10th Bright ‘n’ Breezy 2007

Report by Michael Cran

What a great start to the New Year. Eighty players in the Main (80) sat down to battle it out for the year’s first event. Two of the world’s best players were present, current world champion, Philip Vischjager and Kazuhiro Shino. They met in the semi-finals of the world championships, an encounter in which Philip prevailed - and then he went on to win the title. So, how unlucky were they to be drawn together in the 1st Round? Here we have two very strong players and only one of them can progress to the 2nd Round. For Kazuhiro is was deja vu all over again as he went out yet again to Philip.

Andy Bell, TV producer with 9mm Productions (responsible for Ernie’s Game and the recent backgammon on EuroSport) was Philip’s next opponent. In a marathon battle it was Andy that came out on top and Philip was propelled into the Consolation. Andy got no further than Tony Lee, and he in turn couldn’t get past Julian Fetterlein, likewise Julian couldn’t get past Mike Heard . . . . and he couldn’t get past Stuart Mann as he played himself into the final from the top half.

From the bottom half, defending champion, John Hurst, cleaved his way through for a second shot at the title. Because of the time the match started it was decided to play the final using clocks - something that Stuart is all to familiar with! Each player was given 12 seconds and a time of 22 minutes in reserve.

Stuart took an early lead but John pulled it back to 6-4 in his favour. At this score John (black) had a 66 to play in this position:

John to play 66

A few of the onlookers thought he should at least make the bar-point, 13/7(2) and then safety one of his runners, 22/10 or 20/8. However, John didn't make the bar-point, instead he played his two runners, 22/10 20/8. This was the better play; white's runner could still be contained and it left only one checker exposed - which Stuart hit with a 21, 13/11 8/7*, but a 65 off the bar hit on white's 11-point blot and it was a long time before white got another shot at a black blot ... which he missed and John went on to win the game moving the score to 8-4.

With the score on 8-5 to John, Stuart ships across a 2-cube:

Stuart cubes to 2

Although black is blocking 6s and 5s with his 17-point anchor, his runner on the white ace-point might have difficulty getting out. Snowie says this is a Double/Pass - but John takes. A double-six two rolls later puts John into the lead by 12 pips in a no-contact position; and a little later he's able to re-cube to 4:

John re-cubes to 4

Stuart, quite rightly, drops and John moves into the Crawford, 10-5. Stuart starts the Crawford with 7m:12s on the clock, a game which he wins, but one which costs him a lot of valuable clock time - he starts the next game with just 2m:20s; too little time to realistically win the match from 5-away, 1-away. As it turned out, Stuart lost the match with just 1m:4s left on his clock. The video recording clearly shows where Stuart is let down - he takes too much time over some of the obvious plays. He moves his fingers to the point(s) to which he wants to play and then looks elsewhere for something else. It all takes time, and, being a slow player, Stuart can't afford to waste a second. The word, procrastinate, springs to mind!

Semi-Finalists Rachel Rhodes and Mike Heard	John Hurst and Stuart Mann

So, John Hurst becomes the first player to win the title twice. Well done, John. It's just a pity (for him) that he wasn't in the prize fund - it is now rolled over to the Jarvis Trophy to the sum of £630!

I think I have now cracked the Progressive Consolation (76). Main 1st Round losers have a maximum of eight rounds to play; and Uldis Lapikens did just that. He played all the way through to meet Julian Fetterlein - who won the Consolation last year - who emerged from the Progressive side from the Main last eight. The match went to DMP and Julian did a 'Hurst' and held onto his Consolation crown.   Julian and Uldis

		Whenever I get my camera out, if Fanika Petkovska is anywhere near she'll contrive to get her picture taken. However, this time is was OK for she was the Runner-up in the Last Chance (64) after losing to Adrian Jones in the Final. The open draw of sixty-four enabled Fanika to have a couple of tries to progress past the 1st Round and she finally did it. Adrian managed it to do it on the one entry, clever bugger!
Adrian and Fanika

It looks as if the Friday 500 (38) might catch on. We had a good turnout for the first one and Mardi Ohannessian now leads the field with 15 points. Mind you, knowing how little of the Bibafax Mardi actually reads, it's a good bet he's not even aware of his position! There are ten more to come and plenty of time to rack up those points for a shot at the £500. If you fancy your chances get yourself booked into the hotel for Friday nights and see if you can qualify for the UK Finals.

We had a small Doubles (8) knockout this weekend. Anchors sank without trace to a pair that had No Idea; and No Idea then went through Foxy Wall and MC's Secret Lovers to win the event. I can't think how they did for they really had No Idea!

The Poker (25) had a good turnout and five players came out on top: Andy Bell, Matthew Franklin, Ann Pocknell, Rosey Bensley and Eamon Keogh all got plenty of Grand Prix points. I wonder, did organiser, Martin Hemming, stretch the points to five so that a 'Gilbertson' (Rosey) could once again feature in the points?

Finally

It was a good turnout, as usual, and the weekend went along without any problems. No one got sick, like last year, and the weather was warmish and dry. The hotel in the form of 'Magic' looked after us well and we are all looking forward to the 2008 Bright 'n' Breezy. Thank you to XcitingGames for the trophies and sponsorship.