The down low, or "Are you even KIDDING me???"

[scrabbleshells]

I'm 1166 after Albany, the lowest number attached to my Scrabble rating since 2006.

"Are you even KIDDING me?!?!?!" was my catch phrase for the weekend. There were *SO* many wrong, just WRONG things that happened, and while I am writing them out of my system, I definitely won't be posting them here.

Suffice it to say that I will NEVER play in

Comments

[scrabbleshells]

talk on your time, don't raise the bag above eye level, throw a tile back in when they overdraw, yap and coffehouse throughout the whole game, hit the clock as soon as they hit down when they lose a challenge, and mostly get indignant and self-righteous when you point these things out.

my entire second day was compromised by major drama with one lady sitting next to me during my second game. i lost that game and went on to lose 3 of the next 4. i was completely distracted, repeating the incident numerous times to people who were asking, and my games suffered as a result.

i also gave away a game to a 900 player after she snipped and snapped at me to the point where i left the room and came back and threw tiles on the board 2 at a time because i just didn't care anymore and wanted to get away from her.

it was really bad.

really.

bad.

the worst was that i did not feel at all that i had the support of the director. in fact, at one point, during the 900 player thing, john pretty much made the situation worse and i told him i did not feel i was being supported at all, and he told me i had to figure something out about going back into the room or he'd have to start my clock, and so i said fine and he did just that. i was really disappointed in the way everything was handled.

[el_jefe_rey]

...sorry to hear things didn't go well.

It should comfort you to know that from Feb. 2nd on, your opp. can no longer start the clock immediately after they lose a challenge. Unfortunately, it remains legal until then.

I find the most effective way to get an opponent to shut up is to warn them once or twice, call the director (or just ask them 'Could you stop cheating' if I really had to).

I've encountered bad rules abidance from all sorts. With uppers, recalcitrance is the reason for lack of abidance ('I've been doing it this way for 30 YEARS, why should I stop now?') vs. ignorance for the lessers*- not really a great tradeoff, but at least the ignorami have seemed more open to rules info.

[vavaverity]

It was just surprising. I mean, when I play the players in that ratings range that live around here, they all do things the right way, or at least are willing to when you point something out. The negative wall that hit me when dealing with some of these people was amazing.

I'm just glad I won't have to play them down there ever again. Lesson learned!