Winter Masters - 21st & 22nd July 2001


Two last minute withdrawals saw this years field of 41 players reduced to 39. Audrey Newman was still jetlagged* following her return from the UK, while Ros Gibbons unfortunately was hospitalized on the eve of the event. All players present conveyed their best wishes to Ros by signing a card and sending flowers with John Barker who travelled to Wollongong to be by her side straight after the event.

Rotating boards were in force, with all boards brought by players anchored to tables one through seven, to avoid the previously experienced confusion caused by moving boards from table to table. Table 1 was especially significant as this carried the board left to the NSW players by Marie Knight who sadly passed away in June. The Marie Knight Memorial Board will continue to occupy table 1 in future NSW tournaments.

We reverted to the old faithful Henry Lawson House, over the road from the recently refurbished Revesby Workers Club. It seems the demolition of this building is being forever postponed, to the extent that plans are afoot to transfer the NSW Championships back to this venue. Moana Nepia, an ex- Australian Champion (check it out on www.scrabble.org.au) made her comeback after four years and was to acquit herself extremely well.

The early leaders were John Foley and Robyn Flynn. Betty Coleman and Raya Wilkinson also enjoyed a stint at the top tables but fell back towards the end of the event. To her credit, Robyn Flynn stayed in contention all the way and was vying for fourth place in the final KOH round. Joan won that game to take fourth, while John Foley beat me in the final game to relegate me to fifth place and take third himself. John is headed to Melbourne in a couple of weeks time, and may play the occasional tournament in that town.

But the main action at the end of the event was between two of Australia's four WSC contestants, John Holgate and Paul Cleary. Going into the last three KOH rounds, John was half a game clear of Paul. After winning the first KOH, John was then one and a half games clear and only needed one more win to take the shield. As it turned out, Paul won the second KOH in a nail-biter, then romped home in the last game courtesy of a series of dream racks to take the title for the third year in a row.

Earlier on a miscalculation in the end game on my part had led me to convert a certain win into a draw against Paul, while QA* (unchallenged) and UY* were seen on the two top tables in the final rounds. The point of this is that the mind plays tricks on you in these types of the event, and sometimes that can be costly.

An innovation tried at this tournament was for players to record their plays of nine letter words or more. Here are the nine-letter (or more) word plays that were declared at this event: (lower case represents the word already on the board)

TENTERinG  Joan Rosenthal
REWINDerS  Cheryl Michler
INelEGANT  Paul Cleary
ReSIDENTs  Esther Perrins
DIScounted Penny Wells
PASTORinG  Peter Shaw
Report from Paul Cleary - VP, organisor, victor

Revesby was again the venue for this year's NSW Winter Masters comp playable by all over 1300 at time of entry. We had a field of 39 after some late withdrawals and were thus able to set up the following prize structure while running to budget (...more or less!)-

1.  $300
2.  $200
3.  $150
4.  $100
5.  $50
High Word $50
High Game $50
High Ratings Gain  $50
We got off to a latish start but given that there were only 20 min per side, we soon made good time and could afford some decent breaks for bargain-price meals at the relevant times.

Early readers were John Foley and Robyn Flynn with Paul Cleary on top at the end of day 1 after Round 12 in which he scored the tournament High Game of 628. That game included his High Word, BLaDDE~R~S, for 167, PATRICO (75) PEAVIES (83) and SWEETIES (85).

One unusual thing about this tournament was the fact that 5 games were tied in the earlier rounds - this created quite an interesting situation approaching the KOTH rounds, as a draw effectively nullifies the effect of one's spread (except of course for those on the same number of wins and draws!)

Day 2 saw the final 9 games played, the last 3 of which were King of the Hill. The lead swung a bit on day 2 with John Holgate drawing away to a 1.5 game lead at one stage.1

Going into the KOTH rounds, John Holgate was half a game clear of Paul, so that assuming those 2 players played three games together, whoever won 2 of them would win the comp.

