Sun 29th April Report by Arthur
Eight players contested the Ashby heat of the charity one-ball competition on an overcast and cold day, with a breeze but fortunately no rain. This year the charity is the Down’s Syndrome Association, and players were encouraged to wear green, although preference was given to warmth during the actual games. The Ashby heat was run using the ‘One Ball Plus’ version of the game developed by Mike and others to improve the interactiveness of the game. This worked well with both players getting plenty of play in all the games, and everyone winning at least one game. The format was one incomplete block of 4 rounds, arranged so that everyone got to play a reasonable spread of opponent ability, and ordered so that the top two ranked players met in the last round. We played with a one-hour time limit and 10 of the 16 games were completed.
3 players ended up with 3 or more wins. Adam Wheatley was the stand-out player in terms of winning games beyond his ranking with 3 wins. He was pipped for 2nd place by Mick Haytack who completed (to 13 points) two winning games against Adam’s one. Arthur Rowe ended up with 4 wins after a close battle with Mick in the last round, not reflected in the final score as Arthur was able to make a couple of decisive breaks quite late on in the game after Mick had not quite got a wired position. Judith is, as expected, ‘delighted’ to be hosting the Gnome trophy for another year!
Overall placings:
1st Arthur 4 wins
2nd Mick 3 wins
3rd Adam 3 wins
4th Mike 2 wins
Heather, Richard, Martin and Derek: 1 win each
Our club heat has raised £50 (plus Gift Aid) in donations for the Down’s Syndrome Association. Arthur is not available for the national One Ball final at Surbiton on May 13th, so Adam will be our representative there.