On a cloudy, cool, and misty Saturday morning, 42 enthusiastic and seemingly over-caffeinated bowlers from five Bay Area clubs arrived in Berkeley to participate in the annual Howard Mackey Jamboree, the crown jewel of BLBC’s annual tournament schedule.  The Jamboree, which was created by Mr. Mackey in the 80s, has a unique tournament format. There are three 10-end triples games.  Players are allocated into the three categories of skip, vice, and lead and the teams are randomly selected and then changed after each game.  It is the one tournament in which there is an “I” in team as each player maintains their own score and at the end of the day there are no team awards, only individual winners in each category.

The challenge for our tournament committee is to ensure that every bowler will have different teammates and different opponents in each…i.e., no one will ever play with or against the same bowler all day.  Kudos to our TC for figuring out how to do this.  An additional, albeit yet to be solved, complexity is never having anyone bowl on the same rink more than once.  That’s next year’s challenge.

As usual, the BLBC green was in pristine condition and there was an abundance of yummy, nutritious snacks and barista-quality coffee.   Manifesting the collective IQ of the participants was that game one started on time as every bowler was able to figure out their team, position, and rink they were assigned to.   As if scripted, the clouds disappeared by 10 AM and the remainder of the tournament was played under blue skies and pleasant temperature.  The last games finished at 4 PM and nearly all the participants gathered on the patio, munching on ice cream sandwiches (a Jamboree tradition), eagerly awaiting the final results, which were:

Even though there was a bit on cash involved, the abundance of camaraderie, laughter, and cheerful banter throughout the day was akin to a typical draw game, which is exactly what this tournament is all about.  

And lastly, a huge shout out to our Hospitality Committee and our greenkeeping team for helping make this a glorious day.