Baton Rouge NAST 2008

The Baton Rouge NAST qualifier was this weekend. The North American Scrabble Tour is an unusual format. I think they are loosely based on the poker tournament formats that have been gaining attention. There are qualifiers across the country. These are short one-day tournaments (only 6 games) so as to maximize the luck factor, and paired so that low rated players can play some games against highly rated players.

The way that I drew my pairings, I played both the highest rated player and the lowest. As would be expected, my final record was right in the middle, three wins and three losses.

Game 1 vs Lila: I got into time trouble early. I don't know why, but I seem to get anxious during the first game of some tournaments. That makes me second guess myself a lot and I usually play badly. For example, in this game I tried to play EE*. I did have a nice bingo with REDOWAS for 90 points. I had a chance to win at the end, but with time trouble, I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I don't think I've ever been so angry at myself. 377-399.

Game 2 vs Annette. After regaining my composure, I drew and played AIRHEAD on the opening play. I later played RETAINS, which I spent way too long trying to turn into something bigger. Despite a 20 point time penalty, I win 396-317.

Game 3 vs Keith. I embarrassed myself in front of the top player. I didn't even break 300. I did get in a DIORITES for 70. CUSPID sat in the TWS lane for half the game, just needing an -OR extension to reach another TWS. Keith said he had been waiting to get an OR so he could play there. Of course, I didn't know the word, so in an embarrassing coincidence, I played off an OR to make GOR for 6 points. 284-403.

Game 4 vs Russell. After the smackdown from Keith, I played Russell in his first tournament. This time, I was on the other end of an embarrassing two letter phoney, WU*. But to his credit, Russell played well and got a good bingo with HONKERS for 78. I got ApERIENT and EXILERS. I thought ApERIENT was a good find, given the rack AEEINR? with a T on the board.

Game 5 vs Jonathon. Things weren't looking good for a while. At one point I was down 182-327. But an unchallenged phoney, MALTERS* (try ARMLETS, LAMSTER, TRAMELS), got me back into the hunt. I then opened up a bingo lane late, and was able to play ANODIZES for 88. I pulled ahead briefly, but lost by 10. 412-422. One consolation is that this game won me the prize for High Loss ($10).

Game 6 vs Carolyn. After the first turn, there I was, looking at AIIMTSU, wondering what I could possibly play off to fix this terrible rack. I had an R to play through. Hmmm. Then I saw TIRAMISU. I had to write it down 4 times to check my spelling. It went unchallenged, but I was so unsure that I refused to play an S on it for the whole rest of the game. I actually played spAWNED somewhere else. FInally, she played SINCERE and hooked the S. I held the play, triple checked my spelling, TIRAMISUS, and luckily let it stay. I won 380-366, but was even happier to check the spelling and see that it was right. I must have showed it to 6 different people before we picked up the board. Someone said that TIRAMISUS was mentioned in a New York TImes article about Scrabble several years ago. Although it didn't score a bunch of points (68), the style points made it the highlight of this tournament for me.

This was the first tournament where I attempted to record all of my racks. So when I got home, I gave Quackle a try, and started analyzing the games. I'm starting to get the hang of it, despite its lack of documentation. There will probably be more on that later.