boofreakinhoo--get ova it
Thanks, Marlin, for the mantra.
KFC and I had a 5 games session at the very cool Noble Tree Cafe last night. It was, how do you say, discouraging. I found myself playing timid and fixating on cute plays (most of which were unplayable or maybe a turn or two down the road) instead of solving the problems that were presenting themselves at everyturn. My board vision was shoddy and I check game control at the door. Oh well this pity parties got to go (hey hey, ho ho).
Game 1: W 522-453
I would say I bagged her, except she got both blanks and bingoed with them. I got 5 bingoes, but one of them was phoney and had she challenged, things would have been completely different. I have never played 4 bingoes in a row, much less had a 78-point non-bingo (BOOZE) on the next turn. All-in-all there were 8 bingoes on the board. Everything fell into place and there really weren't a whole lot of interesting positions until the endgame when the game was a foregone conclusion. No biggie.
Learned: REEDITION, UNWARILY
Hers: APOLOGY (opener), CO(R)rODES (bingo), FEINTI(N)g (bango)
Mine: GRAP(I)EST (bingo), TRANCED (bango), NA(T)URING* (bongo), OUTRAVE (bungo?), TELLERS
Game 2: L 308-431
This was a strange game. The first half was VERY vowel laden on my part with me playing through things with top three plays and scoring as much as I could. The second half of the game, I never had more than 1 vowel on my rack and I was busy trying to open things to play catch-up while she scored. My first play of OBEAH led to her capitalizing on turn 4 with OBEAHISM. I miss the bingo in EEEGNNO. Ummm, sure. The biggest bonehead move came on turn 7 with my FUTZ on the triple (leaving LNV) forgetting it is a verb and essentially handing her 57 points. She bingoes on her next turn to boot with OUTsTAY. And it's never really close after that.
In these types of games, my bruised psyche tells myself that I am down by much more than I am (when I played FUTZ above, I was only down 40), so I make very bold and volatile moves that are completely unnecessary. Very poor play on my part. I need to know how to keep my head together when my drawing goes south. I probably could have given her a run for her money if I didn't make a few costly errors.
Learned: GRIEVANT, EOCENE, VEGETE, NEOGENE, TAUTONYM, TATOUAY
Hers: OUTsTAY
Mine: N/A
Game 3: L 431-488
Here we got some dinner at My Pi. Not too bad, but sort of forgettable.
She opens with RETAX for 40. I extend OX to OXCART for 30. She bingoes on turn 3 with (R)ETUNING followed by a blatant S set-up with CU(T). Meanwhile, I get down EGIILNU through an N to be down 3 points. Good game so far. She capitalizes on her set-up with SORTIES and I hold AMOOTZS with two open N's. D'oh! I was pretty sure I was missing a bingo there, but couldn't think of what it was. Play ZOOM(S) for 52 instead. FEH for 40 from her and I try KIANITES* (thinking KYANITES). INDOLEs for her and I chicken out on KAINITES. Oh man. Very sad indeed. I am down 150 at this point. What did I have to lose. She draws the other blank and plays ABRO(G)aTE not blocking an obvious S set-up of mine. My GRAVELS isn't enough to get me close. This was a really good game. Missed bingoes however is the theme of the evening.
Learned: BASHAW, LINGUINI (wrote it down, but wasn't sure)
Hers: RETUNING, SORTIES, INDOLES, ABROGATE
Mine: LINGUINE, GRAVELS
Game 4: W 375-361
This was the cheapest win you can imagine. She challenges off 3 of my words in the course of the game, but in the end (up by 120 points), she doesn't block a set-up of mine and I capitalize.
She bingoes early with BODEGaS. Down 70 on turn 6, I get infatuated with my rack of EIJNPRU. (see post title) I waste a lot of time from my cop and end up playing PENURI(C)* to open the board. She challenges it off and I make the right play of JUNIP(E)R for 26 on my next turn leaving an E. I lapsed and tried ABSENTIA* without even thinking when I had a clear place for TAENIAS. She challenges it off. My brain just wasn't working at this point and I'm down 86. Luckily she's having problems too, or else it wouldn't have been nearly that close.
