Grand Prix 2012

[enzo]

Congrats Kevin and Jean, some great games and scores all day. Phil, you never cease to amaze me, 22k on that table, wow! :o

[milko]

Well done Kevin on your win, after seeing Phil play superbly to get nearly 20,000 before I left I really thought he would win it but you showed your true class yet again....brilliant!


How Group D was won....

Series 1 (Table 4)
Tom v Paul
Tom led by a couple of thousand early on but once Paul eventually got the break back he made no mistake to win 0-2 and take the 2 pts.

Henry v Keith
Henry went in with nearly 14,000, I then finished it off with just under 3,000 to be 10,800 behind after the 1st leg. I then opened with 9,900 but Henry played the rest of the time out to deservedly win the 2 pts.

Series 2 (Table 5)
Keith v Tom
After losing my first match I needed to get as much aggregate as I could. This I did by playing the 1st leg out with over 20,000 and after Tom missed early I played it out again for an agg of over 40,000....Sorry Tom but I did owe you one after losing my other two matches against you!

Paul v Henry
Both players unbeaten after the 1st series so the victor would be in a strong position in the group.
Paul came off early and Henry took control to win the 1st leg by 7,860? H then went in with 4,000 with Paul replying with about 1,500, H then got some more to leave Paul needing nearly 12,000 he then gave chase to reach over 11,000 in quick time to leave the “poor old checker” having a panic attack so he asked someone else to work out the scores for him :-[, thankfully Jean came over and worked the difference out for him...Thanks a lot Jean :-*
Anyway it worked out that Paul was over 900 behind with the bar down so H won on agg to win the 2 pts.

This meant that Henry just had to beat Tom to win the group and this he did in style.

Series 3
Henry v Tom (Table 6)
I don’t know for certain but I think H played the table out with 19,000 in the 1st leg and I’ve no idea about the 2nd leg but that would have been too much for Tom.....2 pts to H

Paul v Keith (Table 2)
We both struggled early on, on this top but eventually we both got to grips with it with me taking the 1st leg by about 9,000. In the 2nd leg I went in with 9,500 only to see Paul show his class to chase it down with a break of over 10,000.


Well played Henry you were top class in our group 8-)  


Now one question, in the last three years of this competition who is the only player (twice) of the top 4 seeds that has not won his group to qualify for the Semi Finals ?.................................... ::) :-[    

[H]

Thanks for the kind comments Keith.

May I just say I found every table I played on during the day first class, even the one I messed up on against Kevin in the semi final. A huge contrast to how the AEBBA set used to be - I had never been a fan. Each table was different and had its quirks, but they were all very very playable. Well done and many thanks to Sav, Dave and everyone else involved!!