New Tournament Plans

The Lafayette tourney has been cancelled! With all the displaced people from Hurricane Katrina, the director thought there would be problems getting hotel rooms in Lafayette.

Hello Scrabblers, I'm sure many of you have heard by now, but just in case... Due to the hurricane, we have had to cancel the Lafayette tournament this year. The hotels are all needed for those who are still displaced. I have heard from or about nearly all of our Scrabble friends from this area and they are safe - thank God! We all appreciate the thoughts and prayers from everyone during this terrible time. As for next year, we will make it up and have the best and biggest Lafayette tournament ever!! I apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing each and every one of you soon. Take care, Rhonda Roederer

I had already asked off of work and I'm seriously jonesing for some Scrabble. So I switched my vacation day to the following weekend so I can attend the Dallas Tournament.

I figure it's about a six hour drive. It's a three day tournament and it seems it draws a good number of people. The info I got in the mail seems to expect about 150 people. I've never been in a tournament with more than 40 people.

Also, the cutoff for the bottom division is 1299. That seems a little high to me, but I guess there's a lot of intermediate players in Texas. What it means is that I might have a better chance of placing, since I'll be near the upper limit. The prize money is also good, first place (assuming 150 entrants) for the bottom division still pays about $450. And it places more than three places, which is nice too.

The problem is that if I play a lot of unrated or low rated players, then its harder for my rating to move up. But I'm so low anyway, I guess it can't hurt too much, as long as I win those games.