Having agreed to take over SOC’s postponed local event at nearby Hut Wood (between Chandler’s Ford and Southampton) it transpired that most of the work required for an event was still to be done. Attendance at local event’s can be as low as half a dozen so, given the time I’d spent, it was gratifying when nearly 40 competitors turned up. In addition to the white, yellow and orange for beginners, there was a 45 minute score event. The latter had a snooker theme inherited from the event’s original organiser, Philip Cooper, who, in turn, had brought the idea back from Hungary.
The idea took a bit of explaining to those without any knowledge of snooker but it followed the rules pretty closely: 15 red controls (each worth one point) to be taken in any order interspersed with any of the six other colour controls (worth two to seven points) followed by the colour controls in the order yellow to black. 35 controls in 45 minutes was perhaps a little optimistic and Sam Massey was the fastest to collect them all taking 52 minutes to get a break of 101. Sam was pipped by Petr who, despite being even later back, had amassed an impressive 115 points. Good route choice was certainly important though with, for example, Charlie Richardson not far behind despite not having even collected all the reds and taking only 37 minutes. All in all, a great way to make the most of a small area.
Dave,
thanks a lot for organising it (along with Christine and the fat controller). I had a really enjoyable time even if I didn’t too very well apart from possiblely have the most scratched legs at the end.
What I was unclear about was how closely the rules followed snooker — I decided that I was allowed to collect any of the colours on the way back despite running past the pink since I hadn’t collected all of the reds. Was this an actual rule or just something I made up from watching too much snooker?
I imagine that in terms of organising an event in a small space a snooker event is a good idea. Approaching the black from a variety of directions meant that I was never clear where it was. And I did make the fatal mistake of going back to the blue a completely different way from the one I took to the red getting lost and ended up in a mass of brambles in the process.
I’ll confess that, once anyone deviated from my simple case (all the reds followed by the colours) I wasn’t really sure how to score things. Generally I was being pretty harsh. I don’t think you can permit people to collect consecutive reds as then it just deteriorates in to a normal score event but, although I didn’t allow it this time, there might be some merit in letting competitors give up on the reds and collect all of the colours at the end.