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2006 Dallas Open Commentary: After the Tournament

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, After the Tournament.

Awards Ceremony

Since the auxillary prize sheets were removed from the table outside and configured during round 13, the prize ceremony itself was very quickly thrown together. Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1855) both announced the winners and presented them with the prizes (mostly cash in envelopes).

An amazing amount of people stayed for the ceremony and there wasn't one person who received a prize that wasn't there to pick it up in person: an organizer's dream.

Avoiding terms like "divisions" and "class," we opted to break the players into "groups" and to award a few prizes to people with player numbers within each group. The groups were:

A: players seeded 1-26

B: players seeded 27-46

C: players seeded 47-66

D: players seeded 67-86

E: players seeded 87-99

F: players seeded 100-109

First called up were the High Turn Prizes, which amounted to $25 to the highest-scoring play in each group.

These players stayed in front and posed a group photo before we moved onto the next group of prizewinners.

Next featured were the Theme Word Prizes, and each player received a Pocket SamTimer.

Then came the group prizes from F to A:

There were 3 group A winners. In 1980-something at an earlier Boston Area Touranment, Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1855) received for his 3rd place win, the Uncle Wiggily board game. And for all these years he's kept that game still shrink-wrapped and in pristine condition. So, he awarded it to the third place finisher, Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON; 1869), who with a record of 11-3 +955, was overjoyed with the prize. She said her young sons would enjoy playing the game with her and finally sharing in a prize she won at a tournanment.

Second place in A, with a record of 12-2 +631, winning $500, was Darrell Day (Richardson, TX; 1881). Without a doubt, the best part of the awarding of that prize was the bear hug Chris and Darrell shared after Darrell received his envelope. It was long, touching, and undoubtedly heartfelt. It was the kind of hug that made us feel warm all over, we could feel the love!

And, the undefeated champion of the 2006 Dallas Open, with a record of 14-0 +1434, winning $3000, was Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL; 1950). The room erupted in cheers and everyone stood to applaud Brian as he made his way to the front. Another hug and a few waves and a few photos and then the event was over, too soon for many of us who wanted to stay and revel in the good feelings all evening!

A good friend, Mike Baron (Corrales, NM; 1741), had the foresight to grab the microphone as people were beginning to mill out and thank Chris for all his hard work on pulling together the DO. More applause and more hugs followed.

A nod to the top notch staff that Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1855) called the Dream Team: Bryan Pepper, director Mary Rhoades, assistant director Sue Hoehn, Pat Sanchez, and Dee Seegrest, annotators John Chew, event pairing and webmastering Sherrie Saint John, internet reporting/photos It was a joy to work with you and if we hold Chris to what he said during the prize ceremony, we'll be seeing y'all next year!