Tuesday Night Fights

Tuesday Night Fights
The House of Pain was Rockin' for the first Tuesday night fight of July as 28 players came to duke it out...That includes Scott Parker, former Senior Champ, who acted as filler in the first round, taking on the late arriving High Plains Drifter. That will not be possible next week as a late entrant will have to take a half point bye. The House received a phone call from Damir Studen, in Philly for the World Open. One night a short time ago, Otto Fox, who came by after work last night to play a few speed games with John Williams, came in to find that Damir had not had a particularly good result. "That means he will be under 2200 for the World Open!", Otto exclaimed. That could explain Damir's indifferent results in the TNF lately, I suppose...Damir wanted to know all the details of the TNF.There he is, in Philadelphia with thousans of dollars for the taking, and all he can think about is what’s happening at the HOP! While the cat's away... With a win over up and coming David Bernat in the last round, Lester Bedell was the leader in the clubhouse. He was hoping for draws on the top two boards; Bomar-Vest & Piper-Bledsoe. The Drifter managed to stop the hard-luck Calvin Bomar. I say hard-luck because just the other week he was also 2-0 and had to face Damir Studen in the final round. He had a good game, too, but with his seconds rapidly dwindling, Mr Studen began banging the clock, at one point knocking it over. He also knocked over Mr Bomar's pieces, yet hit his clock without placing them in the correct position, leaving that for Mr Bomar. Let that be a lesson. If your opponent knocks over your pieces and hits the clock, immediately START HIS CLOCK! When in doubt, ALWAYS find a TD!On board two, Piper was down to less than ten seconds, which is plenty of time to a speed demon like Alan! Spencer dropped a pawn needlessly, and then another. I expected him to fold, but was was surprised when he "hunkered down" using his king to stop one pawn and then giving up his knight for the other, to draw the game. It was a beautiful thing to see! Mr Piper was incredulous and Mumtaz who was spectating while waiting for Alan to play speed, was speechless, if you can imagine that! Alan and Spencer cashed in for $7. David Vest, who, because he played a much higher rated opponent in the first round in Mr Parker, certainly earned the $30 he collected, along with Lester Bedell, who had the easier pairings. That’s why we call it the Swiss system. It’s got some holes in it! A total of nine, one third of the players entered, got into the prize fund! Four players, Christopher Roberts; Nick Nikley; Eric Lu; and James Norman, tied for the under prize with 2 points. Speaking of Mr Norman…Last week he took a half point bye in round one so that he could go to the Go club meeting at Ga Tech. I’ve been in touch with the American Go Association and we may start having a Go night at the HOP. Let us know if you would be interested…Terry Krohe, aka "Woody", with his upset over "B" player James Stack in the first round, gained the most points, 39. Richard Lin gained 24, and even Bob Peatman managed to pick-up 20. Carter “Pinky” Peatman saw his dad’s last round scoresheet to his game with Mr Coney and said that he insisted Bob put his first name on it, as he did not want anyone to mistake it for one of his games, as Bob was completely lost at one point!Remember...Next week the EF goes to $6 for members and $10 for non-members. You MUST pay before being paired! If you call ahead, we will make a note of it, but you will NOT be paired. So please, get there early so we can avoid the crush of humanity we experienced this week.