In the end, I play H(U)N at 2G to make two lines on the top triple row on opposite sides of the board. I leave myself with ELNOS and draw Z?. She's greedy and takes points elsewhere and doesn't block the easier of the two lines and I come backe with NOzZLES for 133 pts. I end up winning by 14, but that would not happen in a tournament. I guess I gave myself all of the opportunities I could and hoped for a slip up her her part. Best case scenario rarely ever works out.
Learned: FOMITE, DONZELS, SNOOZLE
Hers: BODEGaS
Mine: NOzZLES
Game 5: L 360-464
She opens with JEBEL. I play ANGELIC to a triple lane when ANGLICE was much much better. She hooks the A and is up 30 points. Out of the bag I draw a D and become infatuated with the DJEBEL hook and proceed to make a lot of suboptimal plays waiting for it to come to fruition. I finally have a friendly rack and she plops down REIGNED. So I have to "settle" on (J)oINDERS for 82. After the exchange I am down 90.
Are you sensing a theme. Brett gets infatuated with silly plays, plays badly in the meantime, then winds up down ~100 going into the second half of the game. Bad, Brett! Bad!
I get some big scoring plays, but have drek. Not nearly enough to combat her heads-up playing and great board vision. Not to mention another bingo in SW(E)ArING. I do find (E)XP(I)RY in the endgame for 42, but it's more just cute than anything else.
Learned: TUTUED, HUTTED, DHUTI, INDEVOUT (might have seen this one before, but it doesn't look familiar), PYRROL, MANIOC (pretty sure I've seen it before, but she found it over the board as a squeeze play for 37. Awesome.)
Hers: TANUKAS* (TANUKIS, TALUKAS)(bingo), REIGNED (Bango), SWEARING
Mine: ANGELIC, JOINDERS
Good play, Kate.
Tonight, more games with a big group at the Mercury Cafe.
Hopefully, I can find ways to improve on my shortcomings here. In the end, the most instructive thing about the night was knowing that I need to try to keep my psyche in control and not let myself play with a false impression of how the game is actually panning out. Oh and let's try not to get infatuated with cute plays.
KFC and I had a 5 games session at the very cool Noble Tree Cafe last night. It was, how do you say, discouraging. I found myself playing timid and fixating on cute plays (most of which were unplayable or maybe a turn or two down the road) instead of solving the problems that were presenting themselves at everyturn. My board vision was shoddy and I check game control at the door. Oh well this pity parties got to go (hey hey, ho ho).
Game 1: W 522-453
I would say I bagged her, except she got both blanks and bingoed with them. I got 5 bingoes, but one of them was phoney and had she challenged, things would have been completely different. I have never played 4 bingoes in a row, much less had a 78-point non-bingo (BOOZE) on the next turn. All-in-all there were 8 bingoes on the board. Everything fell into place and there really weren't a whole lot of interesting positions until the endgame when the game was a foregone conclusion. No biggie.
Learned: REEDITION, UNWARILY
Hers: APOLOGY (opener), CO(R)rODES (bingo), FEINTI(N)g (bango)
Mine: GRAP(I)EST (bingo), TRANCED (bango), NA(T)URING* (bongo), OUTRAVE (bungo?), TELLERS
Game 2: L 308-431
This was a strange game. The first half was VERY vowel laden on my part with me playing through things with top three plays and scoring as much as I could. The second half of the game, I never had more than 1 vowel on my rack and I was busy trying to open things to play catch-up while she scored. My first play of OBEAH led to her capitalizing on turn 4 with OBEAHISM. I miss the bingo in EEEGNNO. Ummm, sure. The biggest bonehead move came on turn 7 with my FUTZ on the triple (leaving LNV) forgetting it is a verb and essentially handing her 57 points. She bingoes on her next turn to boot with OUTsTAY. And it's never really close after that.
In these types of games, my bruised psyche tells myself that I am down by much more than I am (when I played FUTZ above, I was only down 40), so I make very bold and volatile moves that are completely unnecessary. Very poor play on my part. I need to know how to keep my head together when my drawing goes south. I probably could have given her a run for her money if I didn't make a few costly errors.
