Additional Topic for Rules Consideration
A hot topic at the very top level of croquet now is what to do when a player withdraws from a single-elimination tournament bracket. Oddly enough, it applies to a situation last year when Andy Groebe and Ryan Darst faced off in a match knowing that Groebe would withdraw shortly thereafter. Groebe won the game and Darst was eliminated from the event. Jeff McMahon, who would have played the winner, then received a bye.
There seems to be sentiment in the world of croquet that the defeated player should be promoted to the withdrawing player’s slot. I am undecided on the issue and defaulted to black and white analysis as the tourney director last summer, but I can see a need for a policy on this issue as GC offers more opportunity for bracket style tournaments. I think the plus side of promotion is strictly allowing more croquet to be played. A game is more interesting than a bye.
2010 Rules Discussion
As we head into 2010 season and SYP meeting, I’m pleased to say there are just a few minor tweaks and clarifications to consider regarding rules. If there are other items regarding rules that you would like to discuss please bring them up in the comments for this post.
GOLF CROQUET
–One clarification: When a ball is offsides, the opponent chooses to either place that ball in one of the penalty spots or leave it where it is. If a ball is placed in a penalty spot that then becomes offsides, it is not offsides and may play from there. The spirit of this is the same as if an opponent put the ball off sides. See rulebook 10b. We played this wrong in a game last year involving Darst.
–Time Outs: Since the official golf croquet rules don’t allow for time-limit games, there is no indication for how many timeouts each side would be allowed. Nine and six-wicket play allows for three timeouts per side. That seems excessive for golf croquet; however, it would be easiest to remember.
NINE WICKET
–One ball (Cutthroat): Personally, I’m ready to move on from the cutthroat game. I favor having a seeded singles nine-wicket tournament that pits the top 12 or eight players against each other for the PBR Classic at the end of the year. This type of tournament would require at least two full-size fields and would likely take four to six hours to complete. I think we could fit two full size nine-wicket fields at either Pick or Steve’s place.
–Starting Deadness: This will probably seem bizarre to every one, but there is a good reason for it. When you hit a dead ball during the starting deadness period, the balls do not reset. The turn just ends. It’s better if I explain this one in person to interested parties at SYP.
–Reminder on Ball/Wicket Issue: This one always trips me up. It makes perfect sense, but I struggle with it every time, so I just wanted to post it again:
If my ball hits another ball and then goes through its next wicket, what happens next?
If your ball hits another ball, you immediately earn two extra shots (unless you have hit that ball in that turn since making your last wicket). In this situation, the wicket doesn’t count, and you must take the extra shots earned.
–Alumni Cup Scoring: Last summer’s Alumni Cup definitely presented some on-the-job learning for me. One thing, I know is that we need to sit down and make sure we have exact scores accounted for at all times. I want to have a wipeboard on hand to make sure scores are always available to all
–Timeouts: I now have clarification from the USCA that three timeouts are allowed per side in nine-wicket play.
That’s it. Not much new other than the fact that starting deadness is a little more forgiving than what we had been playing. I’m not sure if the USCA has had their rules meeting yet, but I’ll update if there are any changes.
2010 Slate Your Party-Save the Date
The 2010 PBR Tour SYP (Slate Your Party) Meeting will take place on Friday, February 26 in Lenexa, Kansas. Jeff and Leslie McMahon will host this year’s event. More details will follow.
KU Claims 2009 Cup
Battle Royale in Leawood
LEAWOOD, KS | On a hot and humid afternoon this past Sunday, Andy Groebe and Dylan Goodwin survived a couple of tight matches to go undefeated and claim the 2009 Alumni Cup. The event culminated with KU and KSU battling it out for both school pride and the overall trophy in the final game of the day. It broke down with KU just needing a win and KSU needing to win by nine to take the event. Highland watched the game with interest as well as a KSU win with a three to eight point margin would have given the Scottie Dogs the Cup.
