Force Ten (Apex 8/27/2011)
We played a Scrabble tournament on the periphery of a hurricane this weekend. That's kind of crazy, but fortunately we only suffered from some high winds and 3-5 inches of rain in the Triangle. Other locations certainly got much worse. I hope anyone affected by Irene is holding up well, and it definitely sucks that Dover got cancelled because of the storm. As for what actually happened, that can be found after the cut.As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, we had a new venue for this tournament. All Fun and Games is a game enthusiast store in Apex, a SW suburb of Raleigh. In the front they sell board games, jigsaw puzzles (including a 32000 piece whopper!), battle card decks, and other miscellanea. In the back of the store they have a spacious, well-lit open room with a couple dozen tables for the multitude of game nights they host. They have board game nights, miniature role-playing game nights, pen-and-paper RPG nights, Magic The Gathering card battle nights, you name it. We competitive Scrabblers are actually the "cool kids" there, which is quite the reversal from the norm. In fact, during our afternoon session an MTG tournament also took place, and they post-mortem just as much as we do. The venue is great and I certainly hope we continue to have our one-days there. That said, let's move on to the games themselves.
Game 1 vs. Rahn McKeown: W 480-293. TuYERES, SEATROU(T)/RESCuER. I challenged off 3 phonies in this game; SETIA*, (ARETE)R*, and GUNNADIC*. The last was a desperation outbingo try, but the other two were word confusion on Rahn's part (SEPIA/RETIA and URETER). Even though he bingoed early, I was able to stay ahead with MY 35, PELF 27, Q(u)IRT 35, and ZOOS/QuIRTS 53. My blank bingo puts me ahead by around 90, I score big with the X, and Rahn can't keep up with his lost turns. After playing SEATROUT, I empty the bag by drawing KWEJIBO. badqoph looks over at my rack and starts giggling, and I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face. Rahn finally tracks everything and says "What, do you have JABBERWOCKY" over there or something?" I say "I was thinking more Simpsons", and then we all just lose it. Winning this game by 187 ended up being crucial going into the KOTH.
Game 2 vs. Suhas Rao: W 440-283. CIRROSE (2x2), LAAgERE(D)/SLAINTE. Suhas had no chance here; I hit SIZY 42/CIRROSE 93 in the first two turns to go up by 100. He hits his bingo, blocking my pretty TAM/(ABA)M(P) setup, and draws within 50 with an X bomb, but I get my blank bingo down and he wades through junk while I close the remaining bingo lanes down, and his blank sits unused in the endgame. During this game I ended up with ABDMMTT on my rack at one point, which can be rearranged to give my first name and my initials. Of course, I played MATT(S) fromt his rack.
Game 3 vs. Robb Griffith: W 368-354. SLASHeR/HOgGERS. Ugly game, and I definitely made some bad choices. I did get away with MEETEN* to start the game, playing underneath WAIFED for 29. I had set up my S with MYOMA, drawing to AHLRSS?. I saw that aSHLARS would play for a boatload of points hooking MYOMA, but Robb played PUS parallel to MYOMA on the right. I only saw the S back hook to PUS, and not the H, so I didn't play aSHLARS for 94, instead opting for SLASHeR elsewhere for 83. I make a few more sub-optimal plays but continue to pull away until there are 9 in the bag, where a critical choice comes up. He's just opened a 2nd triple lane, and I hold the homeless BORNITE. He's probably got the last S and blank on his rack. I decide to block the top one with OBIT/OBA, leaving the S hook to KUE alone. He gets down HOgGERS for 91; up top it would have been worth 97. Now I hold the homeless PANNIER and am down 8. He holds RETRO in his rack; I scour the board for potential outplays but don't see any, so I go big with NEAP for 24, taking the last hotspot on the board. That ends up being enough to hold on, and I'm the only 3-0 in D1 after the morning session.
Since we started at 10 am, David institutes a lunch break after the 3rd game. Rahn and I originally try to hit up a sushi place, but they're closed for weekend lunch hours. We go across the plaza to MacGregor Draft House, part of a chain of brewpubs that specialize in burgers and mostly local draft beer. I partake of a Shrimp Poboy with "boom-boom" sauce (totally not the same as Bang Bang Shrimp, don't sue them Bonefish Grill! :P) and a Red Oak pint. I find that drinking local brews in moderation can help my anagramming and board vision; my mind feels more elastic, but that's probably BS and I'm better off just drinking water during tourneys. I certainly wasn't getting hammered though, then I just don't make good decisions.
