[paulg]

The Spring Foursomes is the toughest event of the UK calendar, a double elimination event played over 5 days. The semis and final will be shown on BBO on Tuesday.

They are currently playing Round 5 and the unbeaten teams are:

• Janet De Botton - #1 seed, includes recent Vanderbilt winner Gunnar Hallberg and the Hackett twins
  
• Liggins - four experienced England Camrose players, including BBO commentator Neil Rosen
  
• Wolfarth - #2 seeds, including the Bulgarian pair Isporski & Kovachev and BBO commentations Wolfarth and Senior
  
• Byrne - the 'kids', current or recent England U25 players led by Michael Byrne who won the National Pairs last weekend.

Amongst the once beaten teams are:

• Julian Stefanov, Ilia Vassilev, Ivan Nanov & Rosen Geourgiev Gunev (Bulgaria I believe)
  
• Dave Mossop's international team
  
• Brian Spears, Derek Sanders, Miro Dragic & John Murdoch - raiders from Scotland
  
• The Irish led by McGann and Hanlon
  
• Gillis and Norwegians (Simon Gillis, Espen Erichsen, Boye Brogeland & Erik Saelensminde)

The highest profile exits to date are probably Rob Helle's Anglo-Dutch team (Rob Helle, Steve Green, Ed Hoogenkamp, Egbert Henstra, Simon de Wijs & Bauke Muller) and the Rottweiler's Anglo-Norwegian team (Richard Probst, Jon Cooke, Geir Helgemo & Kare Schou Gjaldbaek).

Paul

[paulg]

The last two unbeaten teams are Liggins (12) and Byrne (19) - the winner of this match gets the evening off (which is worth a lot in this intense competition) and choice of opponent in the semi-final. Both these teams have done exceptionally well and upset the form book in the last round.

The only surprising elimination in the other matches was Procter (unseeded) (including BBO's the saint) easily defeating Stefanov (13) and his Bulgarian squad.

For viewers of tomorrow's semi- and final, the good and bad news is that Andrew Robson has been eliminated. The quality of the play will be reduced, but we shall finish a lot earlier

There are some interesting matches in Round 6, especially #4 McGann (McGann, Hanlon, Mesbur, FitzGibbon, Carroll, Garvey) vs #10 Mizel (Mizel, Tony Forrester, David Gold & Tom Townsend)

Paul

[paulg]

Results are not yet available on the web but, buoyed by Justin's support, Byrne (Michael Byrne, Andrew Woodcock, Duncan Happer & Ben Green) beat Liggins to get the evening off.

Paul

[MickyB]

cardsharp, on May 1 2006, 10:22 AM, said:

The last two unbeaten teams are Liggins (12) and Byrne (19) - the winner of this match gets the evening off (which is worth a lot in this intense competition) and choice of opponent in the semi-final.

Also, if they are losing either the semi-final or final (but not both) after 32 boards they get to extend the match by 8 boards. A fantastic performance by Byrne.

[paulg]

The surprising results in Round 6 were the defeat of the Irish by Mizel and Marc Smith's win over De Botton. Smith (Marc Smith, Peter Czerniewski, John Hassett & Bill Hirst) is a frequent BBO commentator and England international but still an excellent result for them.

Smith's 'reward' was to play Liggins in the quarterfinal but they lost comfortably. In the other quarters Wolfarth beat the multi-national Mossop and Mizel continued their good run beating the Scottish quartet (Spears).

In the semi finals Byrne has chosen to play Wolfarth. They won by 10 IMPs when they met earlier but there is no carryover. However, if Wolfarth is ahead after 32 boards then Byrne has the right to an additional 8 boards. I'm told that Wolfarth himself is away sick and Sandra Penfold is playing.

The other semi final sees Liggins play Mizel.

Paul

[ajm218]

anyone got a score update? - am at work and can't access BBO :-)

[MickyB]

Byrne were 48 down after 24 boards. Liggins were up in the other match.

[ajm218]

Shame! At least they have 16 boards left to pull it back... Go Juniors! :-)

[ajm218]

Any more news? :-)

[MickyB]

Bidding the correct slam on the 32nd board would have got them fairly close (13 IMPs I think) but in the end they finished down by 42. Wolfarth vs Liggins in the final.

[paulg]

LIGGINS (Glyn Liggins, Neil Rosen, Peter Crouch & Martin Jones) won the 2006 Shapiro Spring Foursomes beating Wolfarth (Geoffrey Wolfarth, Brian Senior, Valio Isporski, Vladi Kovachev & Sandra Penfold) by 71-64 IMPs.

[Echognome]

A hearty congratulations to the Liggins team. Martin plays every now and then at my local club and he's a class act as a player and a person. I'm really glad to see them win.