John won the first of these games in a beautiful 455 to 409 game. Paul took the second game 463 to 442 in a cliff-hanger to draw within half a game of John with 1 game to go.

And in the final round, Paul "got the lot" to take out the comp for the third year running.

Some lower probability plays spotted in the tourney:

DATABUS
ZOOECIUM
HAIDUKS
GROOVILY
EMBOWER
MESTIZA (120 points)
BEINNESS
TABOOING (140 points)
We also had a list for lonnnggg words as a bit of a novelty. Some of the words that made it onto this list were REWINDERS(~ER~) by Cheryl Michler, DIS-COUNTED (Penny Wells), INELEGANT(~EL~) (Paul Cleary), T-ERRORIST (John Holgate) and RESIDENTS(~E~,~S) (Esther Perrins).

Thanks to Liz and Bob Jackman (as always) for their parts in organising this comp and to Pat Rae, Betty Foreman, Cheryl Michler and Joanne Craig and anyone else unintentionally omitted for lending a hand too.



Results after game 21

Rank Player            Wins     Mar
---------------------------------
  1  Paul Cleary         15.5  1095
  2  John Holgate        15    1054
  3  John Foley          15     406
  4  Joan Rosenthal      14     487
  5  Bob Jackman         13.5  1339
  6  Esther Perrins      13     822
  7  Robyn Flynn         13     673
  8  Carmel Dodd         13     384
  9  Anne Drew           12     852
 10  Jean McGiffen       12     789
 11  Olga Visser         12     334
 12  Matte Dunn          12    -153
 13  Joanne Craig        11.5   650
 14  Betty Foreman       11.5  -238
 15  Moana Nepia         11.5  -337
 16  Patricia Mitchell   11     -86
 17  Betty Coleman       11     -92
 18  Sue Gergelifi       11    -139
 19  Jean Noonan         11    -365
 20  John Barker         10.5   326
 21  Graeme Lock Lee     10     418
 22  Karen Richards      10     346
 23  Peter Shaw          10     -28
 24  Alison Pollard      10    -134
 25  Kris Logan          10    -359
 26  Cheryl Michler      10    -403
 27  Penny Wells         10    -404
 28  Gary Pollard         9.5  -510
 29  Jan Serisier         9      29
 30  Trish Windhurst      9     -55
 31  Paul Richards        9    -254
 32  Gloria Gallagher     9    -539
 33  Nonie English        9    -783
 34  Norma Tracey         9    -826
 35  Raya Wilkinson       8.5  -931
 36  Elizabeth Ho         8    -784
 37  Sam Greenberg        8    -826
 38  Judy Hay             7   -1063
 39  Hanne Marks          6    -674
 40  A Bye                0     -21
HIGH GAME: Paul Cleary       628
HIGH WORD: Paul Cleary       167
            "BLADDERS"

