Despite the wonderful amenities, I slept poorly the night before, having drank a large Coca-cola right before bed. And then I wanted to get some use out of the Marriot's uber-chic gym and weight room. My arms were so tired that I could barely lift the tile bag for the first few games. And with my yawns punctuating my bungled attempts at conversation, I could sense I was on the edge of delirium. I had a long seven hours of Scrabble ahead of me.

Game 1 vs Richard: I thought I had him on the ropes early. He tried to hook a -Y on my PUTZ, which I challenged off. Then I got down STARING for 70. But he came back with NAIADES and NEOLITH to beat me easily 316-439.

Game 2 vs Bryan: I talked myself out of a 3x3. I could have played ENDITING through the T, but I thought I was confusing it with INDITING. (Both are good). I did get INSTEAD instead. But Bryan got the J, Q, X, and Z and bingoed with LADRONE and SPOILING to spoil my second game. 388-452.

Game 3 vs Rhonda: Nothing exciting here except I won a challenge when I hooked ESPY to make sweet beautiful MUSICS. I played poorly and lost 317-353.

Game 4 vs Noreen: Losing the first three games had my mood fouled. But I bingoed thrice: OVEREAT, STEALER, and ENAbLES. I took about five minutes to find ENAbLES, using the blank for the B. I got my first win 416-342.

Game 5 vs Brenda: I played terribly and lost the game when I unsuccessfully challenged ENGAGER. My only bingo, ANGRIER, described my mood. 318-462.

Game 6 vs James: I got away with JETTERS* for 74. We both had blanks on our final racks. There was an I hanging for me to bingo out with ACEOPT?. My melted nacho cheese brain couldn't find the three outs (OPErATIC, ECTOPIAs, POETICAl) and James went out with the simple but effective ISATInE. 310-452.

Game 7 vs Wesley: I challenged 2 acceptable bingos by Wesley: GENTIANS and CASERNS. My SALIVATE for 68 helped me get over 350 for only the third time that day. I also found BUNDT with a voweless rack. But I lost again 368-455.

Luckily, day one was over, but my 1-6 start was worse than I thought possible. Worst of all, I had four games where I scored under 320. One can study and prepare as much as one can, but lack of sleep will undermine the best laid plans. It was like trying to watch the news on a scrambled cable channel.

I was much better the second day. I still lost 3 of my five games, but at least I did it with style.

Game 8 vs Juanita: I thought my opening DITTIES for 70 would have me singing all the way to the winner's circle. But Juanita played a triple-triple, STOMPERS for 176, which I challenged unsuccessfully. STUMPERS, okay. STAMPERS, even better. But STOMPERS? I guess wine makers are stompers. She went on to stomp me 500-394.

Game 9 vs Broderick: About time I get to 450! SHORTER for 93 helped as well as a phoney, AURATES*, (AUREATE without the S is good). 453-374. I told Broderick after we had emptied the bag that according to my tracking, he should have over a dozen letters on his rack. That got a little laugh.

Game 10 vs Conrad: My in-laws know Conrad, so I told him that I could face them again if I could tell them that I had beat him. But he drew some pretty good tiles and got down EXAMINES for 85 and NETTLERS for 60. I played some fun funky rack balancing words like YAGI, PIXY, VIRGA, VROUW. I was holding RETAIN+A which is nothing but looks like it could be something. Mike, can you say "THE RED PUPIL PREFERS MUCH WINKING" Is there an A in there? No! So why are you spending 5 minutes looking at it?. Eventually I played off the A. Of course then I would get the blank! I played ANTISERA off an A. I later put the game though Quackle to learn that EXAMINES has a front hook. HEXAMINES. I drew the H later and would have had monster points since the space in front of EXAMINES was a TLS (triple letter score).

Game 11 vs Gigi: Although I lost, my best game was against Gigi. I opened with LAUGH, which has a bunch of dangerous extensions LAUGHING, LAUGHTER, SLAUGHTER, etc. None of which materialized. She played CLAYIEST which again I challenged and was found in the wrong. She followed that up with LOWERING to put me behind 26-139. But JOLTS for 56 and AVENUES for 90 gave me the lead. She played SPOONED for the 4th bingo of the game, but I was able to set myself up and I played HAIRNET for 100. The endgame was close and would have made a chessmaster sweat. I was trying to bingo out, but my win would have been to extend ZOA to make ENTOZOA. I lost 449 to 451. I didn't think to do a recount. When I got home I replayed the game and found that we had indeed miscounted. Except it was 4 more points in her favor. I also found that I had missed a juicy front hook: URIC to AURIC.

Game 12 vs Juanita: Nothing fancy, I got DOGEARS and SITUATED and won 407-318.

Only 3 wins total out of 12 games. But at least I lost better on day 2. Lesson learned. Sleep is paramount!

My rating dropped to 1240. Which means that at my next tournament I could be set up for some earnings. Watch out!

I try to hit Jumbletime once a day just to keep the anagramming chops up. And its nice to know the words are coming from the tournament dictionary.

