Verdemat British Open

This competition is one of 10 organised annually by the Short Mat Players Tour (SMPT) and the only one held locally in York (Y&D IBC) where it is played out over a full weekend. This year the 192 entrants included 11 players from North Yorkshire, most competing for the first time. Initially all entrants are randomly drawn into 1 of  32 groups (of 6 players) and play matches against the other 5 in their group. After these have been played out during Saturday and Sunday morning, the resulting overall positions determine whether players then take part in the knockout phase for the CUP (top 64), the PLATE (next 64) or the SHIELD (bottom 64). All games are over 12 ends using 4 woods.

Bronagh Toleman and Lawrence Moffat were both undefeated in their groups so reached the CUP knockouts where they both had a run of 3 wins to reach the Quarter-finals and their only defeat.

In the PLATE, David Brown and Peter Arthur both lost their first KO game whilst Rod Dawson and Aaron Kaya went one better to reach the last 32 before their day came to an end. Lee Toleman went a stage further before losing in the last 16.

In the SHIELD knockouts, Dave Hunton lost his first game, whilst Jean Bridges lost her second. Both Roger Green and Bekir Kaya had a good run of 3 wins to reach the last 8 before their luck also ran out. 

WORLD RANKINGS: 6 of the SMTP competitions are designated “World Ranking Events”. Players are awarded points depending on their level of success in each of these. Points awarded in the knockout part of each competition are greater in the CUP than in the PLATE and points gained in the PLATE are greater than in the SHIELD. For example reaching the final 8 in the CUP is worth 100 points, in the PLATE, 40 points but only 9 points in the SHIELD.  After the weekend our players world ranking status is as follows.

Bronagh=30th   Lawrence=50th   Lee=65th   Rod=406th   Aaron=460th   DaveB=472nd
Pete=477th    Roger=508th    Bekir=579th    Jean=614th    DaveH=711th.