11th WCF Golf Croquet World Championship

##Stephen Mulliner v Jared Keeman - game 3 - second round##

Good morning world. sorry to join the action rather late, but I'm here for the day now, and there will be a couple feature matches today

We join the final round 2 match in a very late stage. Jared Keeman (NZ) won the first game 7-5, but Stephen came back strongly , 7-1 in the second.

Game 3 and it looks like Jared's concentration is gone, and Evan reports it's Atkins hoops 1, Jared 0 at the moment. He had first shot at hoop 1 and a couple of goes at hoop 2, but finds himself 3-0 down after a few missed roquets. Still plenty of time to come back though

Blue takes angled position at 4. Yellow is 10 yards back, red takes 4 yard position. Black plays in front, but angled.

At 3-0 up, Stephen declines the easy in-off opportunity off yellow, clearing blue. That'll teach him - blue plays back up blocking red.

Red has a longish jump for the same in-off or straight hoop - runs it with a wee fist - 4-0

Keeman takes angled position at 5. Yellow plays inside it - can be cleared anywhere. Blue clears yellow

Red snicks black out of position, but doesn't move it far, and red is on the boundary

For those who heard about Amir's trip yesterday, there's a lovely picture of him with a black eye on facebook, but it sounds like he's fine otherwise. I hope we'll see him later today

Keeman takes good position at 5. yellow misses, blue plays to block, and Stephen plays up to the peg.

Jared has run hoop 5 with lots of wire. Only goes through by 3 yards. The casual-player part of the crowd applauds. I used to hate it when that happened. 4-1

It looked like Jared was blocked on hoop with black after the other balls played up, but no - he has a shot... bounces out of the jaws - was a decent shot.

Yellow clears blue, and it's not looking good for the kiwi

Shoots at what appeared to be a double target - hits the wire of the hoop. 5-1

black takes position, yellow takes position, blue clears yellow. Evan explains that red is "never going to miss black". Red misses black.

Black plays into the jaws. - Stephen has a 7 yard jump with yellow...

Takes position. Red is a few yards up from the middle of the west boundary.

Blue plays in short.

Red shoots ... misses.

5-2

Hoop 8 is surrounded. time to find a good hoop stroke...

Bounces to slight blocking position. Stephen will be jumping

No - has a clear shot - runs hoop 8 for a 6-2 lead.

Takes angled position at 9. Red takes good 2 yard straight position. Black is short, and yellow misses the clearance. Jared fails hoop 9 by 3 yards.... this for the match...

walks back... press-up...

Runs it nicely.

In an impartial observation from Evan Newell, "games even with the absolute tip-top players have to be 15-20% longer with the Atkins hoops, because more hoops are failed".

A very very interesting observation. My analysis of 800 games from the 2008 world champs in South Africa came out with an average duration of 42 minutes per game. That, and the % of games where the match went to 2-1 or 2-0, argued for an easy 4 matches per lawn per day. This is still a reasonable number of matches to aim for, but managers to have to be careful.

##Bowl - Anne Quinn v Phillip Drew##

Everyone left lawn 1, so I headed around the shelter to find some more action. Quarters don't seem to be starting yet - I think they're 1pm.

Found an exciting end to a game.. Phillip v Anne in the first round of the bowl... Phil won the first 7-3. Anne was always behind in the second, but Phil rushed her through hoop 12. She took decent position at 13. Phil cleared. Phil got nicely in front of hoop 13. Anne cleared well from the boundary, and it came down to Anne having a 7 yarder on a hoop i found incredibly firm yesterday against Reg... smoothly through!! The match is now poised at 1-1.

Game 3.. might as well pass some time here.

Somehow Anne has got herself the first go at hoop 1... runs a 3 yard hoop up to 2y north of hoop 2. Described earlier as a "nuggety player", remember that Anne took a game off Ahmed El Mahdi yesterday.

We're still on hoop 2, where Phil had a good position, but Anne has fought back to make it more neutral.

Now we're sorted - noone anywhere near hoop 2. yellow cleared blue, if Anne can nail this return at blue in the middle she'll be favourite here.

Hits it, but blue continues away from the hoop a bit as well. Yelliow is south of hoop 6.

