23rd June2008

40 Entries, 6 Tournaments, 28 Players, £684 Prize Fund,
Raj Jansari wins Jackpot.

This was billed as a Variety Evening - Swiss Doubles, Tric Trac Tourno, Workshop, Bg in London at Biba Satellite and the regular Knockouts - all designed to pull in those extra players and do something different. We kicked off at 6.00pm downstairs with about 10 or 12 of us for a good dinner before play at moved upstairs at 7.00pm. I decided to get the Swiss Doubles started before the T1 Auction but only 1 hand went up for it. Ok - let's put that back on the shelf I thought and went straight into the T1 Auction. 8 players at £40 a head, paid and draw - off they went to play. Then it was 5 players at £25 a head, paid and drawn then joined by 3 others 5 minutes later and T2 was full, up and running. T3 was a £10er, 8 players joined and off they went to play. T4 was a £5 Optional Pool, 2 joined and off the went downstairs to play. A few minutes later Peter W arrived and waited for an opponent to be knocked out of T1, T2 or T3.

The Beckersons had a good night of it -Alan entered and won the £25er and Monica entered and won the £10er. Raj won T1 - no great surprise there though of course Raj will claim, with some validity, that he continues to only win when the pot is smaller than it sometimes is. The£5er (despite being just 3 pointers) plodded along and was won by Andy G who made an appearance for the first time in months if not years. In the last tournament the final was left unplayed so I've now classified it as a 2 x 4 player event - winners John B and Dave Moon. 

 

So the idea of Swiss Doubles didn't take off as Swiss Singles did in Camden 3 weeks ago. Ok - no worries - at least we gave it a shot. That's not to say I'm going to give up on a doubles Tournament. Instead we'll revert to the tried and tested formula of holding a Doubles Tournament over a few weeks as we did at The Fox Reformed a few years ago. We'll get it started after the summer hols in September and have it all played by Christmas. There will be a 2 or 3 week window for each round to be played and players arrange to meet up for an evening to play their 7 point matches. Main, Consolation and Auction included. So between now and then think dosey-do and start thinking who your partner might be.

Photos of the event.
 

Mike Main