Noda finally made it to the top spot, bringing David’s five-month reign to an end in a session played at Kodama on Friday 3nd October. Actually, both Noda and David advanced in the course of the game, at the expense of Jaime whose progress up the table to second place was reversed in the middle of July.
Here’s the score sheet for 2nd October:
Noda -6, +9, -17, +40, +61 = +87
David +46, -44,* +38, +14, -30 = +24
===
Jaime -40, +35, -21, -54, -31 = -111
* Yakitori
When those results were plugged into the “Grand Accumulated Results Table 2009” it looked like this:
| Name | Played | Chombo | Yakitori | Score |
| Noda | 55 | 2 | 0 | +211 |
| David | 64 | 0 | 4 | +201 |
| Koji | 5 | 0 | 0 | +143 |
| Hide | 32 | 0 | 0 | +111 |
| Kenyon | 19 | 0 | 0 | +105 |
| Ray | 10 | 0 | 0 | +96 |
| Neil | 3 | 0 | 0 | +94 |
| Kiyo | 1 | 0 | 0 | -39 |
| Jezz | 6 | 1 | 0 | -44 |
| Yasu | 4 | 1 | 0 | -152 |
| Jaime | 61 | 2 | 1 | -173 |
| Nobu | 18 | 3 | 2 | -553 |
Play resumed at Kodama last night. This time Noda, David and Jaime were joined by Ray and Hide. David finished top at the end of the West round of the first game and sat out the second game for dinner.
Noda won the second game but crashed in the third when David returned to the table. Ray cut his early losses in half.
In the final game of the evening Hide made the early running as starting Oya with a series of fast wins, but his position eroded through the game and Noda came out strong at the end, but not quite strong enough as David managed to cling to top spot for the evening with enough points to reclaim top spot on the “Grand Accumulated Results Table 2009”, something which has not been seen before as late in the year as this…
Jaime’s descent continued, and produced a fine Chombo in the last game by not claiming Tsumo on the 6-Bamboo on a three-tile wait (6 & 9-Coins, 6-Bamboo).
The score sheet:
David +39, –, +47, -36 = +50
Noda -18, +51, -60, +63 = +36
Hide –, 0, 0, +5 = +5
===
Ray -21, -17, +19, — = -19
Jaime –, -34, -6, -32* = -72
* Chombo
So the top of the table now looks like this:
| Name | Played | Chombo | Yakitori | Score |
| David | 67 | 0 | 4 | +251 |
| Noda | 59 | 2 | 0 | +247 |
| Hide | 35 | 0 | 0 | +116 |
| Kenyon | 19 | 0 | 0 | +105 |
| Ray | 13 | 0 | 0 | +77 |
It promises to be an exciting last quarter…