The Online Charity Challenge is an annual event for online players, open to everyone – not just UKBGF members! Enjoy playing top class opponents and raising funds for a truly deserving cause. The winner will not only get a unique trophy, they will have the right to nominate a UK charity for the 2022 event. Tournament director and sponsor: Julia Hayward

Current Standings

The main tournament draw will be available here once we get started.

Past winners

This is our sixth Charity Challenge, and we’re delighted that we’ve got bigger each time!

• 2020: Julia Hayward
• 2019: Gaz Owen
• 2018: Steve Waller
• 2017: Simon Morecroft
• 2016: Gaz Owen

Registration

Registration is open to anyone. Games will be played in the dedicated room on Backgammon Studio Heroes, so you are advised to ensure you have an account and can run the software before registering. Draws will be sent out by email including contact details for other players, and the draw will also be available to view – a link will be published here once we get started. To register, you will need to contact Julia by email, who will send you the details of how to pay.

Register now and support Macmillan Cancer Support

Entry: A £10 donation gets you five lives (see below). There will be trophies for at least the top 3 finishers.

Side pool: We have an optional £10 side pool, paying 70{abc34b451427cab195a45b5089e4b340f2f9f65c5c385218058b2ce44334f033}/30{abc34b451427cab195a45b5089e4b340f2f9f65c5c385218058b2ce44334f033} to the two who progress furthest in the tournament.

Please make sure you include your name and Heroes nickname with your donation so that we know who you are!

Make even more for charity!

If we get a hundred players in the tournament then our sponsor will add a hundred pounds into the charity pot! Tell your friends and get them to sign up too!

Format and Schedule

This year, following the success of the multiple-elimination UKBGF Online Championship, we’ll be adopting a similar format. Each round involves an 11 point match. The first five rounds will start with random draws on December 28th 2021 (after the Worcester Christmas Turkey tournament) and you’ll have five weeks to play those matches. Lose a match, lose a life! After that, we pair people up with opponents who have similar numbers of lives left; everyone still with lives intact gets another opponent every two weeks until we are left with just the one champion.

Charities

The 2021 Charity Challenge will benefit Macmillan Cancer Support (nominated by myself as 2020 winner)

Nothing can really prepare you for the first time you hear the C-word, yet a startlingly large proportion of us will be in that position at some point in our lives. We are fortunate to live in an age where there are likely to be paths to recovery, but navigating those paths will impact every aspect of our lives – our physical and emotional health, family, friends, jobs, interests. Having someone expert available at any time to talk through the pros and cons of treatment options, sources of practical help, or just be a supportive listening ear when the journey gets tough, has been absolutely invaluable to us.

Past years:

• In 2020, we supported Helping Homeless Believe, Bristol
• In 2019 and 2018 we supported the Alzheimers’ Society
• In 2017 we supported Bristol MIND
• In 2016 we supported Cancer Research and Ashanti Development.

Get your favourite cause up here! Do you have a charity that means something special to you and you’d like to help? The winner of the 2021 Challenge will earn the right to nominate a charity for 2022, and the tournament sponsor may nominate another. Charities must be registered with the Charities Commission in the UK and be non-party-political/non-religious to be eligible for nomination.

Additional rules

Games will be played on Backgammon Studio Heroes, except by mutual agreement, with pip counts ON. You are expected to be reasonably understanding should disconnections occur mid-game. Tournament matches will be ratings-optional – that is, you are free to play rated (and we expect most will) but a player who wishes to play unrated takes precedence. You can find our generic Online Tournament Rules here.

Deadlines: will be strictly enforced unless you contact julia@ukbgf.com in good time to make an arrangement to defer a game. If I haven’t heard from either player by the cutoff time, then you both lose a life.

Online matches will count towards the UKBGF Online Rankings.  Finalists will be required to inform the Tournament Director of the agreed date, time and location of the final game in good time so that prospective spectators can be informed. The final game must allow spectators to watch. We will be happy to announce other games in the later stages should players wish to have spectators present. Forfeits will only be awarded as a last resort, at the TD’s sole discretion and generally only if evidence of one of the following can be provided:

• lack of response to emails,
• failure to appear on one occasion without good reason, or two separate occasions for any reason,
• deliberate in-game disconnection or other inappropriate behaviour

Gift Aid – sadly we are not able to reclaim Gift Aid on any donations, as under UK tax regulations they are strictly defined as “payment for services”.