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Jarvis Trophy. 5, 6, 7, February 2009
Report by Michael Crane

Friday afternoon, (6 February) before leaving home, I watched the 1 'o clock news on BBC1 to see what the snow was doing. According to the BBC only fools and arctic explorers should venture further than their front garden, and then only if you're equipped with a sled and huskies! I was/had neither . . . but I had a job to do and my members were expecting a good weekend's backgammon, so off I jolly well went, with Sharen riding shotgun in case we were set upon by polar bears.

Snow? What snow? During the 90 mile trip from Lincoln to Daventry the only snow I saw was that in my driveway and that which greeted me in the hotel carpark! Snow and Neil Young who had been daft enough to leave Bristol and travel up with his sons. He too only saw snow when entering the carpark. Others then began arriving, Myke Wignall, Paul Gilbertson, Rosey Bensley, Marcus Wrinch. More arrived later.

According to Reception several snow-scared members had cancelled their accommodation because three flakes of snow had fallen in their front gardens! I thought backgammon players were made of sterner stuff.

On the Saturday I was pleasantly surprised to see forty-two players turn out! They had braved the arctic conditions? and not one of them came across any polar bears.

Main (21/42)
After the Saturday's play we had five players on 3-3, Peter Bennet vs Michael Bennett, Neil Everitt vs Todd Young (young by name and young by age - Todd was the youngest player present over the weekend), and Jeff Barber pitched against a random 2-3, Paul Plumtre. Jeff lost leaving us with three on 4-4, Michael vs Peter, an encounter from which Michael emerged bruised but triumphant; and Neil vs Todd, the winner being Neil. Neil then faced Michael, either one of them going onto 5-5. Michael won and he then faced Paul Barwick - a random 4-5 - in the 6th Round.

If Paul Barwick was playing online against Michael Bennett in the 6th Round instead of face-to-face he'd be moaning about rigged dice! If he was playing against a bot he'd have shouted, "Cheat" after the run of rolls he had in Game 2. Paul is playing as white.

These were his first three rolls:

Game 2 Michael Bennett (b) : 0 Paul Barwick (w) : 1
01) 52: 13/8 24/22
	41: 24/20 24/23
02) 54: 22/13
	41: 13/9 23/22
03) 51: 8/3* 6/5*
	41: 25/21 25/24

Not a good start for Paul with three consecutive 41s from the first roll, but it was even worse for him when Michael shipped across the first cube:

Black to play 11
15) 11: 24/22 11/9*
	61: Dances
16) 61: 22/16 9/8
	61: Dances
17) 31: 16/13 6/5
	61: Dances
18) Doubles to 2	Takes

Despite his run of dancing rolls and with one checker still on the bar this is a correct double/take position. And then . . .

19) 42: 13/9 8/6
	61: Dances

But, Paul eventually gets the upper hand and at Move 23, he ships across the 4-cube:

He is trailing by 49 pips and this is not a redouble and is an easy take for Michael.

At Move 29 Paul encounters his penultimate 61:

I am not too sure what happened here but by far the best move is 8/2* 3/2, but for reasons known only to Paul he played 10/4 8/7*! This was Michael's reply:

In off the bar with another 61, 25/24 23/17*. Paul re-enters with 32, 25/23 12/9, but Michael, on his next roll, tosses over an 8-cube:

This is way too good to double. His game winning chances are around 80% including almost 65% gammons! Paul drops.

The rest of the match went Michael's way more often than not and he bore off in Game 11 to win a gammon and the match, 11-6. With three players on 5-6 it was left to tie-breaks to determine that Peter Bennet was 2nd, Sean Williams 3rd and Neil Everitt 4th.

Main: Michael & Peter

The only 'downer' from Michael's point of view was the fact that he wasn't in the Winner-Takes-All prize fund, which means we have a rollover for March. All together now . . . "Thank you, Michael!"

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Meanwhile, in the Consolation (21/42), three players came out with 3-3: Lee Wood, Marcus Wrinch and Myke Wignall. After referring to the tie-breaker their positions were as above, with Lee coming out in 1st position.

Consolation:Marcus & Lee

Going back in time, the Friday 500 (14) was contended in the semi-finals between Athanasia Petselis vs Lee Wood and Andy Darby vs Marcus Wrinch. From this emerged Andy vs Lee, a match in which Andy came out on top. Going forward in time, on Saturday night the Poker (11) was won by Andy Darby (didn't he do well? with Myke Wignall 2nd and Mick Vacarey 3rd. Tony Fawcett just missed out in 4th place and Paul Gilbertson a tad behind him in 5th. The Team (6) final was fought out between traveling companions, Gerry Enslin and Brian Metcalf after they got rid of Peter Christmas 4-0 in the previous round. Gerry continued with another victory to take home the 1st place.

Finally. The weekend went along as smooth as the ice on the hotel's carpark. We were finished by a reasonable time and (I think) everyone got home before the snow got too bad. I'd like to thank everyone for turning out in such conditions and a special thank you to my assistant, Deena Fawcett, without whom I'd have a more difficult and lonelier job.