BTW, the last word was chon (n. a monetary unit of South Korea).

I guess that means I'm getting close to knowing all my fours. I've been focusing on the shorter words lately. I hoping to be done up to the fives with hooks by my next tournament in October.

Warning: Scrabble nerd alert. The following information was derived by using an anagrammer and plugging the information into a spreadsheet.

• For four-letter words with two of the same consonant: FF?? ranks fourth with 35 anagrams. SS?? has 92, (the majority of which you would never use), LL?? has 67 anagrams, and TT?? has 48 anagrams.
• For five letter words: FF??? ranks 7th with 81 anagrams. SS??? wins with 518 anagrams, LL??? has 206, TT??? has 177, RR??? has 163, DD??? has 109, and NN??? has 108.

For Scrabble play, if you had to pick a double consonant combo to have, its probably the best outside of LL, SS, and TT as far how many short words use it. But unlike those other letters, F is worth more points and won't make a lot of bingos. You will want to play both FFs off together to clean up your rack.

If you had to think of any words with double FFs that you use in everyday conversation, you might get a handful off the top of your head: OFF, BUFF, CUFF, IFFY, MUFF, RIFF, PUFF. There at least 30 words four letters and less that you won't know. And for me, that's the crux of the matter. Most of these words are not common and require some Scrabble nerd style memorization. For example, look at the three letter words: AFF, EFF, IFF, and OFF. Of these, only OFF makes sense to the layman. But if you think that ?FF is all the vowels except for U, then they are easy to remember.

I'm trying to get a grasp on the 4 letter words, so this is what I came up with. I broke them into groups.

No vowel: One word. PFFT! That's easy.

Two vowels: FIEF and FIFE.

Then you deal with the front and back hooks of the three letter words:

?AFF: I remember front hooks by thinking BCD (the first 3 consonants in the alphabet) and then the word "GReeNWaY" (ignoring vowels). Remember the BCD, it comes in useful later. There are no back hooks, AFF is an adjective so no plural. The hooks look like this BCDGNRWY:AFF:

?EFF: Easy. T in the front and S on the back (it's a noun, the letter F, so it pluralizes). T:EFF:S

?IFF: My phrase for the front hooks is BaD JiM RoT. BDJMRT:IFF:Y The defintion of IFF is "If and only if" so I remember that the back hook is Y and only Y.

?OFF: Remember BCD from -AFF. It's back again along with the lone T from EFF. BCDT:OFF:S. OFF is a verb so it takes an S along with -ED, -ING. An alternate memory device is to remember that OFF is a brand of bug spray. DDT is a bug spray used a long time ago (BC is a long time ago).

Then there is ?UFF. BCD is there again. Or try this phrase (ignoring vowels): "BiG CaT DouGH LuMP RaT" As in the "a big cat saw a lump in the dough and it was a rat." That would make you say UFF*!

Also remember that every single one of the four letter words ending in -FF takes an S. From BAFF to TUFF. All of them.

These memory devices are useful when you are first learning words. Hopefully, over time, you will start to recognize the words in their own light.

The tournament will be held on June 28 and 29th, 2008 in Metairie, LA. The entry deadline is June 26 with no walk-ins. There will be three divisions with an option to expand it to four if necessary. I'm sitting in the middle of the second division. More details are at Cross-Tables.

I'll have to reschedule my work schedule, but I will be there, along with my secret weapon.

Here's a map to the venue:

View Larger Map

Lila, Lindsay, James, and Peggy represented our state well. Lila had the best record thanks to a five game win streak at the end.

Poor Peggy is mentioned in the Round 1 commentary:

...A similar mismatch was going on two tables over between Jason Katz-Brown (Cambridge, MA) and Peggy Altazan (Zachary, LA). I see dIAZINS, BESTRODE, and HAYRIDE. This was Jason's win, 456-251. [sic: it was actually 556-251] Even as kind and gentle as Jason is, as the game ended, Peggy had the look of a deer in the headlights. She shook her head and handed me the result slip and said, "I lost by 300 points!" I assured her that just about anyone here would fare about as well against our MIT phenom. I hope she has some better balanced games today!

Lindsay is mentioned in the Round 6 commentary and photo captions:

...I mention Lindsay because of her traveling mascot, Dwight Schrute, the bobblehead doll. He sits beside her quietly, bobbing along as she writes on the table or when she hits her clock.

Aside from stalking the Louisianians, the game commentary from board one are fun to look at. There was one game where there was new record for the highest loss in a tournament: Stefan Rau lost with 552 points to 582. Some say the record is tainted due to the 3 phony bingoes in the game. But it's still a fun game to watch.

In the game of Peter Armstrong vs. Geoff Thevenot, someone on the CGP mailing list praised the play of UNVEIL as a bit of inspired tactical play, setting up a Q play on a TLS with the threat of a TLS-DWS combo at the same time. I don't think I would have done that with the X still unplayed, but maybe I lack cajones.