Well, that's that sorted - Anne runs a really long hoop 2 with virtually no wire - 2-0

Phil has just run a rather angled hoop 3 down to hoop 4, and is about to level the game. 2-1

Red's in the jaws of 4, and Phil has a longish shot to peel it and go near 5... gets the peel, but yellow is near the south boundary below 1. He'll be pleased to bring it back to 2-2

Blue fails to get position at 5, red's in front (or maybe it cleared - Igot distracted by some nice folks who have just started playing croquet)

Black misses the clearance, yellow plays to position.

Blue's attempt to dribble into the jaws bounces off, and it's 3-2 to Phillip

Red runs hoop 5 to just north of the peg.

Black's too far again - bit north of the line of the hoop. yellow takes position in an easy-to-clear spot, blue takes position.

Red clears black to the north boundary. Phil's taking control now.

Phillip runs hoop 6 with yellow 4-2

Just when you think she's in trouble, Anne has run hoop 7 4-3 to Phillip - nice long hoop, but only run by about 3 yards

These lawns must be getting quicker, as this time it's Phillip who isn't in front of hoop 1 - is 5 feet to the side. The width we can blame a bit on the general slope at this venue, but the depth is error.

Black plays in very short. Yellow takes straight 2 yard position.

Blue is shooting at something... hits the middle of yellow and nearly rush-peels it. Saved by the special no-run Atkins hoops. Blue runs on to near the wire, but red has cleared it to the east boundary next to hoop 4

Black needs to run this very long hoop...

Runs about a 7 yard hoop!! 4-4. I could have done with that hoop stroke against Reg yesterday - a few went through, but less than half at that distance!

Yellow takes 3 yard slightly angled position at 9. Blue's over that way having been cleared to there by Red, and it'll be taking on its 6 yard clearance. Nuggety. Anne's a decent golfer too. I think that helps with hitting these nice big colourful balls - certainly taking up golf appears to have done good things for my golf croquet!

Red takes decent angled position. About 3 feet back, but it looks runnable. Good to see Phillip's end-face is still secured - one departed the mallet during our top GC invitation event earlier this season.

Black plays in - goes too far. Yellow takes good position

Blue clears red from some distance - Phil now has a clearance on black towards corner 2 which will win him the vital 9th hoop...

Doesn't get all of it, but Anne now has a 10 yarder. Red's in the middle of the west boundary, so hitting this would be strong.

Hits! Equally importantly - Anne's ball has gone off the south boundary nearly in line with hoop 9!

Yellow takes position well - blue needs to clear this from the short boundary. Turning into a quality game here

Nope - blue takes position - might have blocked herself on clearing yellow AND the hoop though. It'd be rude to go an peek, so i'll just wait a bit..

Red takes position - nearly nudges blue out of the way!

Nope - she can see something - probably the hoop...

Snicks blue, but clears yellow. Blue probably not really runnable, and red is waiting right in front of the hoop, so Phil's probably 53% favourite here .

yellow shoots and misses. Chewing gum packet placed to mark where it went on the boundary....

Lining up a very angled hoop ..will need to hit this well. ..

Blue bounces back - not quite in front of the hoop, and red runs a good hoop up towards hoop 10 - that could be decisive.

Black takes position at 9

yellow takes decent angled position, blue is short

red has an easy clearance here...

oops - bit more moving around and Phil goes up 5-4. Anne levels things with a long in-off at hoop 10, and my work emails are up to date. Time to focus...

We've had a few good shots at hoop 11, Phil is now in control...but Anne has a 10.5 yard hoop stroke...

Bounces off teh wire. Red for the lead...

Runs it well past the peg Phillip leads 6-5

I'll have a break after thsi match to ensure things are fully charged for the quarters, and to let my poor computer cool down.

red's all over hoop 12 - it will be hard for Anne to rescue this match

That's a rather good start... black takes tight position - yellow tries to clear - almost has the same error as the last game - bounces black off the jaws of the hoop!!

Black might be able to get into the jaws, red is quite a long way back adn has a clear shot, and blue has played in badly - over hit. Yelow is harmlessly on the est boundary

red at the hoop...

Phillip wins 7-5

Im' off to recharge adn get an early lunch.