Main (57) Well, at last, Jeff Barber has won his first tournament. Dubbed ‘Mr. Average’ by Paul Lamford in his games analysis a few months ago (due to the fact that Jeff regularly won 3 out of 6 11-point matches), Jeff has now broken the mould and not only did he win 6 in a row, but, added to the 4 in a row from his last tournament (County Cups) he his now a proud winner of the 1000-to-1 Trophy (10 consecutive 11-point matches). Which is quite ironic as in his 4th match this weekend Jeff faced one of the toughest opponents Biba has to offer - Dod Davies, who was already on 9 wins in a row and was looking for his 10th and the 1000-to-1 Trophy himself!

Hilton Trophy Winner, Jeff Barber, relishing every minute of his 'Roy Hollands'.

Jeff’s opponent in the final was Raj Jansari who had the Fox Reformed club rooting for him; but Jeff had other plans! The final was recorded on digital tape and will (when I’ve spent hours and hours working on it) appear as a video and possibly JellyFish .mat file. This was the first time that a Biba final (or any other match for that matter) had been recorded and shown live on a TV screen and it was a great success. We all sat around in our chairs and watched the action taking place above the players’ heads - all that was missing was a large bag of popcorn! Click here for the tortuous tale of The Making of the Video.

Biba's first recorded final. Raj Jansari and Jeff Barber battle it out

Progressive Consolation (54)
Entering into the Consolation with a 2nd round bye, Graham Brittain fought his way through to the final to face Brian Lever who had entered from the Main last eight on the Progressive side. It was a tight match but Graham prevailed and emerged the winner.

Last Chance (32)
Starting on the Sunday morning at 10:30 this 5-pointer is for all those players no longer playing in the Main or Consolation. John Clark played through 4 rounds to meet David Nathan (making a welcome return to tournament play) in the final. John, playing with his usual flair emerged victorious leaving David to take home the Runner-up Trophy.

Suicide! (32) Three points, with the cube. No margin for error in these matches . . . and that’s the way Roy Hollands and John Broomfield made it to the final. Each had acted very ungentlemanly in the semis by beating Nicole Taboury and Miranda Moore respectively. In the final, JB (as he is always referred to - much to Jeff Barber’s regret!) beat Roy (who is never called RH!) to take home yet another winner’s trophy. Roy went home with the Runner-up Trophy and had to console himself with a two week cruise to sunny climes on a luxury liner. No, it wasn’t his consolation prize, just a well deserved holiday!

Roy Hollands, Suicide Runner-up, getting the 'Roy Hollands Treatment'.

Friday Knockout (20)
Not a bad turnout for a small tournament. Once again that man Roy Hollands was in the final, this time facing John Slattery. John hadn’t won a weekend break since August 1998 and Roy had never won one . . .and Roy still hasn’t! John took first place and free entry into the £50 pool in the Main. John, although not winning the Main did make it further than any other £50 pool entrant and therefore took the pot! This left two Johns in opposite moods - John Slattery in a jubilant mood and John Clark in a ‘this shouldn’t be allowed’ mood! I am awaiting John Clark’s renewed bid to force another vote on the ‘free pool entry’ issue. Mind you, this time I think John Slattery will perhaps be voting ‘Aye’ rather than sloping off to the toilet and being non-committal!

Doubles (15 teams)
Elsewhere in this issue I am urged to print the real names of the teams but I refuse to do so to protect the innocent! This time we had ‘Parisienne Panties’, ‘Room For Improvement’ which turned out to be an apposite name, ‘Houdini & The Drunk’, ‘Two Nuns In A Bath’ based upon the old ‘soap’ gag, and ‘Willy No Mates’ who almost had to play with himself! In the final ‘The Post Fururist’ beat ‘Timphuctoo’ to take the winners share of the pool.

Click here for the Hilton Trophy quick results.

Click here to download the final game transcript.

Overall it was a great tournament and went along very smoothly. I wasn’t called upon to make any real judgements and everyone had an enjoyable tournament.

• To see the latest statistics regarding Biba tournaments click here.