Apres Fenton
Interesting weekend, the last, with the two one day tournaments here in Fenton.
I went 3-4 in a tough top division on Saturday, then followed that up by going 4-3 against some strong players in an open tournament on Sunday. I haven't put the games through the woodchipper yet, but the feeling is I played better on Saturday. There were a couple of games on Sunday where I was feeling some burnout, and a few of those dreaded mid-game 'oh shit' moments, as I realized plays I could/should have made on previous turns.
So, coming home Sunday night I was exhausted and not feeling all that well. But then I got to thinking how fortunate for me that there's a tournament right here in my home town, and how lucky I am to have some of the region's best players come right to my doorstep, basically. For that I have to thank director Mikki Sutherland and bgscrabble who originated the tournament. It is amazing to me how far some people come to join in the fun. New friends Tina aka Scrabble Crush Totten-King, and Tyler Hannan probably came the farthest (West Virginia and Kentucky, respectively), but this weekend we also got reacquainted with Randy Greenspan and Ember Nelson out of Buffalo, Lloyd Mills out of Ontario, and a number of players from the Chicago area, including Scott Hawkins, Nick Ball and Lisa Slankard. After some more tracking errors on Sunday, I took note of Hawkins' custom scoresheet, and having seen me openly covet it, he was nice enough to rip one out of his binder. It's a landscape model that I'll try out next week in Richfield.
Maybe I'll see you there.
In the meantime, as my brother is wont to say -
Enjoy the journey.
I went 3-4 in a tough top division on Saturday, then followed that up by going 4-3 against some strong players in an open tournament on Sunday. I haven't put the games through the woodchipper yet, but the feeling is I played better on Saturday. There were a couple of games on Sunday where I was feeling some burnout, and a few of those dreaded mid-game 'oh shit' moments, as I realized plays I could/should have made on previous turns.
So, coming home Sunday night I was exhausted and not feeling all that well. But then I got to thinking how fortunate for me that there's a tournament right here in my home town, and how lucky I am to have some of the region's best players come right to my doorstep, basically. For that I have to thank director Mikki Sutherland and bgscrabble who originated the tournament. It is amazing to me how far some people come to join in the fun. New friends Tina aka Scrabble Crush Totten-King, and Tyler Hannan probably came the farthest (West Virginia and Kentucky, respectively), but this weekend we also got reacquainted with Randy Greenspan and Ember Nelson out of Buffalo, Lloyd Mills out of Ontario, and a number of players from the Chicago area, including Scott Hawkins, Nick Ball and Lisa Slankard. After some more tracking errors on Sunday, I took note of Hawkins' custom scoresheet, and having seen me openly covet it, he was nice enough to rip one out of his binder. It's a landscape model that I'll try out next week in Richfield.
Maybe I'll see you there.
In the meantime, as my brother is wont to say -
Enjoy the journey.