Asheville, NC Oct 22-23, 2011
Record: 9-5 +147
Starting rating: 1559
Ending rating: 1578
Average score: 400 (vs. 389)
Bingoes/game: 1.93 (27 in 14 games)
It is nice that they moved the Asheville tournament up a few weeks so that we could see the foliage, which was beautiful, and the weather was great. I love Asheville. Unfortunately, I stayed for 2 nights at the Days Inn Asheville West in Candler. It is near a paper mill and the air smelled dreadful. The motel provides a free “supper” which is institutional beef stew loaded with salt. With saltine crackers on the side just to make sure you get your salt. And “breakfast” that consisted of individual egg patties wrapped in foil, doughy biscuits and hideous, gelatinous gravy. Don’t anybody stay there. The food got a lot better in downtown Asheville. The best meal I had was shrimp and grits with a side of Swiss chard and kale in lemon and olive oil at Tupelo Honey. They also have delectable biscuits - I had one for dessert with honey (tupelo?) on it. I’d love to go back there. At another restaurant, I ran into an old friend who has moved to Asheville from Durham. I had lost track of him; didn’t even know he had moved.
The tournament was fun even though I was in Division 2. I’d have rather played in Division 1 but it was limited to the top 8 players. They were hermetically sealed in two side rooms and I kind of felt sorry for them. What’s up with that? Let those people out of there! I didn’t do as badly in Division 2 as I had feared, and at least I beat most of the better players. In the end, Ruchi Gupta won with a record of 11-3 with five of us following her at 9-5 (I had the lowest spread of the five). Here is a description of my games. In future accounts, I hope to post at least one quackled game.
1) Tom O’Rourke (1368); I lost 399-385. I bingoed out with INSTATE; he had ReMAINED and SmELLIER.
2) Cynthia Seales (1436); I won 458-439. I had STANGED, and DETAiLER. She had GRILLERS and HOUNDiNG.
3) Jeremy Jeffers (1465); I won 367-315. He exchanged 5 times; I exchanged twice. At one point, I was harboring thoughts of winning by the 6 zero turn rule, but that didn’t appeal to me at all. He finally bingoed with AMNiOTE and later CABInETS; I had RETAINED and a 51 point FAQUIR. I challenged off PINNIE*.
4) Gerry Greenside (1570); I lost 453-329. I had RECEIPT and NITRATES; he had WIDEOUTS and DRAWaBLE that I mistakenly challenged.
5) Eliza Gallagher (1599); I won 399-338. A bizarre game: I exchanged 6 to open. She played JAILED for 44. I exchanged 3. She played AFORE for 26, overlapping 4 tiles. For my next turn, I scored 10. After that, I scored 14. Then I scored 12. Then I scored 7. Meanwhile, she was trying to keep the board closed. But for every overlap play of hers, I was creating openings. There was nothing else I could do with the uninspiring racks that I had. She was ahead 153-43, when I used one of my openings for a double-double bingo, SEXTONs (106), the first of my 3 X bingoes. Then three turns later, I used another of my openings to play ENEMIES. Then three turns later, I used another of my openings to play DIRTIEs. Then I had a 31 point Z play. I was astonished that I won.
6) Aaron Finkel (1299); I won 501-347, drawing most of the good stuff. I had INSTEAD, MESHIEsT, FLURrIES, BIOGENS (hooked on TRIG to make TRIGO). He had SNOWING and the phony DERAILER* that I didn’t challenge.
7) Bruce Shuman (1341); I won 418-373. I had PIEROGI and AIRIEST; he had OUtLANdS. He gave me the game when he set up my X for 50 points at the end.
8) Will Scott (1399); I lost 451-351. I had BLOOMERS and ENTWINED; he had UTTERER (which I incorrectly challenged) and HeRRINgS.
9) Francis Anum (1449); I won 456-411. This was an exciting game, full of bingoes and strategic decisions. I got a good lead and started closing down the board. At the very end there was one open D at the top of the board creating the only bingo line and I needed to block it. I saw that DITCHERS was possible, for one thing. The best I could do was add IB to form DIB downward but the B was now hook-able. So I wasn’t totally comfortable with that solution. He puts down ITCHERS* and I was cursing myself, but then realized it was probably phony and challenged it off. I had AGONIZED, PARdNER, RETAILER and he had DELEGATE and SMOKERs.
10) Mark Schmidt (1648); he won 411-280. A disastrous game, it was an extremely closed board for the first half. The score was 163-168 after the 9th turn. There was a wide open E on column O and a clot of words taking up the middle and lower right side of the board. I hate these kinds of games with a passion. We were both just grooming our racks for a bingo. Finally, I figured I should open the board in case he hits that E on column O, so I’d have a place to come back. Of course, if he hit the bingo, that alone would open the board. But I wanted the board to be even more open. So I made a small opening play on top of the clot. He immediately bingoes there with LeARNER, the only bingo of the game. (Neither of us ever hit that E.) I could not bingo back, then he plays YOWEd for 66, then gets more scoring tiles; I pick mostly useless duplicate one pointers, and it was all over. Well, I guess this is how the Eliza game could have turned out.
11) Heather Steffy (1577); I won 480-355. I had EXTORTER (my second X bingo, challenged) and DRASTIc. She had SENATOR, and a very nice find of vANILLA. She tried NONSEAL* which I challenged off; I misspelled my beautiful blocking play of VOGUER (VOUGER*) and she challenged that off, but then spelled it right on my next try.
12) Jerri Bergeron (1291); I won 380-350. I had SWINgER (on KEP forming SKEP on the triple) and HERRIES; she had AMnESIA.
13) Ruchi Gupta (1339); she won 442-350. She ran away with this tournament; told me, “Now it’s your turn to try to bring me down” or some such thing. I opened with VEALERs, rather than any of the common word anagrams, trying to draw a challenge. And she challenged. I also had NITRATED. She had MEANeST. It was actually pretty close until midway through the game, when she started scoring 42, 46, 38, 40 and I had no ammunition to catch up.
14) Gerry Greenside (1570); I won, 448-371. This was my first win against him. I had EXSERTED (101), my third X bingo of the tournament, and WATChES. He had AVOIDER and a 56 point JAGEr play.