THE STATE OF ROUND EIGHT

Boasters League round 8~~

Just take a quick mental note that the numbers coming up in the article are an accumulation of 2 rounds, not just from last night. Since I was not in the office Thursday or Friday last week, I could not get the standings out for the league. When I did get back to the office on Monday though, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of scores in my in-box, there were a decent quantity of makeup matches to record. It did shake up the standings somewhat – at the lower end.

Nothing has changed with the top 3 other than the fact that the Winky-Dinks have all but locked up the top spot. Once again, they picked up the most points (66) and have a massive 38 point lead going into the final round next Wednesday. Butter Nutz had the round 8 bye, but managed to hold on to second spot even though Mongoose have the same amount of points. Butter Nutz currently hold the tie break by one bonus point. It is actually important to finish in the top 2 of the standings… you get the first round bye in the finals if you do. It also goes to show just how important turning up on Wednesday may (can?) be.

The team the suffered the most over the past 14 days was On the Rocks. They did have the round 7 bye, but they still only picked up 22 points – the least amount by 12 points - and plummeted from 4^th to 8^th and have now given themselves an awfully difficult task of reaching the top 6 and a play-off berth.

The Wardogs are currently 4^th and have the unenviable honor of sitting out round 9. However, they are probably pretty safe from elimination being 32 points off 7^th placed Vivio’s… but they should perhaps play a few makeup matches just in case and play it safe.

Like every season, the main interest will be not who makes the finals, but who doesn’t. Which teams are going to fight hard to end up in the top 6. The teams ranked 5^th – 9^th right now all have a reasonable chance not to make it.

One of the lightest turnouts in recent memory last night – which says a lot considering this half has had mysteriously low numbers – so I won’t delve into handpicking standout matches since there were so few of them completed. Although I will mention that Stefan Houbtchev’s (Mongoose) relative anonymity helped George Kordas take advantage of one of our members (that will remain nameless) who couldn’t imagine that anyone (other than Vikram) was capable of beating Jed Elley (Nick at Night). Like a slick pool shark in a seedy bar, George recognized he had a victim in the palm of his hand and of course could not pass up the opportunity. Not too sure how many drinks George is now owed, but I am sure that Stefan is now a little less anonymous.

So we come to the final round of the season. Deadline for any / all results to be sent to me is March 7 (inclusive). I will be sending out the play-off matches on Friday March 8. Top 6 advance. Top 2 get a first round bye. Bottom 3 are eliminated. In the case of a tie, bonus points will be the tie-break. If that is also a tie, then it will be who won the head-to head during the season. If that’s is also tied, we’ll count how many nicks each team has hit during the season. If that is also tied, I’ll decide who is the best dressed. If I can’t make that decision, I’ll simply sell myself to the highest bidder. I take checks as well as cash.

THE ROUND SIX MIX

Boasters League round 6~~

Well, well, well. Lookie here. We have a new leader of the Boasters League. Someone has finally knocked the Butter Nutz of its perch. The Winky-Dinks have taken control with 3 rounds to play before the play-offs and although they may not maintain that top spot after rounds 7 and 8, they are odds on favorite to end up there after round 9. The Butter Nutz will have to sit on the sidelines for the last round with their bye.

It is important to finish in the top 2 places on the standings since those team get the free pass into the semifinals of the play-offs. The final 3 teams on the standings will be eliminated, and the way it looks right now, Foss Nation, Nick at Night and Vivio’s better get crackin’.

Winky-Dinks was by far the best performer this week with 36 points – that’s 12 better that any other team. They were also the only team this week to pick up double-digit bonus points - 13. (Once again, it’s ZERO surprise that the top two teams on the standings have accumulated the most bonus points.) On the Rocks were M.I.A. as they only picked up 8 points – the same amount of points that the team with the bye week picked up. Adding on to that misery, On the Rocks have the bye next week as well. They may find themselves free falling towards play-off elimination if they are not careful.

Shining the spotlight on some individual week 6 standouts… David de la Torre (Nicker Ballers) and Colin Bayer (Vivio’s) had a very entertaining match and I was pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the squash. Both players displayed impressive court coverage, rallies that I thought were going to end, did not. At times it looked as if they actually didn’t want to end the point, both content to extend it as long as possible. David ended up with the 2-1 win, only the 5^th time in 15 matchups he has gotten the better of Mr. Bayer.

Mike Parker (Mongoose) handed Greg Baker (Wardogs) his first loss of this half with his over indulgence of boasts and angles into the front corners. He took the 2-1 win, Greg snagging his 1 game 15-14.  Joe Leto (Winky-Dinks) has been a model of consistency as he suffered through his 4^th straight 1-2 loss against Peter Ulbrich (Butter Nutz). Joe is clearly c

ompetitive in all of his matches so far, just needs to get over the 3rd game hurdle!

Three rounds to go. Three teams to be eliminated. March 7 is the match completion deadline. Countdown is on. Just about every single player has matches to catch up on, so this will definitely come down to which teams put in the effort to arrange them. And don’t forget – it’s Valentine’s Day today. It of course skipped my mind this morning, which certainly explains why my coffee was cold, my toast was burnt, and the couch is set up with a blanket and pillow for tonight. Guess I’ll be stopping off at the flower shop on the ways home tonight…