Learned: GRIEVANT, EOCENE, VEGETE, NEOGENE, TAUTONYM, TATOUAY
Hers: OUTsTAY
Mine: N/A
Game 3: L 431-488
Here we got some dinner at My Pi. Not too bad, but sort of forgettable.
She opens with RETAX for 40. I extend OX to OXCART for 30. She bingoes on turn 3 with (R)ETUNING followed by a blatant S set-up with CU(T). Meanwhile, I get down EGIILNU through an N to be down 3 points. Good game so far. She capitalizes on her set-up with SORTIES and I hold AMOOTZS with two open N's. D'oh! I was pretty sure I was missing a bingo there, but couldn't think of what it was. Play ZOOM(S) for 52 instead. FEH for 40 from her and I try KIANITES* (thinking KYANITES). INDOLEs for her and I chicken out on KAINITES. Oh man. Very sad indeed. I am down 150 at this point. What did I have to lose. She draws the other blank and plays ABRO(G)aTE not blocking an obvious S set-up of mine. My GRAVELS isn't enough to get me close. This was a really good game. Missed bingoes however is the theme of the evening.
Learned: BASHAW, LINGUINI (wrote it down, but wasn't sure)
Hers: RETUNING, SORTIES, INDOLES, ABROGATE
Mine: LINGUINE, GRAVELS
Game 4: W 375-361
This was the cheapest win you can imagine. She challenges off 3 of my words in the course of the game, but in the end (up by 120 points), she doesn't block a set-up of mine and I capitalize.
She bingoes early with BODEGaS. Down 70 on turn 6, I get infatuated with my rack of EIJNPRU. (see post title) I waste a lot of time from my cop and end up playing PENURI(C)* to open the board. She challenges it off and I make the right play of JUNIP(E)R for 26 on my next turn leaving an E. I lapsed and tried ABSENTIA* without even thinking when I had a clear place for TAENIAS. She challenges it off. My brain just wasn't working at this point and I'm down 86. Luckily she's having problems too, or else it wouldn't have been nearly that close.
In the end, I play H(U)N at 2G to make two lines on the top triple row on opposite sides of the board. I leave myself with ELNOS and draw Z?. She's greedy and takes points elsewhere and doesn't block the easier of the two lines and I come backe with NOzZLES for 133 pts. I end up winning by 14, but that would not happen in a tournament. I guess I gave myself all of the opportunities I could and hoped for a slip up her her part. Best case scenario rarely ever works out.
Learned: FOMITE, DONZELS, SNOOZLE
Hers: BODEGaS
Mine: NOzZLES
Game 5: L 360-464
She opens with JEBEL. I play ANGELIC to a triple lane when ANGLICE was much much better. She hooks the A and is up 30 points. Out of the bag I draw a D and become infatuated with the DJEBEL hook and proceed to make a lot of suboptimal plays waiting for it to come to fruition. I finally have a friendly rack and she plops down REIGNED. So I have to "settle" on (J)oINDERS for 82. After the exchange I am down 90.
Are you sensing a theme. Brett gets infatuated with silly plays, plays badly in the meantime, then winds up down ~100 going into the second half of the game. Bad, Brett! Bad!
I get some big scoring plays, but have drek. Not nearly enough to combat her heads-up playing and great board vision. Not to mention another bingo in SW(E)ArING. I do find (E)XP(I)RY in the endgame for 42, but it's more just cute than anything else.
Learned: TUTUED, HUTTED, DHUTI, INDEVOUT (might have seen this one before, but it doesn't look familiar), PYRROL, MANIOC (pretty sure I've seen it before, but she found it over the board as a squeeze play for 37. Awesome.)
Hers: TANUKAS* (TANUKIS, TALUKAS)(bingo), REIGNED (Bango), SWEARING
Mine: ANGELIC, JOINDERS
Good play, Kate.
Tonight, more games with a big group at the Mercury Cafe.
Hopefully, I can find ways to improve on my shortcomings here. In the end, the most instructive thing about the night was knowing that I need to try to keep my psyche in control and not let myself play with a false impression of how the game is actually panning out. Oh and let's try not to get infatuated with cute plays.