Category Archives: Tournaments

Club Members, PIMD, Tournaments

PIMD 2022 Singles, 7/9/2022, 7/16/2022

PIMD 2022 Singles—Dual Venue Tests the Field

The PIMD Singles Tournament was held over two Saturdays (July 9 and July 16) at two clubs: first, at San Francisco LBC, followed by the final rounds at Berkeley.

Twenty-four competitors, both men and women, started out at SF, and after three matches played to 16 points, a top 12 emerged, three players having three wins: Chris Davies (Berkeley), Jim Corr (Berkeley) and Scottie Marzonie (Palo Alto,) and nine having a record of two wins, one loss.

On the succeeding Saturday, with all games played to 18 points, the top six bowlers from the SF rounds were first randomly matched against the bottom six. The two later rounds were played on a “winner v winner” basis. After two matches, the final contests were set with Jim Corr facing Andrew Keeler (San Francisco) for top spot and Jesse May (Santa Cruz) against Chris Davies at that point in third and fourth place. In the Corr-Keeler matchup, Andrew jumped into an early lead to go up 10-3 at one point, but, mainly through getting hold of the jack more often, Jim managed to switch play to a short jack game and dominated the second half. Four points for Jim on the 16th end tied the game at 15-15, and in the next end he took another three to snatch victory and the 2022 Singles title.

The other top match was equally hard fought, with Jesse overcoming Chris by 18-14, which vaulted Jess to second place overall in the standings. Andrew finished third, edging out Aumao To’alepaialii (Santa Cruz) by a single differential point over the three matches of the day.

Congratulations to all who were “in the money” (a total of eight players) and thanks, as always, to PIMD Tournament Director Bud Birkenseer for the hours he put in to overseeing the tourney. And a big shout out to the Berkeley hospitality crew as well as to newly (re)-appointed greenskeeper, Annie Brillhart for producing a fine playing surface at short notice.

Club Members, PIMD, Tournaments

BLBC Fives Tournament in SF, 6/25/2022

Two teams represented BLBC at the Fives tournament in San Francisco on June 25. Bernie, Tom, Joseph, Sarah and Sal composed one team. The other team, the Gimels, included Ginger and Ian Harris from Palo Alto, Mo, Ethan and Leslie. They succeeded in taking third place. It was a beautiful cool day in Golden Gate Park.

With thanks to Leslie Engler for the write-up and Bernadette Chan for the photos.

Club Members, Events, PIMD, Tournaments

BLBC at the 2022 Aussie Pairs

Here is the Aussie Pairs Report with photographs credited to Jeff Schaper.
Bowlers: 

This year’s PIMD Aussie Pairs[1]  Tournament was held at Rossmoor LBC on Saturday April 23, with a full field of 84 hopefuls forming 42 teams on Rossmoor’s three beautiful rinks. A fun variation on the standard pairs format, the Aussie game tends to favor teams that show strength in both positions, allowing the traditional Lead to demonstrate their “skip shots” and testing the usual Skip player on the value of strong opening play. As usual for this event, a strong contingent of Berkeley bowlers was among the competitors. The BLBC players also turned out to be prominent among the winners. 

After the day’s three 10-end games, at the top of the list was Jim Corr, bowling with Micheal McClintock (Santa Clara) in resplendent “Jackson Pollok” shirts. Berkeley dual member, Ian Cameron with partner Tom Burnoski (San Jose) took 4th place, while in 6th and 7th place respectively were the Berkeley duos of Nick Christensen/Daniel Gorelick and Leslie Engler/Sara Allday (the highest placed all-women team). Prize money went down to the 14th position, which was held by Glenn Nunez and Liz Halton (San Francisco) who gallantly stepped up at the last moment to fill in for Berkeley’s Phil Grattan who had to drop out due to illness.

A long day of bowls—but, as always, better than a short day at the office. Congratulations to all the BLBC winning players!

[1] Australian, or more informally, Aussie Pairs is a bowls format that allows both team members to alternate between bowling as Skip and Lead. Sometimes referred to as “2-4-2 bowls,” it encompasses one team member bowling two bowls, followed by the other bowling  four, and finally the first team member playing his or her remaining two bowls. Team members then reverse their positions.

2022 PIMD Aussie Pairs Winners: Jim Corr (r) and Micheal McClintock (l)
2022 PIMD Aussie Pairs 4th Place: Ian Cameron (r) and Tom Burnoski (l)
2022 PIMD Aussie Pairs 6th Place: Leslie Engler (r) and Sarah Allday (l)
2022 PIMD Aussie Pairs 7th Place: Daniel Gorelick and [missing] Nick Christensen
2022 PIMD Aussie Pairs 14th Place: Glenn Nunez and Liz Halton
Club Members, Events, Tournaments

2022 BLBC 2-Bowl Singles Tournament—Final Result

2022 BLBC 2-Bowl Singles Tournament—Final Result, Report by Jim Corr

BLBC Bowlers,

The 2022 BLBC 2-Bowl Singles Tournament did not go quite as originally planned, but the outcome could have been predicted in advance with last year’s champion, Daniel Gorelick, making it a two-fer in the 2-Bowls in 2022.

