On Saturday, January 18th, the 9th Backgammon Proficiency Test was held at the Istanbul Open, Turkey. This test has been held here for eight consecutive years and is known as the “BGTV Proficiency Contest”.

This time, 24 players, the most so far, have taken the test. Thanks to the players of the Istanbul Open, the total number of participants has reached 150 in the eight years since the second test. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the players and staff who joined.

Prizes will be awarded to the top performers from the tournament organizer, and the top performer this year was Sabri Büyüksoy, who has taken the test six times so far. In addition to Sabri, Turks such as Berkant Bilgi and Zafer Taş topped the list.

All of their scores are as below:

Rank	Total score	Total errors	Name
1	32	2874	Sabri Büyüksoy
2	27	3174	Berkant Bilgi
3	25	2816	Zafer Taş
4	22	3534	Martin Barkwill
5	21	4329	Cumhur Bektüre
6	20	4532	Jeremy Sherr
6	20	4766	(Anonymous)
8	19	3880	Nihat Özkurt
9	18	3873	Aytug Yiğit
9	18	4743	Gülderen Gücavlı
9	18	5436	(Anonymous)
12	17	5351	Naciye Aydın
13	16	4709	Hirofumi Kawaguchi
13	16	4848	Ömer Aykut Sorgüven
13	16	5809	(Anonymous)
16	15	4576	Yücel Özkan
16	15	5047	Cesur Kaya
16	15	5236	Kerim Güneyman
16	15	6086	Mahmoud Taha
20	14	4773	(Anonymous)
21	13	4843	P. G.
21	13	5244	T. K.
21	13	5793	Fady Asmar
24	10	8270	(Anonymous)
Total 24	Ave. 17.8	Ave. 4773

You can see the list of overall results as of now here.
Thank you for joining us! 🙂

As usual, Arda Fındıkoğlu, who is the host of the Istanbul Open and the president of WBF Turkey, Cüneyt Argun Genç and his staff helped us prepare and run the test, which was really helpful. Thank you as always!

Akihito

(Updated January 29th, 2020)
Arda Fındıkoğlu, Cüneyt Argun Genç and Gökhan Güneş, our dear friends and staff of the Istanbul Open, took the same test as the Istanbul Open 2020. Their results are now published as official tally, since they closely monitored each other to prevent cheating.

We thank all those who cooperated in the “BGTV Proficiency Contest” !! 😉