The tournament, which took place at the HIT Hotel Casino Park, was a great success and was blessed with a record attendance of 242 players from 28 countries, 32% more than last year, making this traditional event one of the most important backgammon tournaments in Europe.

Some of the world's best players were on the scene including former European Champions François Tardieu of France (2001), Harald Johanni of Germany (2000); World Champions Mike Svobodny (1984), Paul Magriel (1978), both of the USA; and Volker Sonnabend of Germany, the 2001 Czech Open Champion, just to name a few.

WBF President Alberto da Pra was on hand to welcome the players and took pride in giving personal attention to each of them. The tournament was carried out under the expert supervision of WBF's General Secretary Marco Fornasir and a team of assistants that ran a flawless event, gaining the respect of all.

Prestigious Dal Negro professional tournament boards added pleasure to the playing experience, and if you wanted to find a reasonable price on a nice board, book, dice or other backgammon item to take home, Martin and Bambi de Bruin were on hand with their traveling store.

Then it was time for the Sperti Trophy competition sponsored by Alfredo and Maria Sperti of Italy. This event was free to all WBF supporters and entrants battled to win the prize of a luxurious leather Sperti President Board. The event was won by German grandmaster Harald Johanni who beat Oren Avidor of Israel in the final… so far the Germans were displaying superiority and dominating these early stages of the tournament.

On the September 6, after the pairings were done by a manual public draw, the "all start" was given to the players in the three divisions - 72 in the Intermediate, 93 in the Champion and 77 in the Masters.

Registration was now closed and by the end of Round 1, Director Fornasir had announced the split of the prize money for each category including the total added money prize of 58,450 €

With the beginning of the automatic Progressive Consolation and Last Chance rounds, the excitement grew as the pure flow of adrenalin brought us to the finals on September 8.

The Awards Ceremony was held as players enjoyed delicious Slovenian dishes and the sound of the velvety voice of Italian entertainer Gisella, who sang "Primavera" and "Asereje".

The tournament committee under the presidency of WBF President da Pra, which consisted of representatives from nine different nations (Italy, Turkey, Norway, Germany, Romania, Austria, USA, Iran and France), then announced the winners of the various categories and handed out the prizes to the accolade of the crowd.

Finally, Director Marco Fornasir and 2001 Champion François Tardieu then presented Katja Spillum as the new 2002 European Champion. She was awarded with a huge shiny trophy and asked to say a few words. Spillum thanked all her friends and the tourney staff. She was very proud and her shy eyes shined like stars. Congratulations to her for a well-deserved achievement. I am so sure that we will hear her name again and again in events to come. At the end of ceremony, everyone applauded Fornasir's last words, "next year's target is 300 entrants!"

As head of the WBF Turkey Backgammon Association, I would like to say that this was the first time Turkey was represented officially in the European Championship and that it was a great experience for Turkish backgammon. The only player we had in the event, Cengiz Dindar, played very well to the become a semi-finalist in the Champion Division and I hope that word of his success will help us bring more Turkish players to the international backgammon arena in the coming years. Many thanks to President da Pra, General Secretary Fornasir, his kind staff and all the friendly backgammon players we met in Nova Gorica. We hope to see all of you soon at our very first official international event in Turkey where backgammon has been played for about 5,000 years.