The Sunflower Showdown played as a tight game overall that got interesting earlier on when Goodwin set up for a run, but played through the wrong wicket which left him with partner deadness and also set KSU up nicely. Representing the Wildcat alumni squad, Greg Lloyd and Chris Stephens took control of the game and worked out a nice little early game lead.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks took some time but finally solved the deadness riddle of wicket #4 and Goodwin made a run out to the 11th wicket. Shortly after, the Jayhawks ended up with Groebe’s yellow ball partner dead at #5. While KU worked out that problem, Lloyd and Stephens were able to move Stephen’s blue ball in and out of the turn. Goodwin went three-ball dead in an attempt to keep Lloyd’s black ball out of the turn while helping out his partner ball, but failed to get clean as he was for #13. A couple of attempts to get Groebe through the turn ended with him still playing for seven, while Lloyd was for six. Stephens had matched Goodwin by collecting the 12th wicket. With time out and the players down to their final turn, the controversy began. Stephens played a long split off black for 13 and left himself out of a shot. He then took a hail mary for red and yellow in the northeast corner that failed.
Game over, right? Wrong.
With the new game format, Lloyd and Stephens didn’t realize a tie score during final turns would have extended the game one more round. After some discussion and a check of the rulebook, the shot was replayed with Stephens this time trying the take off to score 13. The first shot was too strong and rolled just to the right of the wicket. Another hail mary failed and this time the Jayhawks had survived by a final of 19-18. The win secured a 2-0 record for KU and the Alumni Cup.
The earlier action in the day proved to be entertaining as well. Highland started with a disadvantage in game one as they learned the new format on the fly against KU. The Hawks controlled the game most of the way, but HCC surged late to make it interesting. Still, KU was able to hold on for a 25-21 win.
The Highland versus Kansas State game in match two was an epic that rivaled the KU-KSU final game thriller for drama. With time out and the players in the final round, Jeff McMahon was able to stake out. Both Lloyd and Stephens were for wicket #14, but Steve left no more turns when he scored both 14 and 15 in one shot. Keep in mind he had a tough shot on 14. He ended just a handful of inches from the stake with two shots. He staked and Highland beat KSU 32-26.
NOTES
–The basic game was very similar to standard cutthroat, but there were a few rules issues that surfaced — mostly regarding the time limit. The players all were good sports about sorting through some of those details and learning on the fly.
–The event rules were identical to the rules that will be used at the USCA Nine Wicket National Tournament September 25-27 in Shawnee, Kansas (including clearing of deadness at wicket #9).
–A new deadness board was revealed for the event. It’s not made for cutthroat (that would take 30 hinges), but it eliminates the need for an extra person to run a deadness sheet for standard nine-wicket. Players can keep deadness themselves.
–The park setting was nice, but the field played very slow due to the morning rains. It played pretty straight though and there were only a few instances of “phantom hops.”
–Steve McMahon staked out his ball in both games. He also had an incredible 20-foot angled peel on the 12th wicket after already peeling his partner at 11.
–The Highland win over KSU was their first win in Alumni Cup play. The Scottie Dogs are now 1-3 in Cup play all-time. KU is 3-1 and KSU is 2-2.
–As a graduate of KSU, Steve McMahon played for the Cats last year, but graciously agreed to help out HCC. He attended Highland for one year.
ALUMNI CUP PLACING AND POINTS
1st — KU (Dylan Goodwin, Andy Groebe) 15 points
2nd — Highland (Jeff McMahon, Steve McMahon) 10 points
3rd — KSU (Greg Lloyd, Chris Stephens) 7 points
UP NEXT
Slate Your Party, Winter 2010. Yep, the old standby will make a return for 2010. We are now accepting bids for anyone that would like to host.
