SAC Trophy 2001  (4/5 August 2001)


Winner

Main (66): For a short time I thought I’d have another perfect entry of sixty-four, but, as we neared the end of registration players kept arriving and pushed the entry up to sixty-six; which meant that we were heading for a 7th round playoff.

New member, Liz Barker played very well indeed on the Saturday winning three out of three and, in her first Biba tournament made it to the Sunday auction. However, Salvador Leong, returning to tournament play after a long absence made sure that she progressed no further, knocking her out in Round 4. Salvador then removed Jeff Barber and went on to meet Brian Lever in a very exciting 6th round -- which might have been the final round had Roy Hollands managed to beat Lawrence Powell (who also had 5 out of 5). After trailing 6-0 Salvador stepped up another gear and pulled the match back to eventually win and leave Brian in 3rd place.


Runner-Up

So, it was a 7th Round decider between Salvador and Lawrence. Both players had a reputation to defend, Salvador is the 2000 Ranking Champion and Lawrence was the 2000 Scottish Open Champion.

Although I have recorded this match, due to time and space constraints it won’t appear until the next issue; but, suffice to say it was an exciting battle from which the current Ranking Champion emerged victorious. Well done, Salvador and hard luck, Lawrence.


Top Intermediate: Liz Barker

Liz Barker went on the win her final match and went home with the Top Intermediate Trophy after finishing in joint 10th place. However, Colin ‘Fak’ Laight who is a ‘beginner’ as far as ranking scores are concerned, finished in 6th place. This has prompted me to look again at the Top Intermediate prize and to change it to the highest, non-champion player instead. Unless there is a massive outcry about this it will come into effect next year.

 Friday Knockout (30):
 That’s right, it isn’t a typo, we really did have 30 entries! After five tough rounds (one including Paul Lamford) I found myself in the final against Jim Johnson (another tough one). I had already met Jim once before in a Friday KO final in 1997 and had emerged the winner; but this time it looked unlikely. At Crawford I was 4-3 down, but I managed to fluke a win, and then, post-Crawford I fluked another win to beat him a second time. In each game I hit him as he was bearing off; which might not be skill, but it is luck - and you can’t beat luck!

Doubles (18): 
This weekend we started a new ‘competition’ for the best team name, the prize being a bottle of wine for that judged the best by an disinterested party. The winner was Dice and Easy Does It Every Time, which, sadly for them was all they won as they went out in the 2nd round. In my opinion the wine should have gone to Shaken But Not Scared as I thought this a great James Bond pun; but, I was outvoted. One team, Two Good proved to be too good and they went all the way to the final where they beat the Heavy Hitters at DMP. Overall this was another incident free tournament and went along as smooth as butter. 

So, what’s what and who’s going to win what?

Now that we are entering the latter months of tournaments we are nearing the outcomes of the Ranking and Grand Prix Championships . . .

Ranking Championship: The top six qualifiers are all in the 2000s; 2059.33 Mike Butterfield
2057.06 Jeff Barber
2054.83 Paul Lamford
2020.17 John Clark

Mike Butterfield has moved up to 1st place with a slender lead over Jeff Barber, who has a slender lead over Paul Lamford. John Clark is still in contention (as is another bunch of qualifiers - see printouts), and therefore this championship is still wide open.

Grand Prix Championship: Here, Paul Lamford is almost certain to win it now so the the battle is on for 2nd place;

44 Paul Lamford
27 John Clark
23 Steve Hallet
23 Albert Tinker
21 Roy Hollands
20 Jeff Barber
20 Lawrence Powell
20 David Nathan
20 Helen Helm-Sagar

John Clark leads the following pack but it is very open still. It will be very interesting to see who, if any, of these players comes in at 2nd place - in fact it is technically possible for Paul to be beaten, but it is unlikely. He is also the highest ranked player in Biba with a record ranking of 1900, the highest we’ve ever had.

For a better idea of who is where and what they can achieve, check out the full printouts at the back of this issue.
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