Newswink 26 • 9 March 1992

Larry Kahn

This year there were several surprises even before the start of the first round. Sunshine made his first Singles appearance since the 1979 Singles and Marg Henninge decided to try playing with the biggies for the first time ever. Jim Marlin was late as usual only this time he was so late that he hasn’t played his first game yet. This left us on a field of 8, with the usual other 6 of Larry Kahn, Dave Lockwood, Rick Tucker, Brad Schaefer, Bob Henninge, and Mac McAvoy. Dave flew in for the weekend from London and apparently only made it because his flight was late. He only spent something like 30 hours in DC, almost half of that at the tournament. We decided on a full round plus top four playoff, slightly shorter than normal, since Dave had to leave early on Sunday to fly back.

The first round went as expected with Larry, Bob, and * taking 6’s off Mac, Brad, and Marg. The random draw set up the Dave Larry game in the next round, and after Larry brought in one color perfectly, he potted out. Excellent Dave potting saved 2 points. Meanwhile, Bob got another 6 to take the early lead. The next two rounds went as expected, Larry getting an undeserved 7 off * along the way. In the 5th round, Brad played extremely well and took 6 off Larry. Dave kept rolling with another 6 (off Mac) and took the lead. Larry recovered in the next round with a 6 off Bob and now it began to look like the usual race, with Dave and Larry battling it out, although the trio of *, Bob, and Brad were closer behind than in past years. In round 7 there were two surprises, one medium sized and one the mother of all upsets. Mac beat Rick 4-3 and then Marg took Larry 6-1 in a regular squop game, making all her critical shots. At this point it looked like the tournament had been handed to Dave, who was playing really well with another win, 5-2 over *. This game saw * use a questionable strategy (also as a partial protest against Dave’s slow play), never officially ruled out in NATwA. He decided that his best chance was to take the full 30 seconds before the clock could be stopped by Dave each time, even on bring-ins. This practice was immediately outlawed that evening and we now conform to the ETwA ruling on deliberate stalling.

So, with one round to go (rounds got screwed up because of the Jim problem), there were 5 potential finalists with only Dave certain: Dave had 31 in 7, Larry had 26 in 7, * had 28 in 8, Bob had 26 in 7, and Brad had 25 in 7. Larry, feeling he needed to really push it, tried for and got 7 from Rick. Brad took 6 off Mac to get in, and Bob now needed 2 off Dave to tie *. He just got it, at which point * decided not to try and go on, allowing Bob to go through uncontested. This left Dave on 36, Larry on 33, Brad on 31, and Bob on 28. Close.

The finals were held on Sunday, with anyone being able to win it. The first round pairings were Larry-Brad and Dave-Bob. Larry reversed the first encounter results with a 6-1 win and now had to wait for the other game. By rounds, Dave had boondocked all Bob’s yellows to the edge in an attempt for a 7. This unorthodox strategy worked and he upped his total lead to 4. Next, Bob played Larry really tough and looked like he was actually going to win the game after Larry had one of those disaster type shots. He recovered soon after with a miracle shot and now had a chance for a win. Bob potted well with his one leading color but Larry barely caught him with some good potting in the last round to escape with a 4. Dave was still playing Brad, and would lead by whatever he got in that game. Through the third round it looked like 6, but in the 4th a 5-inch pot attempt bounced out backwards and destroyed one of Dave’s doubles. Brad was able to exploit this incredibly bad luck by playing perfectly in the 5th to set up a possible win. Dave missed relatively easy pots with both colors in the fifth after having potted extremely well throughout the tournament to leave himself with a disgusted 3.

This only served as the preliminary for what came next. Brad held off Bob, getting the required 2 for 3rd. Meanwhile Larry needed 5 to tie. The game started off rather positionally, with both players setting up pot threats. Larry accidentally squopped a big blue from the line with a yellow, but this was in an area with blues only. Green had 6 free but with a little on a red very near the cup, and a big on both of these. Red was also in good position. Here it comes:

Dave brings his last blue in, knocking the little yellow off and leaving 6 blues free. Green goes for the potout, gets the 5 in but potting the big off the squop does not move the little enough and the pot is now nearly impossible. Larry decides to click off safe, about 10 inches from the cup and at least a foot from any Dave winks. Reds are all free, relatively near the cup, several surrounding a yellow. Yellows are also all free, but one little is touching the cup and one big is about 16 inches away. Red decides to pot, but misses his hardest one long. Yellow resquops the big blue to prevent that potout and Dave now has to squop the green from 12 inches with the other big. He does it! Red can now take a yellow, go out and protect, or continue to pot. He tries a pot and misses short on another red, making it nontrivial to pot. Yellow can either try for the squop with a big from about 10 inches or (gulp) go for the pot. Larry decides the pot is the best bet (given the way red missed) and makes the three easy close ones but misses the totally nurdled one. Dave now tries a 1½” inch squop of the little yellow on the big blue but misses short (is this 1984 all over again?), leaving himself on the blue Start of page 14″“on the far side of the cup and knocking the yellow angled down on the near side (squop about 3 inches from cup). Red continues potting, making one and then missing, figuring he’ll have at least 2 more turns to do it in. WRONG!! Larry makes the pot off the squop, then the easy one, and lines up the 16 inches big. After a brief moment of indecision on which squidger to use, he knocks it straight in, much to Dave’s disbelief of the last three rounds. It really did appear to both players that Dave had the tournament won after the blue squop of green. Both players are obviously drained but there are still some very important shots to play. After a round of misses, Larry makes the last green for the 7 and another miracle finish at Dave’s expense. I only wish we had the final few games on tape; this is the kind of stuff we need to make winks a real spectator sport.

Some irrelevant notes: Bob and * should have had a playoff game. Bob’s NATwA total after the tournament was 699. Dave went over 700. Brad needed to make a short squop in the last game to prevent any fractional scores for the whole tournament. Marg in her first Singles finished 5th averaging slightly over 2.