After an initial round robin stage, the tournament finals had originally been scheduled as a one-day event for  Saturday, March 19th, but fell foul of a fickle weather forecast—it was the forecast rather than the weather which proved fickle, shifting from day to day but still predicting a substantial, steady rain and cold temperatures on the eve of the competition, so the Tournament Committee decided to call it off. As it turned out, of course, the Saturday was no more than overcast with a few meagre showers—what’s called a fine day for bowling in Scotland—and could easily have been held. 

Instead, the 8 bowlers who had qualified for the quarter-finals played  their individual games over the next three weeks and from that knockout process, Cris Benton and Daniel eventually emerged as the finalists, an intriguing match-up as, in combination, they had won the 2021 Pairs title together. In the event, the final (held on Thursday, April 7th), and played to the first bowler to reach 15 points, was a close affair for the first 16 ends, the lead trading back and forth several times. At the end of the 16th the score was 11-10, but Daniel managed to pull it off with two points on the next two ends and emerged the winner by 15-10.

Congratulations to Daniel! 

And a shout out to all those who participated, as well as all those who volunteered as markers, and a big thanks to Hugo Deaux as Tournament Director.

Finalists: Daniel Gorelick and Cris Benton
Club Members, Events, Tournaments

2022 Berkeley Triples Tournament

2022 Berkeley Triples Tournament, Report by Jim Corr and Rolayn Tauben

The 2022 BLBC Triples Tournament took place in pleasant bowling weather on Saturday, April 2. A nice round number of eighteen players, making for six teams, had signed up for the event, and the team formations were set by random draw after bowlers were first assigned as Skip, Vice, or Lead.

The preliminary round consisted of three 10-end games, at the end of which only one trio: Dave McMullen (Skip), Sal Garcia-Lemus (Vice), and Rolayn Tauben (Lead) had come through with a clean sheet, winning all three of their games with consistently fine bowling. Second in the standings at that point were Hugo Deaux, Cindy Moss, and Joseph Chow, edging out the team of Jim Corr, Glenn Nunez, and Des Simpson on scored points differential.

The stage was set for an interesting 12-end final, since Hugo’s team had suffered their sole defeat against Dave’s—and by a single point. Hugo, Cindy, and Joseph leapt into an early lead of 7 points and never relinquished it, although Dave, Sal, and Rolayn fought back valiantly to draw level on the 5th end before Hugo’s team turned it on and ran out handy winners by 16-9. 

So, congratulations to Hugo, Cindy, and Joseph as the 2022 Triples Champions! Certificates will be presented to them at our Annual General Meeting and their names will be engraved on the Club tournament winners board. 

Many thanks to BLBC’s Triples Tournament Director, Daniel G., for a fun and exciting tournament on Saturday, April 2, 2022. Much appreciation to our volunteers who helped expedite the games, especially Dave and Annie who rolled the green before the event, and to our Hospitality Committee for providing refreshments.

L-R: Dave McMullen, Sal Garcia-Lemus, Rolayn Tauben, Cindy Moss, Hugo Deaux, Joseph Chow

Club Members, Events, Tournaments

Berkeley Triples 4/2/2022

Many thanks to BLBC’s Triples Tournament Director, Daniel G., for a fun and exciting tournament on Saturday, April 2, 2022. Much appreciation to our volunteers who helped expedite the games, especially Dave and Annie who rolled the green before the event, and to our Hospitality Committee for providing refreshments.

We had 18 players that made up 6 teams:

Skips- Jim, Hugo, Daniel, Rob, Dave, Cris

Vice – Lennon, Annie, Bob, Glenn, Sal, Cindy

Leads – Bernie, Steve K., Des, Rolayn, Joseph, Charles

Alternates – Sarah and Phil

The format was a preliminary round with three 10-end games based on a blind draw of opposing teams and assigned rinks. The two teams with the best record of game points and point differential played in a 12-end Final championship playoff. Players of the final two teams were Dave, Sal and Rolayn, and Hugo, Cindy and Joseph.

Kudos to Hugo, Cindy and Joseph … our Club tournament winners! Certificates will be presented to them at our Annual General Meeting and their names will be engraved on the Club tournament winners board. 

It was a day full of skilled play and suspense.

Kudos to Cindy, Hugo and Joseph … our Club tournament winners!
Players of the final two teams were Dave, Sal and Rolayn, and Cindy, Hugo and Joseph.
Club Members, Tournaments

The Meat Axe Stays In Berkeley!

Despite the definite chill in the air on Saturday, Berkeley bowlers grew hot as the day wore on and came out triumphant in the annual Meat Axe tourney against the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club. We were down 3 ½ games to 2 ½ at lunchtime, but, duly fortified, stormed back to win 4 of the afternoon games for a 6 ½ to 5 ½ overall score, thereby retaining the Meat Axe trophy for yet another year. Which was just as well, since we had “forgotten” to bring the plaque with us to the southern climes.

Thanks and well done to all the BLBC players!