Jubilee Pairs (Updated photos)

The BSI Jubilee Pacific Pairs tournament was held again at Oak Bay LBC June 11-12, after a three-year break.

Twenty pairs teams competed for the coveted Jubilee Pairs trophy and a $300 first prize. $180 second prize and third prize $120.

The draw was all set up beforehand between numbered teams, but not until the teams arrived and watched the tumbler spit out their number, did they know their schedule for all five games.

The tournament format was: three-bowl pairs; five 16-end games over two days against randomly drawn opponents. Three match points for a win, one point for a loss; tournament ties principally resolved by subtracting ‘game points against’ from ‘game points for’.

Saturday started off with three games in sunny weather. Oak Bay used its large screen TV to display a running total of scores after each round of play. Over the five games the top contenders gradually emerged. To compete for gold, you had to win all five games, which one team from Oak Bay and one from Juan de Fuca managed to achieve. 

The final result was decided on points difference for and against. Lynda Robbins and Doug Hartford had a favourable point difference of 58, but Brent Jansen and Donna Blackstock scored 65 and retained the title that they won in 2019 .

There was a closely fought battle for third place between four teams who each won four games out of five. Only one of them would be in the prize money, though, when the points score were tallied.

3rd Larry Martin and Gord Folka with a margin of 33 points

4th Jay Huang and Barry Ming, 31 points

5th Dave Mathie and Steve Foster, 22 points

6th David Gardner and Peter Smith 20 points.

It was some of the best games played in quite some time as reported by multiple players. Brent Jansen had commented that he had one of the best games played against Ozzie and Ryan. The game was so close throughout Donna Blackstock and Brent Jansen finally after a long gruelling game became the victor.

Even the official scorer was in on the action. One of the skips felt unwell during the game and Chris Slade was nominated as substitute, forced to tear himself away from the fascinating task of entering the scores for each round every couple of hours. Kevan Schubert assumed the skip’s role and secured victory over Oak Bay opponents. (There was talk of an impeachment motion against Chris at the next Oak Bay AGM, for “collaborating with the enemy”, but it probably wasn’t serious.)

Apart from one or two complaints along the lines of “if the game format was different, our team would have won . . .”, perhaps the only real controversy surrounded the 50-50 draws.

On Saturday, the winner was chief tournament organizer Brent Merchant. Some understandable jeering and cries of “Fixed!” ensued, which is understandable, but he did have about a 1 in 30 chance of winning.

However, the next day Brent arranged to have his playing partner Lee Millar win the Sunday 50:50.  Odds of 1 in 30 we can accept, but 1 in 900??? (1/30 x 1/30). No one was able to figure out how he did it. The draw appeared to be completely above board, but then when you have spent a working lifetime in close contact with criminals, you probably learn a trick or two. You could tell that something was up when the former provincial pairs champion remarked, “This is as good as prize money — and a lot easier.”

Everyone playing enjoyed themselves and everyone left a winner as there were multiple door prizes from a bottle of wine, cookies down to a drink at the bar.

We would like to thank all of the organizers, Garry Anderson organizing the kitchen and kitchen staff as well as bartenders, umpires, Gloria Brown for the fabulous pictures, Ian and Larry for rolling the greens and everyone that made this tournament possible.

Original reporting by Brent Jansen, supplementary interference by Chris Slade, who finally got Gloria’s picture gallery in place.

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