Casinorip.com British Open, 2010

Report by Michael Crane

Have you heard the one about the Irishman, the Scotsman, and the Brit? Well, the joke is, they are all the same person! Prior to the weekend's finalé, two entrants had won the Irish and the Scottish Opens, Adrian Jones and Sean Casey; and one of them went on to win the triple and present me with this neat little opener!

Main (57). Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer; the final of the British Open was between Sean Casey and Paul Gilbertson, and it was a good match to watch, both players being equally strong with the dice rolls often deciding the outcome rather than expert play. One benefit of using a video camera to record matches is that you are able to see just how long some of the moves take to play. For example, how long would it take you to play in the this position? Sean is on roll and he is playing as black.

11 point match
Black 1 White 0
Black to play 55

He was a full 59 seconds before he even touched a checker. He then went through a choice of plays: 23/13(2); 23/18(2), 8/3(2); 23/18, 8/3(3). He then went back to his first choice, 23/13(2), thought for 10 seconds and then hit the clock. It took him 2m 7s to play this 55 - a play that Snowie rated a large error, preferring 23/18(2) 8/3(2).

A little later, during the bearoff he was in this position:

Black to play 41

Here his choice was: to hit, or not to hit, that is the question! He looked and looked and looked and, after 1m 48s he decided that the hitting play, 5/4*, 4/0 was the best - and Snowie concurred.

Much later in the match Paul shipped across a 2-cube hoping to cash in this position:

Black 8 White 6
White cube action

Paul thought quite a while before shipping across this cube, counting before doing so. Sean paid it equal attention, also counting, before taking. This is a blunder according to Snowie; Paul was a little surprised at the take but was happy to see it accepted (later Sean admitted that he'd miscounted), after all, he was over 80% at the time. But - and I know you're expecting a 'but' - Paul didn't figure on Sean's two double-sixes during the bearoff that allowed him to recube to 4, a cube that Paul just couldn't take. The score moved to 10-6 Crawford to Sean, and he went on to win the match at 11-6.

Snowie rated them both 'advanced' and made Sean the slight favourite @ 50.46%; however, Sean's luck rate was quite large @ 16.474, and when a player of Sean's skill level gets 'lucky dice' he's almost impossible to beat. See the Snowie stats here.

So, who was laughing at the joke about the Irishman, the Scotsman and the Brit? The Irishman, Sean Casey! Well, that's not strictly true - Sean wasn't in the Winner-Takes-All prize fund so we have a rollover of £420 for the County Cups Swiss format in May . . . so we had the last laugh.

Sean Casey - British Open Champion 2010

Paul Gilbertson, Main Runner-up	Losing Semi-finalists, Julian Minwalla & Paul Barwick

Consolation (53). Adrian Jones didn't become a joke after all, but he did the next best thing if you can't win the Main, he won the Consolation. Knocked out of the Main 1st Round by Dorothy Lee (a good scalp for Dorothy), Adrian went into the 1st Round of the non-progressive side and fought his way through six opponents to face Peter Bennet who came from the Progressive side. Peter had three tough draws on the way, Brendan Burgess (winner of four Biba Mains), Brian Lever (also winner of four Biba Mains, two of which were British Opens!), and then Stewart Pemberton (2010 Scottish Open winner). He looked good for the Consolation too. Here he is playing as black:

7 point match
Black 3 White 0
Black cube action

Peter recubes to 4 looking for a couple of points . . . and Adrian takes! Adrian is now relying on rolling any double greater than 22 or on Peter not bearing off first. This is what Peter has to say about it: I can roll 33 or better on my first roll, winning immediately which happens 4/36 of the time = 11.1%. If I fail Adrian needs 33 or better giving him 88.9% x 11.1% = 9.9% winning chances from this sequence.

