Sixty-Five

Performance of the week · Group 3 · Wednesday night

Sixty-five of sixty-six

Paul Schmitz won five games at 11 and lost the sixth 10–11. That is the whole story of his night, and it is as close as anyone in the table has come to the one perfect night this season: 11–4, 11–8, 11–9, 11–9, 11–9, and then Luke Niebrugge and Urian Kim edged him and Kevin Tibbs in the closer. The previous high in the published table was 63, which three men reached last week. Schmitz cleared it by two, on a court where nobody else got past 59, and the standings paid him for it in full — ninth to fifth, the biggest climb of the week, and the first time he has been in the top half of the table.

A week ago he was 2-4 on 47 and slipping. The format has a short memory when you give it 65 reasons to forget. Niebrugge, for his part, went 3-3 on 59 and held eighth; Kim went 3-3 on 54 and stays eleventh, still outside the ten by four tenths of a point, still not sentimental about it.

Group 1 · the top four · Sunday night, two hours before the lock

The top table

The seeded top group is the hardest room in the league, and for the second week running it had the leader in it. Nicholas Dukeman arrived in first by a single point, a week after posting 63 in this same room, and found the night running the other way: 1-5 on 44, with an 11–3 to open his account and two of the losses going 10–11 and 9–11 — a point or two from an entirely different scoreline. The table moved him to third, five points off the lead with three weeks to play, which is a long way from a bad week. Dukeman has now taken the top court twice and is still on the podium. The format asked its hardest question, and he is one good night from the answer.

Jon Forrester went 3-3 on 50 in the same room; the Mahaven seat, filled this week by substitute Francisco, went 3-3 on 51; and the commissioner, who is in the room but not in the table, 5-1. Fifty was enough. Forrester is back in first at 228 — the first man to hold the top spot twice this season, after leading in week two — and he holds it by one point, which is exactly the margin Dukeman held it by a week ago. The night opened on the week's first 11–10, Sparkman and Francisco over Dukeman and Forrester, and the top four now sit within six points of each other: 228, 227, 223, 222.

Group 2 · Sunday, 7:00 AM

Two on the wire, one man on the right side of both

Javier Vargas went 5-1 on 62, and two of the five were 11–10. He took the first with Swaraj Gaikwad over Jordan Camacho and Adam Frantz in the second game, and the other with Camacho over Gaikwad and Frantz in the fifth — partnered with one man to beat another, then partnered with the other to beat the first, and on the winning side both times. Sixty-two points moved him two places to second, one point behind Forrester. In a week when the leader lost five, the man who won five is the one who closed the gap.

Frantz was on the losing end of both one-pointers and still went 3-3 on 59, which is what it looks like when the games are close and the format is fair about it. Gaikwad matched him — 3-3, 59 — and the two of them are seventh and sixth, a point apart, the second week running this league has produced a matching pair on one court — Camacho and Gaikwad last week, Frantz and Gaikwad now. Gaikwad, evidently, is the common denominator. Camacho went 1-5 on 50 and gave back the four places he took last week, from fifth to ninth. Group 2 is where the movement in this league goes to happen.

Group 4 · Holey Ballz · Wednesday, Sept. 9

The early birds

Groups 3 and 4 both played Wednesday night, four days before the lock, and Group 4 was the first court finished all week — by 42 minutes. Juri Blinder went 5-1 on 57, the only 5-1 in the group, and the table moved him exactly nowhere — thirteenth to thirteenth — which is what four weeks of arithmetic does to one good night. Evan Kestenbaum went 3-3 on 60 and had the most lopsided even record in the league: wins of 11–1, 11–2 and 11–3, losses of 9–11, 9–11 and 9–11. Six points conceded across the three wins. It moved him two places to tenth, into the published table for the first time.

Kestenbaum and Blinder partnered twice and gave up four points combined — 11–1 in the opener, 11–3 in the closer — a week after Camacho and Gaikwad set the partnership mark at 22 of 22. Jim Blake went 3-3 on 46 and climbed a place to fourteenth.

After Week 4

The top five

Standings are ordered by percentage of available points won. Swaraj Gaikwad sits sixth at 79.5% and Urian Kim eleventh at 75.0%. Andrew Mahaven's week-4 games were played by substitute Francisco; under league rules the points are credited to Mahaven. The commissioner is excluded from the published table, as in every week.