A great performance from Gareth Hobby to secure him the runner-up position in the CA All England AC Handicap Finals at Chester last weekend of Sept 16/17th.
He gives an enthusiastic account of his most interesting game;
I was playing against Bryan Harral who has a handicap of -0.5. We’d played in Surbiton when I had two more bisques and had used them all to basically keep him off the lawn. This time, he had his tactics worked out. I put him in first, but found myself 11 hoops down before I’d even got my second ball into play – it was a pleasure to watch such controlled play as he took his ball round in a three-ball break.
I had no option but to burn bisques, used two and a half of them to set up a four ball break and then another three to take my first ball round to Rover. I then scattered the four balls to close to the four corners as my ‘leave’.
After Bryan narrowly missed his 40 yard hit-in, I then burnt more bisques, using a further three to again setup a four ball break. I was playing really well but needed all my remaining bisques to take my second ball to Rover, run the peel (as per the photos) and successfully peg both balls out.
Poor Bryan had played a perfect game, but still ended up losing by 15 hoops – it can be a cruel game.
Gareth sets up his first ever Rover peel and then puts it through to peg out both balls and win the match from 11 points down before playing his second shot!
Gareth (14H) won 4 out his 5 matches, as did the winner, but the match he lost was to the final winner Anne Alvey (12H). They each had an equal number, 30, of winning hoops. Gareth now comes down to a 12 Handicap. The 2 day final was played in a 5 round Swiss Format (first game a random draw, then winner played winner, loser played loser) 26 point games limited to 2.5 hours and full bisques from a base of 10 used.