But, the other way for Adrian to win is not for me to roll any consecutive 1s. It is, specifically, for me to roll 21 followed by any 1, OR any 1 (except 21 which has already been counted) followed by 21, which is considerably less than ANY consecutive aces. This is:

(1/18 x 8/9 x 11/36) + (9/36 x 8/9 x 1/18) = 1.5% +1.2% = 2.7% approximately.

This does not take account of the fact that Adrian can fail to bear off in two rolls, but that only reduces it to about 2.6%. This gives Adrian a total of about 12.5% (9.9+2.6) match winning chances if he takes. If he passes he has about a 15% or 16% chance (depending which match equity table you use) of winning from 0-5 down to 7, so he should have passed.

At the table Adrian said he made the mistake of thinking I could fail with any consecutive aces (about 9%). If that had been the case it would have been a comfortable take - the double would have been questionable.

All I did at the table was see that his 33 or better gave Adrian about 11% as a first approximation, adjusted slightly downwards for me rolling 33 or better first, and slightly upwards for me failing in 2 rolls. I knew this had to be well under 15% in total and therefore a pass, so I doubled. Unfortunately for me, after I bore off two men, Adrian remembered to recube to 8 (the sort of thing I have forgotten to do in the past in the heat of the moment!), and rolled a very economical 33 for the match!!
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Consolation: Adrian & Peter	Last Chance: Irving & Stuart	RIP: Liz & Mardi

Meanwhile, the Last Chance (32) saw Irving Czechowicz beat Vicki Pemberton and Stuart Mann beat Billy Sharp in the semis, each victor hoping to win the trophy. Stuart couldn't stop Irving as he reached ahead to take home his first ever Biba trophy. Well done, Irv. Over in the RIP (32) Mardi Ohannessian beat Peter Finnimore and Liz Perry beat Marcus Wrinch in their semis, and in the final Liz was pipped to the post by Mardi. She was delighted to win a trophy, and very pleased to take 2nd prize in the pool!

The Team (13) saw George Miltiadou beat me in the final (he was lucky!). Cecilia Sparke beat Vaidas Novicenko in the final of the Crackshot (57); and in the Poker (23) Andy Darby came out on top with Rosey Bensley 2nd and Simon K Jones 3rd. Overall, Vicki Pemberton retains her #1 spot while Mark Calderbank drops to #3 as Lawrence Powell replaces him at #2. Tony Fawcett stays at #4, and Phil Tutchings is knocked out of the Top Five by Andy. Andy is our first qualifier, and a quick glance at his scores will reveal he's got some very low scores to replace - this puts him in a good position to improve. In the Friday 500 (31) Peter Bennet beat Andreas Sophocleous in the Final. Overall, Andy Darby (yep, him again!) keeps his #1 slot and Nicky Check and Myke Wignall swap places. Brian Lever and Rosey Bensley come in and we lose Ed Turner and Ann Pocknell. With the bottom five each on 16 points there's a good chance that next month some of them will be out of the Top 16.

We also had a sweepstake on the Grand National and Irving and I backed the winner. I didn't even know my horse was leading until the last few yards when I saw No.6 flash by on the screen! Result!

Finally. I am grateful for the Irish contingent turning out, they are a strong team and they were delighted to see Sean become the 2010 British Open champion. I was also pleased to see Billy Sharp and John Frame; unable to attend the Scottish Open on their own doorstep due to a Stag Party (no contest, really!) they drove hundreds of miles south to enter the British Open - thanks, guys, good to see you both again. Also, thanks to the event sponsor, Casinorip for the great trophies. Unfortunately they were not present at this event but they plan to be at the Biba World Championships in July.

And I can't go without saying goodbye to John Hedge. John and wife, Svetlana, are returning to Australia at the end of April. A regular attendee of Biba tournaments, John has become a friend and Sharen and I have enjoyed their company during many dinners together. He'll be missed by all of us, but, he did take a load of email address and he intends to keep in touch from down-under via the web. Take care, John, and keep in touch.

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