Return of the Missing Wink 4 • November 1976

Pages 20 and 21

The Pairs’ Tournament final game fit that new NATwA tradition—a close race for a major title complete with a last game between the two contenders with many interested spectators on hand. Dave and TDI must win at least 5-2 over Sev and Larry or it’s all over.

Severin won the crucial squidge-off. The first action almost came in the third round but both Sev (B) and then Dave (G) disdained squopping each other from 2 inches in favor of bringing in winks from the line. Larry (R) supplied the first mistake by going off the table in the fourth, B the first squop in the fifth, and TDI (Y) the first threat with 6 pottable winks.

After 9 rounds and 7 minutes, Y has a possible blitz but since they hold the stronger position, G&Y decide not to be dramatic. From this point till the end of the game G&Y will use the entire 30 seconds on almost every turn, R&B usually about 20 seconds. R, experiencing difficulty executing his shots (going off the table twice) was heard to mutter “Goddamn! What the hell am I doing? Goddamn!” But B kept providing R with winks with a fine display of middle and long range squopping. By the 15th round only 9 minutes remain. R&B are engaging in a fringe attack, trying to get position while ignoring the major squops. G&Y respond with careful and accurate defensive play. “I want a shot judge on this one” says G in the 17th before a R shot.

“Come on Dave, don’t be an asshole” retorts B. With 2 minutes left confusion finally arrived. A secondary pile is disturbed after a shot and it’s not clear what did it. Decision says it was only Sev’s hand and the pile is replaced. At this stage G is in trouble and the needed 5-2 for the tie might be troublesome. Y continues to show his bristoling talents as the 20th round ends regulation.

In the 1st round, approaches, squops, and bristols all failed, but in the 2nd G picked up a tempo with a long shot knocking B off of a triple. At this point a spectator quietly noted that G needs to bring in his boondocked wink to aid in the race for 3rd place. The match starts to swing towards R&B as a 2 round sub by Y costs a free G wink via color order. In the 3rd, G fails to see his boondocked wink and boondocks a B in order to give himself a wink to play with. R once again misplays a shot (“I’ve been playing like horsemeat”) and fails to boondock a Y. Y finally tries a pot attempt and misses a 4 incher badly. Ferd astutely remarked that “Rounds have not been marked by sterling play”. B and G bring in boondocked winks and R, desiring to secure second place, pots a wink to open the 4th round. At this stage Y has 3 pottable and 1 capable of all sorts of things, G has 2 pottable, R has 1 in, 2 pottable, and 1 wink capable of freeing another, and B has 1 pottable, 1 squopping but pottable and yet another squopping in a bristoling position, aimed at the big yellow on a pile.

R&B are willing to [sic original=”conceed” correct=”concede”] Y 1st and R goes after a G. Y sets up some 5th round dramatics by dropping one and then squopping a red double, hoping to be able to pot-desquop either a G or a Y in the 5th if necessary. B increases the drama by trying a pot and landing over 8 inches from the pot. R alertly remarks, concerning Y, “He can pot that and squop you and you’d be sucked.”

The 5th round took only 25 minutes to complete and necessitated the use of the Somerville Consensus through averaging mechanism. G has 2 going on 6, R has 6 with a good shot at 9 or even 11, Y has 6 and can do a variety of things for up to 11, and B has 3 and can go to 5 or even 7 by potting off a G. If G pots and then squops a R, Y should have 1st but B would need only to pot from 8 inches for 3rd, a 4-3 loss, and the title. G, fearful of Severin, decides to pot both, which should clinch at least a tie for 3rd but also gives R a good shot at 1st . Then chaos poked out its head and put agape its cavernous mouth, engulfing the game in a haze of contention. G potted from 4 inches and then his second shot, from 8 inches, goes in but a green wink bounces out. Dave examined the wink, compared it to the one still in the pot, and somewhat positively identified the bounced out wink as the “fat wink” that had gone in on the shot before.

The decision was made to play the game out and see if it made a difference which wink came out.

R, fulfilling a Ferd prediction that he would attempt to throw the game to a 5-2 loss, thus necessitating the playing of his 200th career game, missed a 3 inch pot, blaming it on the depsyche caused by the [sic original=”prievious” correct=”previous”] problem.

At this point the tension was growing and fighting broke out among the spectators with Ferd and * engaging in a shoving match.

Here the following colloquy occurred:

G: What would you (B) do if we free the yellow?

B: Pot the wink.

Y: l’m going to pot.

G: I’m afraid in your potting that yellow, the red will cover the other yellow.

Y: You’re going to worry about that?

Ferd: Let’s assign Charles to worry about that.

G: Maybe B will miss the pot.

Y: B is Severin, he’s not going to miss.

B: What?

So now the scoring is Y=6, R=6, G=6 or 4, and B=3. So it also is decision time before B’s last turn after Y decides not to try any potting and simply frees a yellow to give him 7.

The four players caucused and decided to give the seven spectators the final decision within the framework of 3 options. l) The wink, is in, 2) The wink is out, and 3) G should do the shot over. The 7 decide to use the following [sic original=”proceedure” correct=”procedure”]. We would each state, by secret ballot, our belief of the probability that the wink that bounced out was different from the one shot. If the average of those probabilities was over 75%, the wink was in. If it were below 25%, the wink was out. Otherwise G would shoot over. And the average was 28%, G was given second life, and this time the wink was unquestionably potted. Now it was the last turn of the game, Severin’s turn.

B has several ways to try for a 2⅓ – 4⅔ loss that would win the tournament. He can try a long bristol onto a Y that would result in a 3 way tie at 6, providing he stayed on a G.

Or he could pot his big wink from 8 inches and then pot off of G, producing a 7-7-7-6 final score. The potting seemed easier.

B calmly dropped both of them to win the tournament by ⅔ of a point.

Hands were shaken all around and Larry expressed what I believe was the feeling held by everyone present during the game when he turned to Severin and said, “Thanks for pulling my fucking ass out of the fire.”