Biba International Championship 2011, March 2011

Report by Michael Crane

Main (21): It wasn't the biggest of turnouts being only two more than the Scottish Open but at least those that turned out had a good weekend. Despite the lower number there was a very strong field including many champion players. One of those champion players was Julian Fetterlein. He made it into the final where he met Ginge Fullen who was playing in his third Biba tournament. It was a very close final and it was Ginge who took it to Crawford at 10-9. Unfortunately Ginge was not able to take the Crawford and he was gammoned and finally lost 10-11. Due to time constraints I have not been able to transcribe the match into XG, this will be done at a later time and any reports will appear in the next issue of the Bibafax.

Main: Ginge and Julian

In the Progressive Consolation (17) Nicky Check and Phil Tutchings fought it out for the troph,y an encounter from which Phil emerged the winner. The Last Chance (16) had one of the most strongest finals between Mardi Ohannessian and Rachel Rhodes. Rachel had won this last year and was determined to win it this year, and she was successful as she left Mardi in second place. The Time Trial (8) was a 3-point match using clocks, the time on each clock being 15 seconds for each move with 3 minutes in reserve for round one, and at each round the reserve minutes where reduced by one minute each time. So in round two they only had 2 minutes in reserve and in the final between Mark Calderbank and Gheorghe Filipas they had to complete the game it in less than 60 seconds. It was a frenetic game and the clock was being hit on a regular basis as each player tried to make each move within the 15 seconds, and it was Gheorghe who came out victorious.

Main Semi-finalists: Paul Plumptre and Brian Lever	Consolation: Nicky and Phil
Last Chance: Rachel and Mardi	Time Trial: Gheorghe and Mark

On the Saturday night due to the low turnout there was no poker this weekend. To keep people occupied during the evening it was decided to drop the usual Team event and revert back to the old Doubles event. This proved to be a popular decision and we had seven teams competing. Carrying on an old tradition we all had team names some of which were embarrassing for me to call out aloud and just as bad in print! The final was between the 'GGs', a scratch team, and one of the embarrassing team names, 'I f*cked a hamster'. Because we had an 8-draw the final was a repeat match of the first round draw between these two teams and in the first round 'GGs' where the winners ... and they did it again in the final. In addition to the four usual elements we also ran in tandem with the Main a 1-point knockout (21). The first round of the 1-pointer played before the first round of the Main and this ensured that we had got off to a good start. It also got off to a good finish in the final for Mardi when he beat Arthur Wright in the final. Of course the weekend got off to a good start with the Friday 500 (8). The final was between Myke Wignall and Arthur Wright with Arthur taking the winner's place.

Finally. I must admit I was a little disappointed by the low turnout but unfortunately over the same weekend the RAC were holding their Scope tournament in London and this had a knock-on effect for this event. But I am expecting a much bigger turn out for next month's British Open, which is being sponsored by playwsob.com who are running on-line qualification events and have added prize money to the event. See here for full details.