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Ray Hall won the Surbiton Advanced Handicap (the ARK)

[<<] [>>] by Martin Burger at Surbiton
6-7 Oct 2007 (AC - Handicap)

1) Ray Hall (6 wins from 6)
2) Mike Huxley (5 wins from 6)
3) Gina Lewis(4 wins from 5)

Pleasant court and weather conditions prevailed for both days of the ARK this year. Autumnal weather over the last 3 weeks ensured conditions were easier than at the B-level event of mid-September.

The event was run as a semi-managed Egyptian. The system of a peg board (this year dismounted from the wall) in conjunction with a master score sheet, seemed to work reasonably well in principle.

Chris Farthing and Jamie Burch each completed several peeling turns. In Chris's case this included a QP to leave oppo with a few bisques standing, but against Kevin Carter, Kevin won +13OTP. Chris ended on 4 from 8.

Gary Bennett, Jamie Burch (5 wins), Kevin Carter, and John McMordie (4 wins) also completed 7 games.

In Jamie's case he won 3 of his first 4 games with TPs, on the first day. So he led at the end of the first day, but was then up against other form players with stacks of bisques. He did enough to pass the notable milestone of a handicap cut from minus 1.5 to join the big boys on minus 2.

The two other players unbeaten on the first day were Ray Hall and Gina Lewis on 3 wins. With 11.5 bisques against Jamie and 10.5 against John McMordie, Ray completed 2 wins while Gina, conceding 2 bisques dug out a +1(T) against Nick Furse. From the management point of view, the timing was ideal as the 2 unbeaten players, Ray and Gina, could play what was effectively a final. As it happened, this was well contested, and went to time. But nobody heard the beeper. When this was discovered, after a short discussion the two turns were played, and Ray emerged a worthy winner. The automatic system gave him a 2 bisque cut which was deemed sufficient.

The final game to finish was Mike Huxley's fifth win to give him second place on the Egyptian system, his only loss being one of Jamie's TPs. Aideen, Alec, George, and Chris Patmore provided the catering that Surbiton members and visitors have come to expect.

As it may be of some use to others, a note on the pegboard and score sheet system. The peg board is an old club ladder board which has not been used for its original purpose for a considerable time. It has 30 slots and pegs. Surbiton has 7 lawns and 4 slots are allocated to each lawn. So 1-4 are lawn 1 with 1-2 primaries and 3-4 secondaries. Players' pegs are placed appropriately or in a 'waiting for game' pile or 'sitting out'. 29/30 can be used for a waiting game.

So when things work properly the lawn availability and current pairings can immediately be seen. But note - it is not a ladder even though it looks like one. The only problem seems to occur when a pair book lawn 7 and find a game has just finished on lawn 3 as they walk past and get lazy.

The master score sheet lists players in Alphabetical order down the left hand column. Each player has his own row throughout and the second and later columns record successive opponents with sub-columns for score, index change and running index. So each game is entered in 2 rows (not necessarily in the same column). So all the result information is held in one place.

Handicap Changes

Wendy Dominguez (Mrs WP) 8 to 9
Martin Burger (M) 6 to 7
Jamie Burch (JA) -1.5 to -2
Ray Hall (RF) 10 to 8
David Ruscombe-King 4.5 to 5
Peter Quinn (PJM) 3 to 3.5



 

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