Open Midweek AC B-Level Advanced Tournament

This year's tournament was at full capacity with 16 entrants, split by Dgrade (and as it happens, also by handicap) into two independent blocks, an 'A' block of 10 in a Flexible Swiss format and an all-play-all 'B' block of 6, the latter played with 3-hour time-limits per game.

Both blocks were well-contested with numerous close finishes and last-minute changes of fortune. One example was in a game between Geoff Johnson and John Smallbone late in the evening of the first day. With a ball having been pegged out and with John for rover and peg, Geoff gained the innings and made it to rover, which he then failed off John's peg ball. John duly dispatched Geoff to near corner III and set up with his partner ball close to rover. Geoff shot from III at the two balls near rover, missed both, but ran rover instead by a couple of feet! - for an easy +3 finish. Also on the first evening with one ball already for peg, Charlie Martin was sailing round on a finishing break against Heather Bennett, with Heather's balls then for penult and rover, until he also failed a short hoop at rover with all the balls nearby. Heather hit in with her backward ball and was able to make penult and a rover peel to win +3.

The closest finish however was in the game between Geoff Johnson and Andrew Dutton on the second day. Geoff pegged both Andrew and himself out to leave a 2-ball finish with his second ball laid up in front of rover, and Andrew's second ball - then for 4-back - near corner IV. Andrew hit the long roquet and made an excellent long roll up to 4-back to make 4-back and penult on a 2-ball break, but then failed rover to one side. There then followed a situation which had the manager scrabbling for a Laws book to check the rules on impasse; but the potential impasse was finally resolved when Geoff shot and missed at a sliver of a ball hiding the other side of rover. Andrew then hit Geoff, but again failed rover, so Geoff hit Andrew, dispatched him to near hoop 2, but stuck in the jaws of rover himself. Andrew shot from distance, hitting the wire of rover and ending up a couple of yards behind and to the side of rover... but Geoff's ball had been knock through rover by a foot in the process! Since the shot had not been watched by an umpire a question arose as to whether Geoff's ball had been moved by Andrew's ball or by the hoop. Following a test the RoT concluded that it could not have been moved there by the hoop, so the roquet (and the peel!) was given, leaving Andrew an easy hoop approach and +1 finish.

The final outcome in both blocks depended on the results of the last round. In the 'A' block, what looked like it should be the decider between Andrew Dutton and Charlie Martin turned into a more complicated scenario when it became apparent that if Andrew won AND if Peter Rothwell beat Stephen Allen then Andrew and Peter would both be tied on 4/5 wins, without having played each other. And so it transpired. The "Matchpoints" tie-breaker also failed to separate them, leaving it to the next tie-breaker "Win Quality". On this measure Peter emerged the tournament winner by virtue of having beaten opponents with more wins than the tally of wins by the players that Andrew had beaten. Meanwhile in the 'B' block the results meant that the lead was also shared between Simon Turner, André Machell and Alex Lever, each on 3/5 wins; but in this case the outcome was easier to resolve because André had beaten both Simon and Alex in their individual encounters, so André won the block.