Sheffield Regional

I'm not sure why they still call the othello tournaments 'regionals'. They don't really represent any particular region, except in as much as they're all in different towns randomly scattered around the country. Anyway, I went to the Sheffield one today.

Missed the train I was intending to get because my bike had a flat tyre and I spent too long dithering over whether to go back upstairs, find my pump and fix it, or walk to the station. I walked in the end, but not quickly enough. I still got there before a couple of the other players, though, which was lucky because it gave us a moment to clear up a potentially awkward situation - Rob Stanton, the organiser, had been under the impression that I still live in Boston, and had told the owners of the building we were using to send an invoice to my old address.

The tournament took place in a strange little church-hall-style building called the Heeley Institute, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Sheffield. There were nine of us in all, when Aidan had managed to find the place halfway through the first round. I won my first couple of games against Rob and Aidan, which gave me great aspirations of winning the whole tournament and becoming a worldwide celebrity, but then lost three in a row against Geoff, Phil and Steve Rowe (whose surname wasn't meant to be a pun there), which rather squished those dreams. Phil had meanwhile been kicking every available ass and was winning in a very impressive kind of way.

We went for lunch after the third round, finding on the third attempt a pub that was both open and serving food. The people of Heeley obviously aren't keen on pub lunches. But it was a lovely day - summer's on the way! Apart from the occasional torrential downpour, of course, but they only lasted a few seconds before the sunshine took over again.

Anyway, back at the Institute, my impressive losing streak was enough to get me a bye in round six. Rob beat Phil, which put Phil level with Geoff on five wins, and after the final round they ended up sharing first place. Joel Blackmur (who, in a longstanding othello tradition, I avoided being drawn against) came third, and I survived an extremely complicated endgame to beat Roy 33-31 and end up joint 4th with Steve. So it could have been a lot worse.