c4countdown

9 out of 10 qualifying games have been played so I'm going to bring forward the draw for the first round to tonight at 10:25pm. The deadline for these first round games will be 10pm on 12th March.

Here is the draw.

Mark Deeks - Peter Lee
Jon O'Neill - Thomas Cappleman
Kirk Bevins - James Roper
Graeme Cole - Gevin Chapwell
Adam Gillard - Josh Hurst
Rob Foster - Oli Moore
Ryan Taylor - Edwin Mead
Eoin Monaghan - Chris Hare
Richard Priest - Phil Collinge
Marcus Hares - Chris Butler
James Robinson - Matt Morrison or Bob De Caux
Jon Corby - Ian Volante
Mark Tournoff - Dylan Taylor
Andy Platt - Martin Long
Innis Carson - Scott Gillies
Oliver Garner - Matt Bayfield

Good luck to everyone playing.

I barely scraped by Scott Gillies after two tense games, both going to crucials:

Me 107-95 Scott
Me 87-75 Scott

Been trying to sort things with Bob, Ben. Think he's available tomorrow so it should be sorted then. If not please give him a bye.

Result:

Marcus Hares 95 - 75 Chris Butler http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=641130
Marcus Hares 104 - 84 Chris Butler http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=641140

All qualifying matches are done (Cheers Bob & Matt ) and all round 1 games bar the two reported above are on the tournament system.

Apterous Masters Round 1

James Robinson 1 - 2 Bob De Caux

Game 1: Bob De Caux 95 - 105 James Robinson

A 13 v 14 maxer, exceptional.

Game 2: James Robinson 114 - 131 Bob De Caux

BDC's first ever human v human max game. If I was just half a second quicker with the conundrum, the whole complexion would've been different. EXCEPTIONAL

Game 3: Bob De Caux 100 - 94 James Robinson

A 13 maxer from BDC won it, but if only I went for MEASURER, the result again would have been different.

Between us, we maxed all 45 rounds in these games. Quite impressive for round 1.

Best of luck to you, Bob. You deserve it mate.

Only just realised how brutal the draw for the first round was at the top end. 6 of the top 7 players from the latest Pro Ranks entered the tournament (3 had to qualify), and they all got drawn against each other - 1 (IC) vs 7 (SG), 3 (AG) vs 4 (JH) and 5 (BDC) vs 6 (JR). Anyway, it will be very tough to beat Bob vs James for match quality in this tournament. I spectated for all 3 games and it was exceptional.

Chris Hare 2 - 1 Eoin Monaghan

Congratulations to Chris, definitely deserved to go through:

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=643736
http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=643748
http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=643756

The third game started very badly for me and the game was more or less over by round 5. We both considered uploaders^ but I didn't risk it and Chris did. This gave me a glimmer of hope. I knew in round 13 I had to win the round and was going to risk FUGATOS but typed in figatos^ by mistake . Thankfully, it wasn't costly and Chris deservedly took the victory.

Disappointing for myself to go out at this early stage but I'm glad I was given an invitation, congratulations again Chris and good luck in the next round(s).

I'm going to take a break from Apterous for a while now.

Phil Collinge 2-0 Richard Priest

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=644742
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=644763

I'm a bit out of practise lately and had initial reservations about entering the tournament at all, and had a total mare today. But all credit to Phil who played very well and IMO has improved a lot.

Martin Long has sadly had to withdraw due to real-life commitments, advancing Andy Platt into round 2. Taylor-Tournoff will be played at the weekend, meaning I can do the draw for the 2nd round tonight.

So I WILL do the draw tonight. At 10:45pm, to be precise.

Round 2 draw is as goes-

Phil Collinge - Rob Foster
Jon Corby - Chris Hare
Marcus Hares - Thomas Cappleman
Bob De Caux - Andy Platt
Kirk Bevins or James Roper - Ryan Taylor
Mark Tournoff - Adam Gillard
Innis Carson - Graeme Cole
Mark Deeks - Oliver Garner

It will be live on the tournament system on Monday but feel free to play now if you want.

Edit: Oh, and the deadline is 10pm on 19th March.

Innis showed me how to play Countdown:

Innis 120 - 58 Graeme
Innis 141 - 109 Graeme (max game)
Innis 107 - 91 Graeme

The latter game contained the only round I managed to beat Innis on, and only because he misread the selection. All the best in the rest of the tournament, Innis.

