TLW 111 - Nomads Results

Salisbury
15th October
Director’s Cut from Bob Lynn
With 72 players, this was the first major Salisbury tourney since around 1990. The venue, a modern
village hall, was light and airy, though,on such a beautiful autumn day, many people went outside to
enjoy their lunch . More time available would have given players the chance to try a local beer in the
pub nearby, or walk up to the Iron age site of Figsbury Rings, and see Salisbury from a distance. Through
no fault of their own a few players arrived late, so we started some twenty minutes later than scheduled.
There were nine groups of eight players, in which all played all in their section except one. I favour this
format as it gives lower rated players a fair chance of a prize, and encourages newcomers to attend
tournaments. In fact, we had a couple of first timers. It also avoids that tedious job of moving your board
and clock around the hall, and jostling to see who you are playing next. However, it does make life
difficult if there are ‘no shows’ and requires loads of organising.
Apart from salvers and cash prizes for the winner of each section, the winner of section A also took
home a small cup. There were spot prizes of a bottle of Zinfandel for the longest Z word, a bottle of rioja
for the longest ‘J’ word and boxes of goodies for the longest ‘X’ and ‘Q’ words.
Ruth Marsden kindly brought her laptops for word checks. Round by round results were entered manually.
Helpers, runners, tea ladies, word checkers and results processor, worked hard throughout the day. The
helpers were largely drawn from the diminishing ranks of Salisbury Scrabble Club, with Alan Bailey’s
wife, my partner Anna and a friend of one of the local competitors helping too.
No major upsets, occasional mislaid results, and one mis-allocated prize, all put right in good spirit.
Very ‘well behaved’ group of players! Post tournament, it makes fascinating reading to scan through the
challenge sheets. Significantly more challenges were made in group A than in other groups. Anyone
like to postulate why, or is this the norm? About £60 was left for donation to a local charitable cause.
Feed back privately to RLynn71911@aol.com would be welcomed.
Salisbury Amesbury
Chris Finlay 4 173
David Sutton 4 164
Steve Perry 4 109
Salisbury Bulford
Helen Harding 5 332
Mike Whiteoak 4 219
Frankie Mairey 4 - 88
Salisbury Chippenham
Edward Rossiter 5 560
Stewart Houten 4 302
Phil Kelly 4 59
Salisbury Durrington
Patricia Pay 5 212
Val Wright 5 73
Wendy Lindridge 4 189
Salisbury Erlestoke
Jenny Woodroffe 5 65
Rita Todd 4 375
Andy Gray 4 114
Salisbury Figheldean
Molly Lane 4 275
Mavis Harding 4 158
Tanya Robson 3.5 298
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Salisbury Great Wishford
Rose Calder 6 734
Irene Woolley 4 25
Eileen Bradshaw 3 - 31
Salisbury Homington
Jean Robinson 5 405
Cecilia Cotton 5 162
Peter Johnson 4 314
Salisbury Idmiston
Eileen Johnson 5 484
Betty Hallett 5 375
Joy Rowe 4 62
Best Grand Final
21st - 22nd October
Report from Phil Appleby
Unfortunately the BEST Champion from 2004 was unable to defend his title – Adam Logan
has now left the UK; his last Scrabble act in this country was to take home the World
Championship in November 2005. Indeed only one former BEST Champion took part in the
2005 event – Phil Appleby, victor in 2003. Nevertheless there were plenty of strong players
in the draw, including the UK’s top-rated player in 2005, Harshan Lamabadusuriya.
Zonal competitions
People tend to assume that, in a best-of-7 match, there is little scope for shock results. Try
telling that to Stewart Holden, who lost to Mike O’Rourke in the East Midland zone, or
Gareth Williams, the UK’s top performer in the last World Championship, who succumbed
to Mike Whiteoak in the South-West and Wales zone. In the same zone Phil Appleby almost
joined Gareth in the “better luck next time” brigade, falling 4-2 behind against Steve Perry in
the zone quarter-final, before recovering to win 5-4.
But there were four zones where the two seeded players reached the finals. In London North
Femi Awowade edged home against David Webb, 6-5, with Harshan defeating Wayne Kelly
by the same score in the West Midland zone. In Scotland, in the absence of 2002 Champion
Paul Allan, Neil Scott got the better of Allan Simmons 6-3. The fourth zone where the two
seeded players reached the Final was the North-East, but by the time Craig Beevers had
secured his place, his projected opponent Pete Finley had tragically lost his life. The only
zone final to be contested by two unseeded players was the East Midlands, where Greg Kelly
followed up his win against second seed Chris Hawkins with a 6-3 win against Mike O’Rourke.
The most dramatic comeback came in the London East zone. Bob Violett lost the first four
games against top seed Terry Kirk, but fought back to win 6-5.
As for the final two zones, after his narrow win against Steve Perry, Phil had all the luck
against Karl Khoshnaw, unfortunately now also gone, winning 6-0. Meanwhile in London
South and South-East, Richard Evans beat Di Dennis 6-4, having defeated top seed Ed Martin
in the previous round.
Quarter-finals
All four quarter-finals were hard-fought battles. Phil’s 8-4 win against Bob was the most
convincing score-line, but Bob led 4-3 after the first session, and with six of the games being
decided on the final racks the match could easily have gone either way. Harshan’s 8-5
victory against Neil was very different, with Harshan storming into a 6-1 lead only to be
pegged back to 7-5, before finally getting the all-important eighth win. In the third quarterfinal
Femi took the early initiative to open up a 5-1 lead, but four successive wins by Craig
levelled the match at 5-5. The next two games were shared before Femi won games 13 and
14 for an 8-6 victory, with the help of some nice bonus plays including SUPERCAR and
TAPADERO. The closest match, and the only one to go all the way featured Richard Evans
and Greg Kelly. Richard was always ahead, but Greg battled all the way. After 12 games
Richard led 7.5–4.5, meaning that Greg had to win the last three games; moreover, he needed
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