4th Place

With a record of 7-4 I placed 4th in the Scrabble Tournament, just a half game out of the money. I won two Scrabble books and a cute calendar of cats and kittens.

I started out 0-2, but ended up 3-3 by the end of the first day. The next day, I won 4 in a row before losing my final game.

In my first game, my opponent opened with HAZES (42 pts), then bingoed with CRANKERS (86 pts) which was immediately followed by MIXTURES (71 pts). So at the end of three turns I was down 199 to 61. It was a demoralizing introduction to the world of competitive Scrabble. But I finished strong and lost by a respectable 59 points. Score 385-326.

I also lost my second game. I started to think that I was a lamb among lions. Later I found out I had just lost to two pretty good players, the eventual 2nd and 3rd place winners.

My third game I bingoed thrice and won big time. I was so excited I took a picture of the board.

I opened with OUTDEAL*, which I later found out was not acceptable. Then I tried to play PANTIES off of YO to form YOS*. He challenged it and, of course, YOS* is unacceptable so I had to take it off the board and lost a turn in the process. But then he played ZED so I could then play PANTIES on ZED to make ZEDS. Later I had an eight letter bingo with CORNIEST. I won 465-241, a spread of 224.

At one point I played JIAO, which he challenged and lost. He was thinking that the A was before the I. Later in the tournament against another player I played it again. My opponent later played an S on it to make JIAOS* which I almost challenged, but didn't. I later found out was unacceptable. Thus I learned a lesson:

JIAO n pl. JIAO chiao

CHIAO n pl. CHIAO a monetary unit of China

CIAO interj--used as an exression of greeting and farewell

About half of the bingoes I played I later found out weren't good, but they went unchallenged. I played UNSPELT* (SPELT is good) and MASTADON* (MASTODON is good). I played INDENTS off of UM to make UMS*.

But I did make some good plays that were legal. After nearly giving myself a hernia I finally remembered the one word among the RETINA+L list that began with a T so I could play a T off of TAR to form TART while bingoing with TRENAIL. My opponent challenged and when it came up good he asked, "What is it?" and I said, "I don't know. It's a word on a list."

TRENAIL n pl. -S treenail

TREENAIL n pl. -S a wooden peg used for fastening timbers

Other fun words I played were BLISSES, EXURB, AZOLE, EQUID, CHINOS, QAID, ZEIN, QUINOA, and XENON.

Everyone I played was very nice and Rhonda Roederer did an excellent job of organizing it. My next tournament will be right here in Baton Rouge on the first weekend in December.

Posted by Mike Waugh at September 26, 2004 10:31 AM | TrackBack