Game 4 vs. Katya Lezin: W 470-372. TROUPES, BASINED/SENIORS. It was great to see Katya again; I had not seen her since her diagnosis was made public to the Scrabble community. She was certainly in high spirits and we had a great time chatting after we sped through our game (as we normally do). I challenged off her CUBANS* so that I could put down TROUPES. She plays CUNT afterward and then tells Suhas not to look at our board; of course he does it anyway. She gets down QUIVER for 54 down the triple lane, but I'm able to tack on the ED for 63. I still think it's right for her to play that, there was nowhere else to score with the Q. After playing RATION, she draws both blanks out of the bag, leaving one tile left. I block the last bingo line available; she ended up having tEMPLEs among other choices for around 90 if I didn't block, which would have made things a lot tighter. She did have tEMP(T)a(B)LE available according to Quackle, making 2 overlaps, but good luck finding that with two blanks over the board.
Game 5 vs. Erickson Smith: L 413-434. WEALTHS, TRANGA(M)S, (T)ElLURIC (3rd letter is blank L)/ATE(L)IERS (2x2), sTUNTER(S)*, (G)ELATION. Well, I thought there wasn't anything I could really do to win this game, but it turns out that challenging STUNTERS* might have done the trick. I can never keep straight stuff like SLITTERS and STINTERS and STILTERS* and STUNTERS* and STENTERS* (STERNEST). He did have ENTRUSTS in roughly the same spot along with a number of other bingoes. That extra turn could have come in handy; after TRANGAMS he came right back with GELATION, I get stuck dumping the Q for 23 and the J for 10 while he gets the Z for 54 (partly my fault for trying to set my S and then having to ignore the spot), and by the time I draw the blank and bingo out with TELLURIC, I'm too far behind for it to even matter. Maybe I don't focus so much on bingoing if I can gain tempo by challenging off the phony, but I didn't even give it a second look. I give him credit though, he consistently kept the scoring pressure on so that I had no room for error. At the very least, this was the high loss for the division, earning me $10. Even when I lost on Saturday I won.
Game 6 vs. Liz Gottlin: W 492-390. APOgEES, O(V)ERTIME, oXIDANT, QINDARK(A)/INCISOR. Yeah, that's definitely the coolest bingo I've ever played. Play the game here: http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9307
Game 7 vs. badqoph: W 464-347. GUANASE, ETESIAN/PROfILED, OORAlIS (5 letter is blank L). Feels good to beat my Scrabble daddy while being double-blanked. I got to play the fun VACCI(N)A for 28 on turn 2 (correctly discarding VACCINAE), and then pluralized it with GUANASE 2 turns later. He gets his 2 blank bingoes down but also exchanges and plays small so I'm still up by 20 after OORALIS. I hit a 45 point X play (missing on a 66 point EX(P)AT..look everywhere!) and ETESIAN to go ahead by 100, then play super-conservatively because I'm convinced he's close to another bingo by the way he's fishing. Turns out he wasn't really close to anything. I let him get away with STINE* in the endgame...it looked funny to me, but I was getting lazy and was trying to finish the game as quickly as possible.
So after the round-robin I'm the only 6-1 in the division. Rahn has pulled ahead of Ryan on spread, so I'm playing him for 1st. Fortunately, since I won that first game by 187 points, I have a 310-point spread cushion to play with, which really helps to take the pressure off.
Game 8 vs. Rahn McKeown: W 442-408. P(A)RODIES (to open), NOTARIE(S), (L)ITTorAL/OV(E)RSEES, SNOOTED. A close game throughout that's decided by the blanks in the end. Play it here: http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9308
Well it was another Triangle tournament, another 7-1 record and 1st place. The Golden Corral mojo was successfully transferred. Got $160 for 1st plus the $10 for high loss. New rating is 1726, a new TWL peak and it places me as the 4th seed in Alpharetta this weekend; I was the 11th seed last year. I've gained almost 200 rating points in the past year, Aug 2010-Aug 2011; that seems kind of crazy to me, but after playing enough 1600-1800 players I certainly feel like I belong in STEEdom now. I'm definitely going to need a break after this next tournament though; I'll still go to club, but I don't want to burn out either. It might also be time to start learning some more Collins; I'll be playing the big list in February if there's enough interest for EC's, and I'm not going to luckbox my way to a 2nd tournament win with only TWL bingoes. Oh and Katie has her first tournament as assistant director! She even got TSH running this weekend on her own, and did a dry run for the Alpharetta tournament. She informed me that I came in last place, at 2-18. I asked her why she hates me so much :). I'm sure she'll do well, as she seems to have the rules down pat and she doesn't take guff from anyone, especially me. Tourney report to come next week, until then cheers!
