Friday 500 (12)

1
2
3&4
3&4
5 to 8
5 to 8
5 to 8
5 to 8

1
2
3&4
3&4

Poker (9)

1

2

3

Jarvis Trophy. February 3/4 2007
Report by Michael Crane

On the Friday evening we played the second Friday 500 (12). Rosey Bensley showed Slats a thing or two when she made it into the final. Slats had been beaten by David Nathan in the quarter-finals, and it was he that faced Rosey having despatched Ed Turner in the semis. Rosey continued her winning streak and came out with maximum points and she now lies in joint 1st position with Mardi Ohannessian. On the subject of the 500, it has been decided that the player topping the list after the Townharbour in November will win £100, to be handed over during the UK Finals - a good reason to keep trying to top the list.

Main & Consolation
Thanks to a prize fund rollover of £630 we had a decent turnout of 38, which by Sunday morning had split itself nicely down the middle with 19 in the Main and 19 in the Consolation. In the Main we had just four players on 3/3, David Nathan who lost to John Slattery, and Tony Fawcett who lost to Giorgio Castellano. This encounter then left us with a Slats vs Giorgio match from which the only 5/5 would emerge; and it was Giorgio that prevailed. Now I had to find a 4/5 to play him in the final round. There were four pairings from which an opponent could be drawn, and a random draw pulled Peter Chan out of the hat.

It was a long match, thirteen games and it went to post-Crawford, 10-8 before concluding. There was one game that caught my eye - it had three cube decisions and one 'mistake' from Giorgio that he recovered from ... but only just.

Here's the first of three cube decisions. Giorgio is playing as black:

Match to 11 points
Black 2 White 3
Black cube action

With just two pips between them this is a double, take:

From here, Peter fails to re-enter and then Giorgio finds himself in this position:

Black to play 63

I was watching this particular game and I thought the best move was to maximise builders for the 2-point by playing 13/4; however, black instead moved 18/15 13/7 (-0.023). Subsequent rollouts on Snowie put this play in 3rd position, with 18/9 2nd and 13/4 1st. Peter danced and then Giorgio rolled 62 - which would have been a perfect roll to make his 2-point! A few rolls later Peter rolls a great double-two:

White rolls 22

Peter hits and makes his 4-point. Giorgio re-enters but cannot escape and in this position, Peter re-cubes to 4:

White cube action

This is a big blunder. He's 57 pips behind in the race and black only has one checker to really worry about. Snowie screams, No re-double, take.

Of course, Giorgio snatches it up. Over the next sequence of moves black is unable to get the runner out to safety until he reaches this position:

Black cube action

He is 60 pips ahead in the race and currently has approx. 21% gammon chances. Peter drops.

As I said earlier the game goes post-Crawford - in Giorgio's favour, 10-8; but Peter is unable to win another point and Giorgio emerges the victor. We had just two other players on 5/6, and on the tie-break, Adrian Jones pipped John Slattery into 2nd place. This match will appear soon on GammonVillage and is available from Biba via email (see above panel). It also is on the CD-ROM version of Bibafax.

In the Consolation we had three players on 3/3, Stephen Drake, Simon Morecroft and Julian Fetterlein. The tie-break was very cruel to Stephen, he dropped to 3rd, Julian came 1st and Simon took 2nd.

Adrian and Giorgio	Simon and Julian

On the Saturday evening we had a great Doubles (8) knockout. On a Peter Kaye theme, Garlic? Bread? was eaten up by A Cake of Cheese in the 1st Round, as the Cake progressed to the Final after ridding themselves of the troublesome Italian Job; and Christmas Pudding spat out A Taste of Siemens (aural pun!) and then beat The Two Boys to face A Cake of Cheese. A Christmas pudding is no match for a cake of cheese as anyone will tell you and so it was the Cake that went happily to bed with a nice wedge.

In the Poker (9), it was (once again) a Gilbertson night. Paul Watts - who isn't a Gilbertson - came out on top, but that left a brace of Gilbertsons in 2nd and 3rd place; Matthew and John. Will their grip on the poker Grand Prix ever slacken? I think not!

	Mind you, it was Myke Wignall that won the 2006 Poker Grand Prix; and the picture I took of him is unique in Poker circles . . . there's not a Gilbertson in sight - just my little helper, Caroline Stafford. Well done, Myke.

Finally
It was a good weekend and apart from my camera batteries dying on me it was uneventful. Thankfully, Peter Chan had a 'spare' camera with him (no surprise there!) and he took a couple and I managed to coax enough life out of the batteries to take two more.