AEBBA National Off The Spot 2023

[StuC]

Congratulations to Kevin Tunstall who beat Mark James in the Final. KT came off early (not for the first time on the day in his break leg) but Mark was unable to get them back and Kev made the highest break of the day of 15,380 to lead by 18k. Mark conceded when missing early in response.

Losing semi-finalists were Joe Oakley and Matt Jones.

The plate final was won by Jean Brackenridge who beat Chris Tupper on the last ball.

Without wanting to copy and paste too much from what I have written for the Sussex Off The Spot. Thank you to Nigel Senior, Jean Brackenridge and Matthew Knight for their help both before the event and on the day.

Thank you to Stuart Mepham for setting-up the tables and to Stu, John Slee, Iain Tarrant and Steve Hopkins for helping move the tables on Friday afternoon. Again the tables were challenging due to the conditions having an affect and a couple of tables needing a bit of work done of them.
Also a massive thank you to all those for helped take the tables down and get us out of the hall before the dancers arrived. As said we are looking at options to avoid this problem in future years.

Thank you to the club for hosting us, and to Kirstie for providing the food.

Finally thank you to all the players for supporting the event and making it a good day.

[tommo III]

A great day, and once again a huge thank-you to all involved in the organisation. And good to see the usual contingent from the remote counties of Oxon and Bucks.
Well done to all the prize winners, especially to Jean - awesome in winning the Plate.
Both Plate finalists and one of the Main finalists came from Group A - a definite Group of Death which also contained Fitz (2nd) and Nigel (3rd).
Good to see the evergreen Cliff Slade having a good run, and the Jordans getting through their group.

A new local hero was found in Lee Cable, aka "Moose": inspired from Sleezy sponsorship, he was able to put the nightmare of the previous day (where he didn't win a game) behind him - qualifying from his group and going on to make the Last 16.
Finally, well done to the 'main' winner KT. .... the World Champ looked bulletproof all day, although the previous one (Traffs) ran him close in their quarter-final game.
 

[SirKT]

Thanks Tommo for your generous words. As for bulletproof, I could confidently say that applied in Jersey last year but yesterday I gave good chances away in the quarter finals onwards, even the final where Mark did get them back straight away but let me back in to make a good score. Maybe I should try those tactics more often………not !
Thanks to all the organisers for their hard work and all the volunteer scorers which meant we didn’t run too late.