I hope that you didn’t forget to set your clocks one hour forward on Saturday evening and showed up on time Sunday morning. Then, when you arrived to the Marin pétanque field there is no doubt in my mind that you must have exclaimed: Leapin’ lizards, what a beautiful court!
Well compadres, you owe it all to a bunch of club volunteers who spent the best of Thursday morning toiling on your behalf.
These lovely people are (yes, yes I must name them) Charles Davantes, Liv Kraft, Christine Lemor-Drake, Henry Wessel, Calvert Barron, Sandra and Mark Shirkey, Honor Woodard, Marc Di Maio, Evan Falcone, Monique Bricca, William Lavelle, Tamara Efron and your faithful paparazzo Al.
I hope that if you played against any of these people, you were kind enough to let them have an extra point or two to show your appreciation.
After these dreadful/blessed interminable days of rain, it felt good to stomp on a dry ground and under a sunny sky.
Many people came to Marin to vie for the privilege of having their names engraved on the Commemorative Cup, but Lady Luck is notoriously capricious. Without her assistance you can forget the honor that you crave.
Personally, before a tournament I burn the sacred Nag Champa incense on her altar to seek spiritual enlightenment. It works… 50% of the time.
The contestants were:
- Patrick Vaslet/Shannon Bowman
- Carlos Couto/Beth Lysten
- Le Facteur/Claudie Chourré
- Doug Colleville/ Nancy Jencks
- Jean-Claude Bunand/Connie Lewis
- Hans Kurz/ Teri Sirico
- Brendan Cohen & Lynda Evans
- Antoine Lofaro/Eva Lofaro
- Alain Efron/Sabine Mattei
- Rob Houghton/Maggie Lane
- Brigitte Moran/Herb Moran
- Henry Wessel/Calvert Barron
- Serge Hanne/Carolina Jones
- Charlie Davantes/Susan Wyatt
- Louis Toulon/Monique Bricca
- Evan Falcone/Honor Woodard
- Mireille Di Maio/Marc Di Maio
- Jean-Claude Etallaz/Minette Etallaz
As usual 3 timed games were played before lunch to separate the elite from the scum. Six teams qualified for the Concours and the rest went to the Consolante.
Unsurprisingly my partner (Sabine Mattei) and I ended up in the scum category.
We started poorly but later on (thanks mainly to Sabine’s excellent pointing) we redeemed ourselves and took 1st place in the Consolante.
There is no secret that in order to succeed a team must get along. And we should always keep in mind that a little local tournament is not like a church service. We should be respectful of the other players, but not bring this compliance to extremes.
By the way, the organizers (Christine and Liv) kept scores (along with manual scoring) through a new software application conceived by Mark and Sandra Shirkey. The system still has few bugs, but I am pretty sure that it will be fixed soon.
In the finals, Louis Toulon and Monique Bricca faced Patrick Vaslet and Shannon Bowman. All Accomplished players.
It was an evenly matched game with the final result in balance until the end.
This was not a game full of fireworks. There were no spectacular “carreaux” or unexpected moves. It was in my opinion a very technical game with a lot of excellent pointing.
Ultimately luck favored the MDT (Marin Dream Team) and the cup remained in Marin County.
Now… darkness is the enemy of photography. Toward the end of the tournament (around 7:00 p.m.) daylight dropped significantly and it became increasingly difficult to take focused pictures. You can notice this when you look at the photo album.
When the tournament ended (around 7:30 p.m.) images were becoming blurry, especially when the subjects were moving.
At award and picture taking time, despite my repeated exhortations, the winners didn’t hurry enough to have their pictures taken and the final images were definitely blurry or unprintable.
Sorry about this but I tried to warn you. Next time, listen to Uncle Al.
Concours
1st place: Louis Toulon & Monique Bricca
2nd place: Patrick Vaslet & Shannon Bowman
3rd place: Doug Colleville & Nancy Jencks
Consolante
1st place: Alain Efron & Sabine Mattei
2nd place: Henry Wessel & Calvert Barron
Heartfelt congratulations to the winners, and thanks for keeping the Cup in Marin County.
Alain ?
To look at photos of this event and listen to the accompanying background music, turn your computer’s sound on, and click on the link “My Photos” located on the right side of this page. For best viewing, go Full Screen.
Feel free to download any picture, but if you use those photos in another publication, please be kind enough to give me credit.
Thank you