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Jarvis Trophy. 5, 6, 7, February 2010
Report by Michael Crane

Friday 500 (13). The weekend got off to a good start for Andy Darby as he sat opposite Simon K Jones in the Final. He emerged the winner and then on the Saturday & Sunday he stormed through the field of the Main. Andy's win places him on the top with Myke Wignal a few points behind him and Simon just 1 point behind Myke. It's all pretty close at the moment, but with two sessions of the 500 in March to come, things should start to alter . . . perhaps! Marcus Wrinch, who led the 500 field for most of 2009, is yet to make his mark on this year's 500 going out in the 1st Round to Tony Fawcett. Latest table HERE.

Main (15). Going into the 6th Round we had just one player on 5-5, Andy Darby. A 4-5, Jeff Barber, was drafted in at random to play him to see if he could be stopped.

Jeff Barber is a quiet man, keeps his head down at tournaments and makes very little noise except the occasional tutting or heavy sighing now and again. Sometimes he throws his cup into the air after a particularly bad joker against him - but overall, he's quite quiet. However, he is an aggressive backgammon player. He'll slot like it's going out of fashion. If there's a point he wants he goes for it. If he can hit a blot, he will! Leave a blot anywhere and Jeff'll have a go at it. The trouble with this style of play is backgames! Jeff keeps getting into them. It all started here (Jeff is playing as white and Andy Darby as black. The match is to 11 points):

Black 1 White 2
Black to play 42

Jeff opened with a 62: 13/7, 13/11. Andy moves 24/18* and this is the start of Jeff's attack of the blots! He hit or played loose almost everywhere to eventually end up in this position:

Black to play 65

Andy plays 13/2 and then Jeff then rolls 55, comes in and he's off! Later he gets a hit but can't contain it, and Andy continues bearing off until we reach this position:

White to play 55

The likelihood of getting a hit is slight but at least 'The Girls' is a gammon saver - well it is if you don't play 18/8, 15/10, 14/9, and then have your opponent roll his own 55 for a backgammon! Six points to Andy.

The score reaches 9-6 to Andy and Jeff is back to his usual backgame:

White to play 42

He comes in and then the fight-back begins five moves later when Andy is forced to leave a blot:

Black to play 31

Andy is forced to come off his 10-point leaving a blot and Jeff hits it. Despite all Andy's attempts to get this lone checker safe he is continually knocked back by Jeff and his 15 checker army! Eventually Jeff is in a position to cube and Andy, shell-shocked, drops.

In the final game, with the score at 10-7 Crawford to Andy, Jeff has some spectacular bad luck (or, Andy has some spectacular good luck!) when this series of jokers determine the outcome of the match:

Black to play 61

This is an awful roll for Andy and he is forced to leave two blots as he plays 6/0, 4/3. Jeff becomes favourite to win the game until he rolls . . .

. . . 64!

A triple-shot and Jeff misses with one of his 9 bad rolls as he plays 24/14. Andy let's out a sigh of relief and then he rolls . . .

Snake Eyes . . .

and has to leave two blots again with 4/3, 3/2(3). Once again Jeff has a triple-shot and this time he rolls . . .

44!

Jeff throws his shaker into the air and sighs heavily! Yet again he misses as he plays 14/6, 11/3, hoping for a miracle. And it looks as if he's got one as Andy rolls . . .

52 . . .

and plays 6/0. Now down to a single-shot Jeff shakes the dice for all he's worth and out pops another 44! He moves 20/16,(2), 16/8. Andy then rolls out to win the match 11-7.

So, Andy Darby - two finals, two victories! Well done, Andy. The runner-up was Vicki Pemberton who was (thankfully!) the only player to have 5-6.

It was a bitty match with 53 checker play errors, including 17 blunders between them! Snowie rated them thus: Andy - Advanced, Jeff - Intermediate. One other stat that caught my eye while inputting into Snowie was the amount of 4s rolled - often accompanied by a 3! A lot more than one might expect: effective # of appearance of 4s was 174 whereas the theoretical # of appearances is 151.7. So, if you're playing with Jeff's dice in the future, remember, 4s are favourite!

Main: Andy & Vicki	Consolation: Ann & Stewart

In the Consolation (15) element Ann Pocknell came through with 3-3 on the Sunday as did Stewart Pemberton. Head-to-heads or shared opponents couldn't decide a winner so it went to the average ranking score of opponents and it was Ann who came out on top. She very graciously offered to play a decider but Stewart declined - which was a sporting gesture by both players. It's a pity that one of the WSOB entrants over the same weekend wasn't as sporting! Read all about his outburst HERE.

Poker (13). Andy Darby also plays poker - but not as good as he plays backgammon and he didn't even make the final table of eight. Mark Calderbank came 1st with Rosey Bensley 2nd and Vicki Pemberton 3rd. Thanks to his win over the Jarvis weekend, Mark jumps up to within two points of leader, Vicki Pemberton. Latest table HERE.

Team (7). I don't want to comment on this element. I was knocked out by my wife, Sharen's team in the 1st Round! She went on to win the 2nd Round and only lost in the final when she was beaten by Ed Turner. I didn't see his victory, I went to bed early, sulking!

Finally. It wasn't the biggest of turnouts, but, as Sharen keeps telling me, size doesn't matter. I don't believe her.

 

 

 

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