Report by Martin Barkwill, captain of UK Blitz, Saturday 30th April 2016:
Fifteen
teams entered the event, including Japan, USA, Denmark, Ukraine, Rest
of the World, two from Germany, two from Russia, two from Georgia, two
from Armenia & two from the UK.
The
format was triple elimination. As soon as any team loses three matches
they are eliminated until eventually only one team is left standing.
Each team had five players plus up to two reserves. All matches were
played to nine points.
The
UK chose to enter two teams of six however our challenge started with a
disaster when the plane arriving into Manchester for two of our players
was struck by lightning & delayed for a safety inspection. This
meant the two players; Tim Cross, captain of UK Prime & Mark
Calderbank, top board of UK Blitz, would miss the connecting flight in
Munich to take them on to Tbilisi. Unfortunately it was impracticable
for the two players to travel on the delayed flight as strike action at
Munich airport meant the earliest they would arrive in Tbilisi would be
too late for the team event.
Regrettably the loss of Mark was severely felt by the Blitz team who were
eliminated in the early rounds. This was no disgrace as a very strong
Japan team including Mochy, Michy & Akiko Yazawa, arguably the three
strongest players in the world, also took an early bath as did USA.
The
Prime team however just kept winning. USA were felled in the first
round, then Germany 2nd team, followed by Russia 1st team, then Armenia,
Georgia, Ukraine & it was not until the 8th round that the UK
juggernaught was brought to a halt by the Russian 2nd team. By this
stage only three teams were left & UK Prime had to play Russia 2
again however this time they triumphed to set up a final with Russia 1.
As
Russia 1 had lost two matches by this stage & UK Prime only one,
Russia 1 would have to win twice to lift the trophy. If UK Prime won the
match, this would be sufficient. The match played on Thursday night was
extremely close & at 2-2 it appeared to be going our way as in the
last match tied at 8-8 between Raj of UK Prime & Sergey, the Russian
player could only win with 55 or 66. Out of the dice cup popped 66!
This
meant that the players had to meet on Friday morning for the last
session of the final. Once again the match was tied at 2-2 with Raj
& Sergei the last match to finish. Raj was leading 8-7 & held
the advantage bearing off. On the last roll Sergey needed 33 or better
to level at 8-8 however on this occasion lightning did not strike twice
& the UK had won a memorable victory.
Congratulations
to Raj Jansari (UK Prime acting captain), Seb Wilkinson, Lawrence Powell, Chris Rogers & Leo
Waters each of whom played a gruelling eleven matches against some of
the strongest players in the world & ended victorious. Although he
was unable to be present, a large part of the success is due to Tim
Cross, captain of the UK online & live teams as he was responsible
for recruiting the team & getting everyone motivated. The online
team has also recently achieved a high finish in international
competition.
The two UK teams
The final, just as it's about to start
The UK Prime team who came through victorious, 3-2
