There were six games played in the Ladder this month, a slight drop from the seven in each of the previous months.  You could even say that we managed only five, given that the month started with Brian forfeiting to John.  The first actual game of the month saw Colin exact revenge on me for a defeat in May.  Without the comedy of errors that marked the previous game, Colin managed a comfortable ten-point victory.  At the top of the table, Ian saw off Julien’s challenge – quizzed about it afterwards, Julien commented with characteristic French insouciance “I lost it.”  On the 25th I played John.  With so few games played it was evident that whoever won would jump substantially in the ranking at the end of the month, possibly as high as 5th.  In a tense showdown, the piles of empty pint glasses spread to cover several surrounding tables.  With the bonus points for correctly naming the year in which Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, I emerged the winner. A brief flurry of activity ended the month – Michael successfully challenged Daniel, leapfrogging Claas to whom he had lost the previous month, and Peter managed a win against Colin which secured him a further jump upward at the end of the month.

With five months left to play, everything is still pretty open and hopefully this summer lull will be broken by some cut-throat action in the run up to the finale.

Some clarifications have been made to the rules, and I suggest you all take a quick look at them.  Minor changes to unify terminology have not been marked but all the substantial stuff is marked in red.  There are no changes to the intent of the rules, and these largely describe how the rules have already been interpreted over the last four months of the competition.  If you think that they change the terms of the competition, please bring it up with the committee and we’ll be happy to discuss it.

I leave you with the current standings (you can find the full spreadsheet here):