Stats for Tournament : 2001 WINTER MASTERS

+--------------------------+-----------+---------+-----------+---------------+
| state     Name           | National  | State   |   Wins    | Rating Points |
|                          | Old  New  | Old New | Exp  Act  | Old Change New|
+--------------------------+-----------+---------+-----------+---------------+
+Section: *MASTERS                     +         +           +               +
+--------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------------+
| NSW Paul Cleary          |    4    3 |   2   1 | 15.7 15.5 | 1883  -3 1880 |
| NSW John Holgate         |    7    7 |   3   3 | 13.8 15.0 | 1822 +19 1841 |
| NSW John Foley           |    9    8 |   5   4 | 14.3 15.0 | 1783 +14 1797 |
| NSW Joan Rosenthal       |    8    9 |   4   5 | 14.5 14.0 | 1790  -9 1781 |
| NSW Bob Jackman          |    2    4 |   1   2 | 16.8 13.5 | 1924 -53 1871 |
| NSW Esther Perrins       |   11   13 |   7   7 | 13.7 13.0 | 1771 -14 1757 |
| SA  Carmel Dodd          |   33   21 |   2   2 | 11.8 13.0 | 1660 +23 1683 |
| NSW Robyn Flynn          |   52   25 |  16   9 |  8.2 13.0 | 1582 +97 1679 |
| NSW Jean McGiffen        |   27   29 |  11  11 | 12.1 12.0 | 1676  -3 1673 |
| QLD Anne Drew            |   37   36 |   4   5 | 11.7 12.0 | 1646  +7 1653 |
| QLD Olga Visser          |   41   33 |   5   4 |  9.6 12.0 | 1618 +47 1665 |
| TAS Matte Dunn           |   57   61 |   2   2 | 12.3 12.0 | 1578  -5 1573 |
| NSW Joanne Craig         |   16   26 |   8  10 | 14.8 11.5 | 1744 -67 1677 |
| NSW Moana Nepia          |    0   43 |   0  15 | 14.1 11.5 | 1662 -52 1610 |
| NSW Betty Foreman        |  158  103 |  46  27 |  6.8 11.5 | 1407 +95 1502 |
| VIC Patricia Mitchell    |   59   94 |  30  50 | 13.8 11.0 | 1576 -57 1519 |
| NSW Betty Coleman        |  143  105 |  41  28 |  8.2 11.0 | 1440 +57 1497 |
| NSW Sue Gergelifi        |  104   66 |  26  18 |  7.4 11.0 | 1496 +72 1568 |
| NSW Jean Noonan          |  110   98 |  28  25 | 10.0 11.0 | 1492 +19 1511 |
| NSW John Barker          |   19   30 |   9  12 | 12.6 10.5 | 1710 -43 1667 |
| QLD Karen Richards       |   78   87 |   8   8 | 10.9 10.0 | 1547 -18 1529 |
| NSW Graeme Lock Lee      |   29   45 |  12  16 | 13.0 10.0 | 1669 -61 1608 |
| NSW Peter Shaw           |   38   57 |  14  17 | 12.8 10.0 | 1632 -55 1577 |
| NSW Alison Pollard       |   98  119 |  25  32 | 11.4 10.0 | 1508 -28 1480 |
| NSW Penny Wells          |  207  166 |  53  49 |  7.0 10.0 | 1337 +59 1396 |
| NSW Kris Logan           |  124  137 |  34  38 | 11.0 10.0 | 1473 -20 1453 |
| NSW Cheryl Michler       |  192  141 |  50  40 |  5.7 10.0 | 1360 +86 1446 |
| NSW Gary Pollard         |  217  189 |  55  53 |  7.1  9.5 | 1321 +48 1369 |
| NSW Jan Serisier         |   87  142 |  21  41 | 13.2  9.0 | 1529 -84 1445 |
| NSW Trish Windhurst      |  111  145 |  29  43 | 11.7  9.0 | 1492 -55 1437 |
| QLD Paul Richards        |  103  109 |   9   9 |  9.1  9.0 | 1497  -2 1495 |
| NSW Gloria Gallagher     |  128  136 |  36  37 |  9.7  9.0 | 1466 -13 1453 |
| NSW Norma Tracey         |  126  157 |  35  47 | 11.9  9.0 | 1467 -58 1409 |
| NSW Nonie English        |  264  227 |  65  59 |  5.8  9.0 | 1251 +64 1315 |
| NSW Raya Wilkinson       |  230  181 |  58  51 |  4.6  8.5 | 1301 +79 1380 |
| NSW Elizabeth Ho         |  205  210 |  52  56 |  8.5  8.0 | 1339  -9 1330 |
| NSW Sam Greenberg        |  266  240 |  66  61 |  6.0  8.0 | 1247 +40 1287 |
| NSW Judy Hay             |  260  263 |  63  66 |  6.7  7.0 | 1256  +7 1263 |
| NSW Hanne Marks          |  141  209 |  40  55 | 11.8  6.0 | 1449 -116
1333 |