Now in its third year, the Winter Challenge is an opportunity for lower-rated players to get automatic entry to the Winter Masters, as well as being a no-masters-allowed tournament of 16 games. The excitement and tension in the room were as high as any top-level tournament I've attended.
Close games were everywhere - the first result slip to come in was a draw between Glenn Holmes, playing his first tournament in nearlyy three years, and Liz Jackman. The number of wins under 5 points was more than I had ever seen.
The tournament's highest rated players didn't start out so well, and it was the middle of the field which impressed early on - Denise Smith was fastest out of the blocks, leading until beaten by Stuart Pridham. Stuart held the lead for two rounds before losing to Jeff Chelton in the last game of day 1, allowing Denise back into the lead with 8/9.
The late start on day 2, 10:10am obviously suited Jeff, who immediately knocked off Denise, who then also lost to Don Hadley. Don put together quite a run of wins on day 2, troubling most of the contenders. Jenny Templeton and Jyoti Chandna began to make advances through the field as well.
The last round saw Denise back in the front - the only player on 11 wins out of 15 after Stuart, leading again, lost to Don Hadley in the penultimate game. Jyoti Chandna was the best of those on 10 games. Denise had to play Sharon Sorensen, who had started slowly but was finishing quickly, Jyoti had Rocky Sharma, who had put together a nice run replete with a lot of fine bonus words, Stuart played 2004 Champion Nonie English, and Jenny faced Natalie Tadday. Denise would win the tournament if she won the last game, but everything else was up in the air.
Jenny beat Natalie to secure a placing in the first of these to finish. When Rocky took a mid-game lead over Jyoti with SOREDIA, it looked like he would jump up into the prizes. But Jyoti rallied to win the game by a solitary point, and moved to the lead, just ahead of Jenny. Sharon beat Denise to stop her from winning first place, and give Sharon a chance at the top five. But she was thwarted by Jeff Chelton beating Vicki Underhill to slip a game ahead, albeit behind on spread.
The last result to come in was Stuart vs Nonie - and Stuart needed to win by at least 26 points to pass Jyoti. It turned out the game had already finished but no slip had been signed! But the slip eventually made it into my hands and the result was that Stuart beat Nonie 458-388 to inch ahead of Jyoti on spread and claim the $500 prize for first.
Well done Stuart. Jyoti came second and scored a very creditable 126 point rating gain. Jenny unfortunately had to leave before she could be presented with her certificate and prize. Denise, who had led for much of the tournament, was happy with her fourth place along with the high word, 104 for QUIETEST. Despite a couple of late 101s from Don (RETAXES) and Natalie (BEASTLY), that 104 stood for most of the event. Daphne Bezuidenhout snared the high game with 557 on day 1, and it didn't come close to being topped - the only two other 500 games were 505 from Jyoti and, in a last-minute blaze of glory, remarking all the while "Why couldn't I have played like that all weekend?", Donna MacDonald's last-game 515.
The raffle generated a lot of interest, particularly coveted was another original painting by Dianne MacDonald. Janine Whittaker won, and was the envy of many. Her ticket was actually drawn out by event co-organiser Jean Balmer. The draw was completely legal, though, honest.
The pick of the played words in my opinion, would be the tricky-to-spot ESCARGOT and PEGASUS (I didn't even know the latter was allowed), and Jean Balmer's 10-letter bonus, (REV)ITALISE, the only word that had me scurrying for Chambers to verify.
Aside from that, most adjudications were very minor - a few clock disputes and some rescoring in a game where the first move failed to cover the star, and the weekend ran extremely smoothly - with only 38 entrants, it basically ran itself. Those who didn't come missed a great weekend.