Game 1 vs. Rahn McKeown: W 480-293. TuYERES, SEATROU(T)/RESCuER. I challenged off 3 phonies in this game; SETIA*, (ARETE)R*, and GUNNADIC*. The last was a desperation outbingo try, but the other two were word confusion on Rahn's part (SEPIA/RETIA and URETER). Even though he bingoed early, I was able to stay ahead with MY 35, PELF 27, Q(u)IRT 35, and ZOOS/QuIRTS 53. My blank bingo puts me ahead by around 90, I score big with the X, and Rahn can't keep up with his lost turns. After playing SEATROUT, I empty the bag by drawing KWEJIBO. badqoph looks over at my rack and starts giggling, and I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face. Rahn finally tracks everything and says "What, do you have JABBERWOCKY" over there or something?" I say "I was thinking more Simpsons", and then we all just lose it. Winning this game by 187 ended up being crucial going into the KOTH.
Game 2 vs. Suhas Rao: W 440-283. CIRROSE (2x2), LAAgERE(D)/SLAINTE. Suhas had no chance here; I hit SIZY 42/CIRROSE 93 in the first two turns to go up by 100. He hits his bingo, blocking my pretty TAM/(ABA)M(P) setup, and draws within 50 with an X bomb, but I get my blank bingo down and he wades through junk while I close the remaining bingo lanes down, and his blank sits unused in the endgame. During this game I ended up with ABDMMTT on my rack at one point, which can be rearranged to give my first name and my initials. Of course, I played MATT(S) fromt his rack.
Game 3 vs. Robb Griffith: W 368-354. SLASHeR/HOgGERS. Ugly game, and I definitely made some bad choices. I did get away with MEETEN* to start the game, playing underneath WAIFED for 29. I had set up my S with MYOMA, drawing to AHLRSS?. I saw that aSHLARS would play for a boatload of points hooking MYOMA, but Robb played PUS parallel to MYOMA on the right. I only saw the S back hook to PUS, and not the H, so I didn't play aSHLARS for 94, instead opting for SLASHeR elsewhere for 83. I make a few more sub-optimal plays but continue to pull away until there are 9 in the bag, where a critical choice comes up. He's just opened a 2nd triple lane, and I hold the homeless BORNITE. He's probably got the last S and blank on his rack. I decide to block the top one with OBIT/OBA, leaving the S hook to KUE alone. He gets down HOgGERS for 91; up top it would have been worth 97. Now I hold the homeless PANNIER and am down 8. He holds RETRO in his rack; I scour the board for potential outplays but don't see any, so I go big with NEAP for 24, taking the last hotspot on the board. That ends up being enough to hold on, and I'm the only 3-0 in D1 after the morning session.
Since we started at 10 am, David institutes a lunch break after the 3rd game. Rahn and I originally try to hit up a sushi place, but they're closed for weekend lunch hours. We go across the plaza to MacGregor Draft House, part of a chain of brewpubs that specialize in burgers and mostly local draft beer. I partake of a Shrimp Poboy with "boom-boom" sauce (totally not the same as Bang Bang Shrimp, don't sue them Bonefish Grill! :P) and a Red Oak pint. I find that drinking local brews in moderation can help my anagramming and board vision; my mind feels more elastic, but that's probably BS and I'm better off just drinking water during tourneys. I certainly wasn't getting hammered though, then I just don't make good decisions.
