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'oh no 7 oh' - The Jarvis Trophy. 4, 5, 6 February 2011
Report by Michael Crane

I'll say one thing about Arthur Wright - he knows how to celebrate a birthday! November 2009 saw him sponsoring the TT to celebrate his 70th birthday, and this year he sponsored the Jarvis Trophy to celebrate his wife Val's 70th birthday. It all got off to a great start with the Friday 500 (12). Andy Darby got the better of new-member, Ginge Fullen to take the weekend break prize.

It then all restarted on the Saturday. As with his own birthday event, Arthur created three wall quizzes to keep us all entertained, and a Valerie's Rollout for a bottle of champagne; which was gratefully won by Andy Darby (his second win of the weekend).

Other winners were Sharen Crane and Rachel Rhodes (top left) Brian Lever (bottom left) and Sharen again!

The Main (19/38) got off on time and by Sunday morning we had five players on 3-3: Julian Minwalla vs Chris Ternel; Marc Turner vs Paul Plumptre; and Mardi Ohannessian vs a 2-3, Eddie Barker. We were then left with Julian vs Paul and Mardi vs Tony Gardner; which finally left us with just one player on 5-5, Julian. Of the available 4-5s, Uldis Lapikens was drawn at random to play him in the 6th Round.

Having taken the match to 2-10 Crawford in his favour, Uldis was looking favourite to win the match and the title. However, a series of nine dancing/unable to move rolls during the bearoff let Julian in with a gammon win as the score moved to 4-10. Julian then goes on to win the next game on a gammoned 2-cube: 8-10. Then a quick one: 9-10; and it is here we look at another series of dancing rolls from Uldis. Julian is playing as black.

51: 6/1*, 2/1 - Uldis rolls: 32	53: 15/10, 13/10 - Uldis rolls: 63
62: 15/7 - Uldis rolls: 61	33: 10/7(2), 6/3(2) - Uldis rolls: 21
64: 7/1, 5/1 - Uldis rolls: 31	41: 7/2 - Uldis rolls: 53
44: 5/1(2), 7/0 - Uldis rolls: 31	64: 3/0(2) - Uldis rolls: 32
61: 3/0, 2/1 - Uldis rolls: 41 and resigns!

Yet another example of real head-to-head play coming out with dice rolls that anyone playing a bot or online would have exclaimed 'cheat!" to anyone daft enough to listen to them. For the record, Uldis accepted it all gracefully.

With just one player on 6-6, Julian, we had an outright winner, and the tie-break came out with Simon Morecroft in 2nd place. Meanwhile, in the Consolation (19-38) element, Marcus Wrinch and Dorothy Lee both got 3-3 and a playoff resulted in Dorothy emerging the victor. Running in tandem with the Swiss was a 1-Point Shootout, the winner of which was Eddie Barker after he finished off Paul Gilbertson in the final.

Julian, Val, Simon

Marcus, Val, Dorothy	Eddie

On the Saturday night we had the usual Team (9) event; and this time a new name emerged in the honours list - Bill Young, brother of Brighton winner, Bob. It looks as if Bob's rolling abilities have passed (perhaps temporarily) on to Bill - time will tell.

The Poker (14) was won by Andy Darby (yep, yet another 1st place!) with Rita Butterfield in 2nd place and Myke Wignall 3rd. More on this later.

Finally.

The weekend's backgammon went along without problems, but I can't say the same for non-backgammon activities. During the weekend bus loads of fitness fanatics held one of their regular events and they took over the entire hotel except the tiny bit we were assigned. The problem was, our tiny bit was very close to one of their big bits. In fact it was very close to one of the loudest bits and we had to endure constant throbbing music and shouted instructions during most of the day time. It all stopped for the evening, though ... to be replaced by a disco which was even louder!

It got to a time on Saturday night that I went down the stairs from our playing rooms to ask that they keep one of their three doors shut so we could hear ourselves talk. The bouncer on the door was a typical bouncer and was not in the slightest bit bothered by how the racket from the disco was affecting us. I shouted to him, but it was plain he couldn't hear me, so I beckoned him into the stairwell and closed the door behind him so we could speak. In shutting the door I accidently touched him. That was a mistake!

He rounded on me and came for me. Now, I'll just tell you that he was big, and it looked as if he was secreting balloons about his person (or they might have been muscles), and I was secreting pipe cleaners about my person - so in a fight we'd be tad mismatched to say the least! He leant over me, his head the size of a barrage balloon, completely blocking out any light and he covered my face in his spittle as he ranted and gesticulated and accused me of pushing him out of the door! What an absurd statement, I'd have more success pushing down the walls than of moving him. Mind, you, I didn't back down despite his attempts to intimidate and threaten me, and eventually he calmed down and backed off. Mind you, he won - the music didn't lessen and the door remained open.

Now, I'd like to say that that was the end of my evening's problems, but I am afraid it wasn't. I then had to contend with an annoying, belligerent drunk, Mick Butterfield, who had been causing a nuisance on the poker table (and not for the first time, unfortunately). I tried to calm him down, but drunks don't hear what you say and are always convinced they are in the right and you and everyone else is in the wrong. However, unlike the encounter with the man-mountain earlier I did not feel intimidated or threatened by him, which made his punch to my throat a complete surprise!

Long story short - you won't be seeing him at any Biba events for a long time to come; as I write this report my throat is still swollen and very sore and he is lucky I didn’t call in the police despite many exhortations from others to do so.