2012 Ranking Tournament: Cohen ranks highly

Guy Chapman reports:

The second ever EFA Rankings Tournament took place at Eton on Sunday.

We had a very strong set of ten players taking part, albeit without the top four from the official rankings list, who all had other engagements. With just ten the format changed slightly to ‘Winner Stays on; Different partners / opponents each game’, but with the same general principle of playing as an individual against a variety of pairings. The well matched pairings made for some long and close games, and I’m pleased to report that every player won at least one of their four games, and there were no one-sided contests.

Standings after the five rounds left Pete Cohen in prime position with four wins out of four (only edging one of them 12-11), closely followed by Ed Taylor and Jeremy O’Neill with three out of four. A final game with those three, joined by George Campbell, meant that Pete had the chance to complete his dominance, or give Ed a chance to claim the victory.

As it turned out, Ed and George triumphed, but with Pete and Jeremy making it to 6-12, (Ed having lost his match 5-12 earlier) the victory was awarded to Pete.

Last year’s champion went on to a clean sweep of the season’s major tournaments. What will the season hold for this year’s winner?