Oliver Garner beat me 3-1:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=648209 = bugger
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=648217 = bugger
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=648233 = COMEBACK'S ON!
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=648243 = bugger

All R2 games are either underway or scheduled, so the quarter-final draw will be done on the completion of the Gillard-Tournoff match (which is taking place right now).

Edit: done. The draw goes:

Kirk Bevins - Marcus Hares
Adam Gillard - Oliver Garner
Jon Corby or Chris Hare - Rob Foster
Andy Platt or Bob De Caux - Innis Carson

Deadline is Monday 26th for quarter-final games. Good luck all!

Quarter-finals: Bob De Caux 4-3 Innis Carson

Bob-110-98 Innis
Innis 107-90 Bob
Innis 129-112 Bob
Innis 99-95 Bob
Bob 116-93 Innis
Bob 134-124 Innis
Bob 106-103 Innis

Just a brilliant series of games. Could tell right from the start that I was in for a very hard time, particularly when it was Bob's choice of numbers! The only thing preventing Bob from steamrolling me was the conundrums, but he pulled it out when it came to the one than really mattered.

It's worth noting that Bob had 14/14 maxes before the conundrum on two consecutive games. Fantastic standard.

Thanks for the games Bob, best of luck with the rest of the tourney.

Thanks Innis - cracking set of games and just lucky for me that the crucial conundrum was the first time I've ever seen one before you!

Kirk/Marcus is taking place as we speak, we're at game 4 and Kirk currently leads 2-1. The semi-final draw will take place once the match is over.

Edit: Now done.

Kirk plays Bob
Adam plays Jon or Rob

Jon Corby beat Rob Foster 4-3

Rob 97-105 Jon
Jon 85-92 Rob
Rob 109-99 Jon
Jon 98-107 Rob
Rob 78-102 Jon
Jon 100-86 Rob
Rob 96-113 Jon

Great games Jon, best of luck in the semis!

Jon and I should be starting our semi-final shortly and continuing a similar time tomorrow evening if necessary.

Congrats to Adam. Kirk and I are playing our semi final next Wednesday at 8.30pm.

Bob De Caux wrote:Congrats to Adam. Kirk and I are playing our semi final next Wednesday at 8.30pm.

Just a reminder to everyone this is going ahead tonight- and to Bob & Kirk that the games aren't still in the tournament system so you'll need to challenge manually.

Congratulations to Bob on making the final. We've scheduled it for 8pm on Tue 10 April 2012.

Cheers Adam. I edged past Kirk 5-3, after he was 3-1 up.

Bob 118-112 Kirk
Kirk 98-96 Bob
Bob 90-97 Kirk
Kirk 124-123 Bob
Bob 109-89 Kirk
Kirk 94-127 Bob
Bob 104-93 Kirk
Kirk 86-103 Bob

Thanks Kirk, great games

Reminder that the Apterous Masters 2012 best-of-11 Grand Final is due to start in about an hour

Congratulations to the 2012 masters champion Bob De Caux, coming from 4-1 down to beat Adam 6-4 in an extremely tight and exciting series of games. Bob is the first qualifier to ever win the tournament- needless to say, he won't need to qualify next year (i think for the winner the on-screen/co event rule can be waived).

Thanks to Charlie's new feature, all the games from the 2012 masters have been archived for you to enjoy. As have all the games from the 2011 masters.

See you all next February for Apterous Masters VI!

Ben Wilson wrote:Congratulations to the 2012 masters champion Bob De Caux, coming from 4-1 down to beat Adam 6-4 in an extremely tight and exciting series of games. Bob is the first qualifier to ever win the tournament- needless to say, he won't need to qualify next year (i think for the winner the on-screen/co event rule can be waived).

Really good tournament. Good work all involved.

Ben Wilson wrote:Thanks to Charlie's new feature, all the games from the 2012 masters have been archived for you to enjoy. As have all the games from the 2011 masters.

This makes me very happy.

Congratulations Bob. I always knew you'd end up taking over the world. And as a finalist myself in this tournament, I have to say it was very enjoyable.

Cheers Ben and thanks for organising the tournament. I had exceptionally tough but enjoyable games in every round and can't quite believe I managed to squeeze through all of them. Hopefully I'll manage to make it along to one of the CO events within the next year, so you might not need to change the entry requirements (or then again you might if I perform terribly!)