets where they were lured by a rumors of seeing famed Chinese BG & TV Legend.. Da Xia Li.
Da Xia Li- Photograph by Pip Shutter
The commotion allowed JU's team to escape unscathed. “Sometimes fake news pays off.” Arial told colleagues.
M&M was happy to skip town too. After a great start for Molly in China, beating JU and taking the rookie Jaggs to Crawford (7 point match postponed 6-4), team Mac imploded during the JU rematch.
“Like going 5 rounds toe-to-toe with Sonny Liston and then Bam Bam…out goes the lights!”, quipped JohnnyU as he boarded the private jet for the Bay Area.
Upon hearing about JU's boxing reference, Molly retorted, "Liston was destroyed by Ali", she looked out the jet's window and continued, "Right now I'm floating like a butterfly.... and I think you know what's coming next."
BOX News will be in San Francisco all week. How well will MacIntosh recover back in the States! Will Rookie Jaggs win 2- straight games to win her debut? Will JohnnyU run the Ghost? When the Battle of the Bay continues, BOX will be there, breaking it down.
"When you think news... think inside the BOX"
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