Alternative Rules Result

[NigelS]

Steven Sheard has won the alternative rules in Reading earlier today. Steven beat teamamte Ray Sturgess in Round 2, then overcame Phil Hawkins (from 500 down), Gerry Fitzjohn (very close by 20 points), Mark Trafford and virgin national finalist Mal Spier in the final.

The final was controlled by Steven from early on and he built a 1,030 cushion going into leg 2. With 3 minutes to go this lead remained intact but Mal started to chance his arm and with a 600 break in 3 shots and then another 800 break going with the bar down (mainly thanks to getting 2 reds down the 200) he was in with a chance of making a great comeback. However he left himself one ball just left of the 10 hole and needed to hit it off the side cushion. a bit too much backspin saw it go through the white peg handing the title to Steven.

Mal had shocked teammate KT in the semis and also beat Dave May (from 800 behind), Pauline Withey and Geoff Jukes on his way to the final.

35 players turned up for the event (1 up on last year) but still a disappointing entry for an open. Milko made it but had to play me in the first round and we made it exciting for the spectators by going to the last ball, Milko missing the 200 and me getting the 100 to win. The other big cash in Round 1 was between the champ Brian Daniels and number 1 KT. KT winning through comfortably. He ammassed a string of breaks before losing to Mal, he had 1,830, 1,690 & 1,530 and none of those were bettered by anyone, although there were 4 others of 1,000+.

The plate was won by Ray Sturgess who beat Dave May, interestingly Steven (winner) beat Ray (plate winner) and Mal (runner up) beat Dave (plate runner up) in the first round.

[davemay]

Nigel,

That statistic must surely be a first, where the winner, and runner up in the plate competition were beaten by the respective winner, and runner up in the main competition. As we have come to expect from you as the Tournament Director, everything was as smooth as silk, and a very enjoyable day all round. Congratulations on another successful competition that you have organised. My congratulations to steven, and to Ray, who had the better of me on a tricky table 5 in the plate final.

Dave May

[NigelS]

davemay said:

Nigel,

That statistic must surely be a first, where the winner, and runner up in the plate competition were beaten by the respective winner, and runner up in the main competition.

Dave May

Agree that is probably a unique occurance - certainly for a 32+ player tournament

Also will add having compiled the results there was some very impressive scoring for these rules not only from KT (2 scores over 4k) but 19 players (of the 35) made at least one leg score over 2k earning all of them at least 0.1 ranking point for their days work. And there was no less than 18 breaks of 700+