Results after game 16 23.07.2006 Winter Challenge -- OPEN Rank Player Wins Mar --------------------------------- 1 Stuart Pridham 11 657 2 Jyoti Chandna 11 613 3 Jenny Templeton 11 594 4 Denise Smith 11 495 5 Jeff Chelton 11 319 6 Sharon Sorensen 10 565 7 Anne Schick 10 404 8 Don Hadley 10 349 9 Rocky Sharma 10 325 10 Jean Balmer 10 70 11 Sherie Brown 9 234 12 Janine Whittaker 9 59 13 Colleen Walker 9 23 14 Sue Tuckett 9 -4 15 Donna MacDonald 8.5 249 16 Nonie English 8 297 17 Ann Fiddler 8 203 18 Natalie Tadday 8 179 19 Margaret Andrews 8 157 20 Sunny Wright 8 151 21 Vicki Underhill 8 35 22 Bev Purkis 8 -170 23 Mary Craven 8 -184 24 Esther Rolfe 8 -474 25 Glenn Holmes 7.5 179 26 Liz Jackman 7.5 128 27 George Khamis 7 304 28 Daphne Bezuidenhout 7 112 29 Therese Newman 7 -158 30 Veena Mohe 7 -305 31 Diana Hilly 7 -351 32 Joy Bresser 7 -513 33 La'reine Lang 7 -603 34 Vi Phillips 6 -469 35 Edith Lowbeer 5 -445 36 Joy Smith 4.5 -340 37 Maree Heynen 2 -656 38 Diana Field 1 -2029 HIGH GAME: Daphne Bezuidenhout 557 HIGH WORD: Denise Smith 104 "QUIETEST" Stats for Tournament : 23.07.2006 WIN CHAL +--------------------------+-----------+---------+-----------+---------------+ | state Name | National | State | Wins | Rating Points | | | Old New | Old New | Exp Act | Old Change New| +--------------------------+-----------+---------+-----------+---------------+ +Section: *WINTER CHAL + + + + +--------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------------+ | QLD Stuart Pridham | 282 275 | 35 35 | 10.2 11.0 | 1236 +18 1254 | | NSW Jyoti Chandna | 427 324 | 100 74 | 5.6 11.0 | 1046+126 1172 | | NSW Denise Smith | 325 285 | 74 60 | 8.3 11.0 | 1167 +56 1223 | | NSW Jenny Templeton | 264 257 | 58 56 | 10.6 11.0 | 1269 +9 1278 | | NSW Jeff Chelton | 247 242 | 54 53 | 10.7 11.0 | 1288 +6 1294 | | NSW Rocky Sharma | 307 286 | 68 61 | 8.5 10.0 | 1192 +31 1223 | | NSW Don Hadley | 391 341 | 93 80 | 7.3 10.0 | 1094 +54 1148 | | NSW Sharon Sorensen | 287 303 | 62 68 | 11.2 10.0 | 1221 -25 1196 | | ACT Anne Schick | 297 295 | 9 9 | 9.7 10.0 | 1202 +6 1208 | | NSW Jean Balmer | 301 290 | 67 64 | 9.3 10.0 | 1199 +14 1213 | | NSW Colleen Walker | 309 313 | 69 71 | 9.2 9.0 | 1186 -4 1182 | | NSW Sherie Brown | 445 410 | 109 98 | 7.0 9.0 | 1032 +40 1072 | | NSW Sue Tuckett | 462 422 | 115 101 | 7.0 9.0 | 1015 +40 1055 | | NSW Janine Whittaker | 334 342 | 79 81 | 9.5 9.0 | 1157 -10 1147 | | NSW Donna MacDonald | 246 297 | 53 66 | 12.9 8.5 | 1289 -86 1203 | | NSW Nonie English | 329 363 | 76 83 | 9.8 8.0 | 1162 -36 1126 | | NSW Vicki Underhill | 372 387 | 84 90 | 9.0 8.0 | 1117 -19 1098 | | NSW Margaret Andrews | 377 369 | 86 84 | 7.8 8.0 | 1113 +6 1119 | | NSW Natalie Tadday | 288 301 | 63 67 | 9.1 8.0 | 1220 -21 1199 | | NSW Sunny Wright | 370 396 | 83 93 | 9.4 8.0 | 1117 -28 1089 | | ACT Mary Craven | 605 524 | 16 15 | 4.4 8.0 | 889 +72 961 | | NSW Ann Fiddler | 380 409 | 88 97 | 9.9 8.0 | 1110 -38 1072 | | NSW Bev Purkis | 385 405 | 91 95 | 9.4 8.0 | 1105 -28 1077 | | NSW Esther Rolfe | 479 463 | 118 116 | 7.2 8.0 | 999 +16 1015 | | NSW Glenn Holmes | 0 643 | 0 152 | 5.0 7.5 | 807 +49 856 | | NSW Liz Jackman | 367 419 | 82 100 | 10.3 7.5 | 1119 -57 1062 | | NSW George Khamis | 438 440 | 105 107 | 7.0 7.0 | 1037 -1 1036 | | NSW Therese Newman | 272 334 | 60 78 | 12.0 7.0 | 1257-101 1156 | | NSW Daphne Bezuidenhout | 477 496 | 117 119 | 7.9 7.0 | 1001 -17 984 | | NSW Veena Mohe | 488 540 | 120 124 | 9.5 7.0 | 992 -49 943 | | NSW Diana Hilly | 744 678 | 177 160 | 4.8 7.0 | 787 +44 831 | | ACT Joy Bresser | 705 648 | 18 17 | 4.9 7.0 | 811 +42 853 | | NSW La'reine Lang | 789 706 | 187 168 | 4.0 7.0 | 751 +61 812 | | NSW Vi Phillips | 546 577 | 128 135 | 7.2 6.0 | 936 -24 912 | | NSW Edith Lowbeer | 597 637 | 140 151 | 6.8 5.0 | 897 -37 860 | | NSW Joy Smith | 831 824 | 199 197 | 4.1 4.5 | 722 +8 730 | | NSW Maree Heynen | 636 757 | 152 183 | 6.0 2.0 | 862 -80 782 | | NSW Diana Field | 1132 1228 | 289 321 | 1.4 1.0 | 500 -7 493 | +-------------------------------------+---------+-----------+----------------+