Rock Chalk Alumni Cup
Alumni Cup 2009 Results:
Record / PF – PA
KU 2-0 / 43 – 38
HCC 1-1 / 53 – 51
KSU 0-2 / 43 – 50
Scores:
KU 25, Highland 21
Highland 32, KSU 26
KU 18, KSU 17
Rosters:
KU — Dylan Goodwin, Andy Groebe
HCC — Jeff McMahon, Steve McMahon
KSU — Greg Lloyd, Chris Stephens
Goodwin Takes the 2009 Classic
BACK FROM THE DEAD
History will view the 2009 PBR Classic as another blue jacket for Dylan Goodwin, but players in the second qualifier will probably remember it as the title that should never have been. Goodwin was all but eliminated in the qualifier as Ryan Darst positioned himself in front of wicket 14 with a solid lay-up. Goodwin and Ashley Samuelson were tied at wicket 11. Samuelson’s yellow ball was positioned perfectly along the boundary about 12 feet deep. Goodwin’s black ball was to the right of the wicket with an un-makeable shot. Laying up would give Samuelson a nice big target, while shooting at yellow was too distant for likely contact and if contact was made, yellow probably would have rolled out of bounds. Goodwin shot for green in the middle of the field and missed putting himself far out of position. Samuelson shot for the wicket but missed and the ball rolled out longer than anticipated. Still, as the balls lay, Samuelson would have the edge in the tie-breaker.
However, Goodwin caught a huge break when Ryan scored 14 clean and his balled rolled just too far. The angle was unplayable at 15 and he laid up. Goodwin shot for position on 11 and Samuelson followed with an attempt to get closer to the wicket. Her attempt fell just short and Goodwin secured the third and final spot for the championship game (final ball position in the photo above).
The final proved to be entertaining as well with Chris Stephens, Steve McMahon and Greg Lloyd all establishing short early runs near the turn stake only to have odd hops and misses cut short opportunities to seize control. Back from the dead, Goodwin had struggled as well after aquiring deadness on green and blue. He finally got an opportunity off of black and was able to make a run out of the turn stake that looked like it could finish the game off. He approached 14 with a standard four-ball break and separated the balls before utilizing Stephen’s blue ball as his safety just past 14 with a split. Things got interesting though when he missed the easy two-footer at and left himself prone to blue. As all the other balls were spread, desperation attempts by green and orange failed to net contact. It came down to blue contacting Goodwin’s ball to extend the game. Good fortune again shined on Goodwin as blue missed the shot. Red and black failed on long attempts as well and Goodwin closed out the game for back to back PBR Classic titles.
RESULTS
Qualifier 1
16-Steve McMahon (b)
12-Chris Stephens (k)
8-Will Stoskopf (r)
5-Susan Goodwin (o)
5-Andy Groebe (y)
4-Shelley Lloyd (g)
Qualifier 2
16-Ryan Darst (r)
12-Greg Lloyd (o)
10-Dylan Goodwin (k)
10-Ashley Samuelson (y)
6-Brad Humphrey (b)
5-Kevin Thornton (g)
Championship
16-Dylan Goodwin (y)
10-Chris Stephens (b)
9-Steve McMahon (k)
8-Greg Lloyd (g)
3-Ryan Darst (r)
3-Will Stoskopf (o)
UP NEXT
Alumni Cup. We’ll be contacting players that are interested and then setting a date for the Alumni Cup event. I’m also researching a location for flat and smooth surface in order to let the strategy of these matches play out undisturbed. While the three club tourney’s played thus far in 2009 were structured to be more social in nature the Alumni Cup event is geared for the more competitive PBR players. Stay tuned.
PBR CLASSIC PLACING AND POINTS
1st — Dylan Goodwin (15 points)
2nd — Chris Stephens (10 points)
3rd — Steve McMahon (7 points)
4th — Greg Lloyd (5 points)
5th — Ryan Darst (3 points)
STANDINGS
Rank/Name/Points
01 Goodwin Dylan — 37
02 Dors Patrick — 25
03 Lloyd Shelley — 16
04 Lloyd Greg — 13
– McMahon Steve — 13
06 Stephens Chris — 12
07 Thornton Kevin — 11
08 Herzog Katie — 10
09 Goodwin Susan — 9
10 Darst Ryan — 7
11 Lieneman Mark — 6
12 Stephens Joelle — 5
13 Stoskopf Will — 4
14 Groebe Trisha — 3
– Groebe Andy — 3
16 Samuelson Ashley — 2
17 Darst Beth — 1
– McMahon Sara — 1
– Dors Maggie — 1
– McMahon Jeff — 1
– Stewart Tom — 1
– Stewart Carolyn — 1
– Humphrey Brad — 1
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