VIC CHAMPS 2024
The Vic champs this year had high player numbers, but unfortunately the field was exceptionally weak. To make matters worse, there were apparently complaints from the bottom of the field about the "tight australian draw", about the bottom two players repeat-matching too often, which meant there were only 2 repeats (and two KOTH). This meant I ended up playing a lot of 1400s. Venue was the same as last time, in any event, the tournament was a nice time.
In the first game I played Oscar. A few inaccuracies in difficult positions, and then a strange preendgame where I ended up passing to try and induce him to give me a triple triple (he had the appropriate tiles, but baulked at the chance to take his bingo). Next a critical game against Edward - I won by 300. I warned trevor and Nick that this meant it's basically over for Ed - they did not agree. But if you look at the results, had Ed won this game, we would be looking at a very different tournament (I would have had to beat him twice instead of once to win the tournament). I played cleanly, after taking an unnecessary chance on BLUCHER early.
I had an interesting game against Trevor. In Trevors neverending crusade to make people say the blank (which is apparently more "friendly", as rule stickling is commonly known to be), he asked me to say my blank in BU?NISH, and in a close game and fed up with his antics, I said "I don't care". Then he said he could call the director - to which I replied (knowing I had the win in hand), go ahead. And then he finally backed down. What's he going to do? The sheet is the determinant anyway, I looked up the WESPA rules (suspiciously enough, the Australian rules do not specify what the determinant is, but obviously it's the sheet). I bingoed near the end, he bingoed, and I fortunately drew CORIVAL to play out and win, and that's the last I saw of him in the tournament funnily enough. Albert Martono, visiting from OS, seemed to be quite a compettent player. I played fairly cleanly and won a tight game. Then against Shaun an easy win, and John Hamilton too, despite making 18 points of errors.
Then came a truly strange game. Christie, who is on the committee, is a player I don't think I've ever played before, but is rated 1100 and showed up for this tournament. Thinking I'd have a pretty easy win, she opened with HERTZES. My rack; WUDILIA. I played WUD, missing the 5 points superior TAUIWI. She follows with SEQUELS to make it 170-23. My next racks are FOILPIA, PODIAAA and then finally the death knell, AAAANUV. Meanwhile, she scores 10,12,16. Then she says this is not the best play here I'm sure (and I think, I'm fucked), and sure enough, blank bingo face value. She follows that up with another blank to put me down for good, and without my desperate phoney, wins the game by about 30 points. After that she explains to me that she won by "keeping the board tight". Uh huh. I can't remember the last time I lost to a 1100, but it was an extraordinary game (I made about 15 points of errors, which didn't help). Finally I thrashed Noel B with good draws - luckily he played FILMED for 36 holding back a P (FLIMPED was 94). He asked me after the game if it's valid, and I said yes, and I figured he was rated high enough (we've rarely played) to be real, so I said "oh, that's a pretty bad mistake", to which he explained that it was not a mistake because he did not know the word. Sleep deprived, I went to a mediocre party, but retired early to sleep better for the next day.
Sleeping 7-8 hours really made a difference, and my standard of play and mood was better on day 2. I played a more or less perfect game vs Edward in another critical match and thanks to having the start, I won by 12. I managed to get down POPADUMS, and committed a good trigger pull on CRAIC, which I couldn't be sure of. Next against Karen R. I found my only available 9 for the tournament with SPEARHEAD. Albert Martono toppled me this time by 2 points - I made 20 points of errors, so a better player would have won this game. I was a bit too paranoid I guess - I played my only phoney against Shaun, trying VERDITED, figuring one of VERDITE or VERDIT must be a verb - but infact VERDIT is just VERDICT, and VERDITE is "green mica", and VERDITER is VERDIGRIS. I've made this mistake before. I won by 199, and in my rematch against christie by 230. These games were really quite boring. Finally, in round 15, Edward would have to beat me twice for the title, but couldn't beat me once, so we were both gibsonized, and Naween who came to visit played a few friendlies between the 3 of us, which were probably the 3 most exciting games of the weekend, which is pretty sad.
Still, I had a nice time. I played a padel tournament the day after which was less exciting than the Scrabble, so thats a good sign. After the tournament, we went downstairs to hang out and bitch. Some funny moments were the convoluted stories about a woman harassing piecnick but the types of harassment were not really clear, however Carmel Dodd had a real chip on her shoulder about this woman forcing her to announce the blank - and then Carmel had a long rant at Trevor (and everyone else) about how it was a very bad rule, which was very funny. Some of the chitchat was entertaining, but it was mostly just gossip, which is for me, a high form of interaction. Approve. After this, I went to see Mos Def in concert (too many things fell upon this weekend), and it was a very bad concert. ups and downs I guess. Overall I played the tournament very well, but I didn't feel like I was playing well. I played a phoney 5, but missed no bingos. A lot of careless mistakes, but that's to be expected, it's hard to stay focused when you're this far above the field, which is I suppose why people never get that far ahead of their nearest rival.