Zaytouna Lounge

Earl Lovell prepares to point

Brian and Jonathan

Mateo, Earl, Jim, and Christophe

Bryan, Keith, Jonathan, and Brian

Pam, Mateo, and Earl

Jim pointing in early morning hours

Owner of Zaytouna, Amine Najah, congratulates winners

Runners-up: Oliver and Amine   Winners:  Christophe and Jim

We had a great time playing in Zaytouna Lounge's  http://zaytounalounge.jimdo.com/
monthly tournament on Saturday night.  The play began around 7:15 PM and continued to almost 2:30 AM on Sunday.  I played with Earl Lovell and Shirley played with Pam Lovell.  The Lovells are friends of ours from Texas-- soon to be NC residents if their plans work out!

Neither of our teams made much of a showing against the seasoned Zaytouna players.  The terrain is challenging and proved to be too much so for us on that particular evening.

The finalists had no such problems.  Both Amine/Oliver and Christophe/Jim finished with 4 wins and 1 loss in the qualifying rounds (five games-- no time limits!).  So it was a showdown of the two powerhouse teams in the finals.  Christophe and Jim jumped out to an early lead ( 8 - 2) before being reigned back in by the steady play of Oliver and Amine who managed to fight to an 11 - 10 lead.  Ultimately, previous Zaytouna winners Christophe and Jim were able to prevail again with the final score ending at 13 - 11.  Congratulations to Christophe Chambers and Jim Schwobel for their high-level play and coolness under pressure.  Champions indeed!