I was not available to see any of the above tournament played at our club but thank Ken Hayward for writing the following report on the event.
Two days of brilliant sunshine with no wind made the 16 teams in the Q B Pairs very happy. While the events was advertised as a mixed event there were in fact a few single-sex teams taking part. The draw for the first day was done on a random basis and the teams each played three games of 15 ends. At the end of the day the teams were placed into four sections of four teams depending on the positions at the end of the first day’s play according the number of wins recorded and differential points.
The leading team on the first day was that of Dave and Ra Walker (Central) who took out the prize for top qualifier. The other teams who made it into the top four were Gary Wylie and Neil Bovey of Central, and the Levin teams of Jim Bagnall and Julie Stichbury, and Murray Griffin and Susan Boxall. These four teams then played a round robin on the second day to determine the big money.
On the second day Dave and Ra Walker lost their first game and drew their second to effectively shut them out of the top prize. Gary Wylie and Neil Bovey won their first two games and the final outcome came down to the final game when they played Jim Bagnall and Julie Stichbury, who had also chalked up two wins. In a tight game where the scores remained close over the course of the game Jim and Julie prevailed, a great result for a junior pairing who had never previously played together and only did so after putting their names down as spares. Well done Jim and Julie.
In the second section Henry Yee from Whitby ran out the winner with Rob Cotter and Mark his partner from the Wairarapa as runners up. In the third section the winners were Rex Holmes and Margaret Mackay while Heather Stempa and Len Timms of Otaki won the fourth section.