Game 4 vs. Katya Lezin: W 470-372. TROUPES, BASINED/SENIORS. It was great to see Katya again; I had not seen her since her diagnosis was made public to the Scrabble community. She was certainly in high spirits and we had a great time chatting after we sped through our game (as we normally do). I challenged off her CUBANS* so that I could put down TROUPES. She plays CUNT afterward and then tells Suhas not to look at our board; of course he does it anyway. She gets down QUIVER for 54 down the triple lane, but I'm able to tack on the ED for 63. I still think it's right for her to play that, there was nowhere else to score with the Q. After playing RATION, she draws both blanks out of the bag, leaving one tile left. I block the last bingo line available; she ended up having tEMPLEs among other choices for around 90 if I didn't block, which would have made things a lot tighter. She did have tEMP(T)a(B)LE available according to Quackle, making 2 overlaps, but good luck finding that with two blanks over the board.
Game 5 vs. Erickson Smith: L 413-434. WEALTHS, TRANGA(M)S, (T)ElLURIC (3rd letter is blank L)/ATE(L)IERS (2x2), sTUNTER(S)*, (G)ELATION. Well, I thought there wasn't anything I could really do to win this game, but it turns out that challenging STUNTERS* might have done the trick. I can never keep straight stuff like SLITTERS and STINTERS and STILTERS* and STUNTERS* and STENTERS* (STERNEST). He did have ENTRUSTS in roughly the same spot along with a number of other bingoes. That extra turn could have come in handy; after TRANGAMS he came right back with GELATION, I get stuck dumping the Q for 23 and the J for 10 while he gets the Z for 54 (partly my fault for trying to set my S and then having to ignore the spot), and by the time I draw the blank and bingo out with TELLURIC, I'm too far behind for it to even matter. Maybe I don't focus so much on bingoing if I can gain tempo by challenging off the phony, but I didn't even give it a second look. I give him credit though, he consistently kept the scoring pressure on so that I had no room for error. At the very least, this was the high loss for the division, earning me $10. Even when I lost on Saturday I won.
Game 6 vs. Liz Gottlin: W 492-390. APOgEES, O(V)ERTIME, oXIDANT, QINDARK(A)/INCISOR. Yeah, that's definitely the coolest bingo I've ever played. Play the game here: http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9307
Game 7 vs. badqoph: W 464-347. GUANASE, ETESIAN/PROfILED, OORAlIS (5 letter is blank L). Feels good to beat my Scrabble daddy while being double-blanked. I got to play the fun VACCI(N)A for 28 on turn 2 (correctly discarding VACCINAE), and then pluralized it with GUANASE 2 turns later. He gets his 2 blank bingoes down but also exchanges and plays small so I'm still up by 20 after OORALIS. I hit a 45 point X play (missing on a 66 point EX(P)AT..look everywhere!) and ETESIAN to go ahead by 100, then play super-conservatively because I'm convinced he's close to another bingo by the way he's fishing. Turns out he wasn't really close to anything. I let him get away with STINE* in the endgame...it looked funny to me, but I was getting lazy and was trying to finish the game as quickly as possible.
So after the round-robin I'm the only 6-1 in the division. Rahn has pulled ahead of Ryan on spread, so I'm playing him for 1st. Fortunately, since I won that first game by 187 points, I have a 310-point spread cushion to play with, which really helps to take the pressure off.
Game 8 vs. Rahn McKeown: W 442-408. P(A)RODIES (to open), NOTARIE(S), (L)ITTorAL/OV(E)RSEES, SNOOTED. A close game throughout that's decided by the blanks in the end. Play it here: http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9308
Well it was another Triangle tournament, another 7-1 record and 1st place. The Golden Corral mojo was successfully transferred. Got $160 for 1st plus the $10 for high loss. New rating is 1726, a new TWL peak and it places me as the 4th seed in Alpharetta this weekend; I was the 11th seed last year. I've gained almost 200 rating points in the past year, Aug 2010-Aug 2011; that seems kind of crazy to me, but after playing enough 1600-1800 players I certainly feel like I belong in STEEdom now. I'm definitely going to need a break after this next tournament though; I'll still go to club, but I don't want to burn out either. It might also be time to start learning some more Collins; I'll be playing the big list in February if there's enough interest for EC's, and I'm not going to luckbox my way to a 2nd tournament win with only TWL bingoes. Oh and Katie has her first tournament as assistant director! She even got TSH running this weekend on her own, and did a dry run for the Alpharetta tournament. She informed me that I came in last place, at 2-18. I asked her why she hates me so much :). I'm sure she'll do well, as she seems to have the rules down pat and she doesn't take guff from anyone, especially me. Tourney report to come next week, until then cheers!