For me, one of the highlights of the tournament did not occur during one of my own games.
On the wall next to the division standings was a place to put the highest word that had been played so far. (There is a prize for the highest word played in each division). After the first game of the second day, I found GHERKINS scrawled on this paper, with the improbable looking 203 next to it. There wasn't a name attached to it, so I though it was a joke at first.
But then Matt Williams rushed back to the paper to add his name to the word he had just played.
I was lucky enough to have beaten Matt twice in the tournament, but he always plays a tough game and you never know when he's about to lay an 80 point bomb, much less a 200 point triple-triple. He also plays the whole game with the board upside-down, which on one hand is great for me, but also a little intimidating.
Luckily, I was able to take a picture of the board.
His opponent, Vijay Ragothaman, had just put down DURABLE and had taken a comfortable lead. WIth the E hanging in the third position, and GIKNRS? on his rack, Matt thought about some possible -ING words before coming up with the triple-triple GHERKINS. Even sweeter is that the K hit a double letter.
Vijay thought the H belonged elsewhere, so he challenged the word. He lost the challenge. Vijay said he misplayed the endgame and could have won. Instead he lost with a score of 497 (or thereabouts).
Come to find out, there was an -ING word that would have scored the same number of points: SMERKING.
Elsewhere on the board, MOTTLIER* is no good, but MOTLIER would be. The other blank is a C for TACNODE. Very nice.
It was the highest scoring play for all the divisions in the tournament, and one I should not forget for a while.
Posted by Mike Waugh at April 4, 2005 09:42 PM | TrackBackI had some things once which claimed to be gherkins. But they were more like pickled seed pods and not at all appetizing.
Once while working Subway, a group of foreign tourists came in and asked for some gherkins on their sandwiches, meaning the banana peppers.
That exhausts my store of gherkin-related stories.
Do many Scrabble players go around taking pictures of other people's games?
Posted by: Robert, the Younger Waugh at April 4, 2005 11:30 PMNow that I think about it, they weren't gherkins. They were capers. Awful things. Stay away from capers.
So, I only have the one gherkins-related story after all.
Posted by: Robert, the Younger Waugh at April 4, 2005 11:43 PMI was the only one taking pictures of other people's boards. But both players asked me to email them the picture, so I felt vindicated.
Also, I believe that I must have feelings of guilt about not getting that journalism minor when I was an undergraduate.
Finally, you now have two gherkin stories, although you are a few steps removed from the action. I did not see a gherkin, but rather the word, GHERKINS. I did not play the word GHERKINS. I was not playing in the game in which the word GHERKINS was played. But I was in the same room as someone who played the word GHERKINS for 203 points. You are the brother of someone who was in the same room as someone who played the word GHERKINS for 203 points.
Posted by: mikewaugh at April 5, 2005 07:46 AM