Michigan Madness Recap
I won! Yay!
11-3 +1054 (I think) was good enough to edge out
porosus by 20 spread points.
Holy shit.
In the KOH game against Dave Turissini, I had a game and a gob of spread points on Dave and he needed to win by 132 points to take the tournament. A little close for my taste, but I figure I can probably handle that. Keep things closed, turn over tiles when I can without giving too much away. Let's do this.
I open with AUREOLA natural, so there goes board control and closedness. Anyway, it proceeds to be one of the most wide open boards I have ever played (at one point 5 triples were open), and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. I am able to score pretty well between some of the ugliest racks I have ever seen (BGHLMQV, BNNRSWX, BCLNRSW, etc.), but he draws both blanks and bingoes three times including BlINTZE leaving one in the bag to be up 146! I hold DEIIORS and there is an N in the bag with two places to play it off for 8 points. that means I have to score pretty well to absorb the 8 + spread + double tiles form my rack. My stomach drops. I see a 30 point play that makes for a tie (in the overall scheme of things), but then spot a place to play for 38 and five tiles of turnover. In my excitement, I slap down RISED* makind WEBS, ALE and ID with the D on the triple letter and the whole thing hitting the double word. I know the word isn't good, but it's one I have to think about and I was too excited to think. If he challenges he wins, but he is too busy recounting the score a couple times to hold and then after nearly a minute has passed he curses himself for not challenging. ROSED would have played in the same spot for the same points, I should have played it, but my adrenaline was pumping way too much. It is a great irony that I win it on a phoney 5, because his word knowledge is a lot better than mine and he always gives me due shit for playing so many phoneys. Wow. What a game.
In the end, Dave wins the game by 120 points, but the tourney is mine by 20 spread points.
My three losses came against Dave Turissini (2 of them) and the 3rd place winner
hector31.
A big congrats to the two of them for being such great competitors! Scott might be one of the classiest guys in Scrabble, and I am officially Dave's bitch. Congrats also to Evan for his D1 win. It was also awesome to hang out with a crowd that I've never really had the pleasure of hanging out with (notably
ipecac_icecap,
tailskid, and
pbzeigler).
I am so so so glad to finally have a 2-day win under my belt. It's one of those mileposts that has been nagging me.
Now, back to Quackling and studying. I hope to post all of my games in the next little bit.
11-3 +1054 (I think) was good enough to edge out
porosus by 20 spread points.
Holy shit.
In the KOH game against Dave Turissini, I had a game and a gob of spread points on Dave and he needed to win by 132 points to take the tournament. A little close for my taste, but I figure I can probably handle that. Keep things closed, turn over tiles when I can without giving too much away. Let's do this.
I open with AUREOLA natural, so there goes board control and closedness. Anyway, it proceeds to be one of the most wide open boards I have ever played (at one point 5 triples were open), and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. I am able to score pretty well between some of the ugliest racks I have ever seen (BGHLMQV, BNNRSWX, BCLNRSW, etc.), but he draws both blanks and bingoes three times including BlINTZE leaving one in the bag to be up 146! I hold DEIIORS and there is an N in the bag with two places to play it off for 8 points. that means I have to score pretty well to absorb the 8 + spread + double tiles form my rack. My stomach drops. I see a 30 point play that makes for a tie (in the overall scheme of things), but then spot a place to play for 38 and five tiles of turnover. In my excitement, I slap down RISED* makind WEBS, ALE and ID with the D on the triple letter and the whole thing hitting the double word. I know the word isn't good, but it's one I have to think about and I was too excited to think. If he challenges he wins, but he is too busy recounting the score a couple times to hold and then after nearly a minute has passed he curses himself for not challenging. ROSED would have played in the same spot for the same points, I should have played it, but my adrenaline was pumping way too much. It is a great irony that I win it on a phoney 5, because his word knowledge is a lot better than mine and he always gives me due shit for playing so many phoneys. Wow. What a game.
In the end, Dave wins the game by 120 points, but the tourney is mine by 20 spread points.
My three losses came against Dave Turissini (2 of them) and the 3rd place winner
hector31.
A big congrats to the two of them for being such great competitors! Scott might be one of the classiest guys in Scrabble, and I am officially Dave's bitch. Congrats also to Evan for his D1 win. It was also awesome to hang out with a crowd that I've never really had the pleasure of hanging out with (notably
ipecac_icecap,
tailskid, and
pbzeigler).
I am so so so glad to finally have a 2-day win under my belt. It's one of those mileposts that has been nagging me.
Now, back to Quackling and studying. I hope to post all of my games in the next little bit.