The penultimate game features a five bingoes, two of which use the blank for a K: MOONWALk and GIVEBACk. Wow!

I highly recommend going through the game commentary, testing yourself by asking "what would I play here?" and then slapping your own face each time you get it wrong. "Oh yeah! mARTAGON! How could I have missed that?"

It's too far back for me to remember much about it, but here's what I said about the game at the time:

...So I went into the first game with a "damn the torpedoes" type of attitude. If I was going to do well playing against players who I thought had better word knowledge than me, I would have to play aggressively. Thus I played a big fat phoney for my first bingo, AUXINES* (UNISEX and AUXINS are good). It stayed on the board. Ben played bIRDIES to take the lead late in the game. But I luckily drew a Z late in the game and played ZOOEY, a new word, for 34 points and went out on the next turn. Ben's unplayed tiles gave me 12 points to win by 9. I had just defeated the top-rated player in the division.

From Our Roving Reporter in the Field: Scrabble Cheating for 826NYC (Or How to Beat John Hodgman and John Oliver in an Unfair Fight): A librarian blogs about a benefit Scrabble game with Jon "700 Hoboes" Hodgman and John Oliver (from the Daily Show) and Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot) as judge.

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.

Because I'm a cheapskate, I decided not to stay the Friday night in Yazoo CIty, but to drive in early the morning of the tournament. I saw on the Google maps that it was about 3.5 hours. With games starting at 10am, I figured I needed to leave my house by 5:30 am to make sure to make it with time to spare, since I had never been there. Of course, when I left that morning closer to 6am, it was raining upside down. Driving alone through the dark in the storm, I started to feel like I was in the first scene of car insurance commercial. But once I hit Hammond, I started to feel better with the approach of light.

A little ways north into Mississippi, I noticed the rain acting funny. It wasn't pounding my windshield like before. I looked on the thermometer on my dashboard. 32 degrees. Hmmm. Kind of floaty rain, big floppy rain. Then suddenly I was in a snowstorm. Dangit! Traffic in front of me slowed to 45mph. Southerners, me included, avoided getting in the left lane to pass, which by now was covered with an inch of snow. My ETA started slipping forward into the future. Normally snow is a welcome treat. But I had bingoes to play and many miles to cross.

Luckily, the weather cleared after an hour. And despite driving straight through Yazoo City the first time (that was a town?), I was able to turn myself around, get directions at a gas station, and navigate the potholed dirt road next to the railroad tracks to find the venue with 30 minutes to spare.

This was my first tournament in Division 1. I was going in with a 1270 rating and was expected to win about 4 of 11 games. I had no delusions about winning the division, but I did want to come out with a winning record. I took pictures of most of the game boards.

Game 1 vs Noreen: Things were looking good early when I was able to clear out my terrible rack with VROUWS. I bingoed first with SLeNDER (which later became SleNDERER) and later with SCrUPLE (yes it can be singular). I drew pretty well and it was a smack-down, 457-278.

Game 2 vs Rod: Rod wiped out my nice spread with a 312-481 smackdown on me. I tried to play SATURNES* to get a 3x3 (I was getting confused, thinking of SAUTERNE). Rod challenged it off, of course. And I played SAUNTERS next turn. He played FOREGUT, which I thought was pretty nice.

Game 3 vs. Kaye: I thought I opened nicely with LIVERY for 32, but she played SILENCER to shut me up. I bingoed with HARIcOt and got a 63 point OXEN to pull my wagon into victory, 399-354.

Game 4 vs Lila: Lila answered my IDEATES with LUsTInG. I came close to playing SKEETER for not many points when I stumbled upon RESTRIKE. I squeaked out a win with a 33 point DELI, 357-343.

Game 5 vs Jacqueline: I played DEEJAY for 54 early on, but the request lines were all closed after that. I didn't even break 300. 284-431.

Game 6 vs Richard: You would think that if I bingo twice, (RENTIER and GAOLERs), and Richard doesn't bingo at all, I would come out on top. I lost 371-397.

Game 7 vs Helen: Helen plays like the town will blow up if her clock hits 20:00. She let me get by with AUXITEs*, which I could have sworn was good after analyzing a similarly bad play (AUXINES* in my first game in Baton Rouge just a few months previous). She's was thinking about a juicy front hook for BAUXITES on the TWS lane. But I was totally clueless and played the B off somewhere else. I later got EMOTIONs and got my first win against her, 386-315.

I was 4-3 after the first day of play.

Game 8 vs Brenda: We exchanged bingoes, SALTIEST and OUTPRICE. But then I lost 3 challenges playing some big fat phoneys, while she rubbed salt in my wounds with some valid bingoes of her own: INFUSES and DILUTER. AIRFIELD is one I should have got, but missed. I lose 314-474.

Game 9 vs Danny: He opened with OX and I put down RESURGE for 72. Later he responded with HONORERS, through the R and hooking the OX for OXO. Nice. But then he tried the phoney, WEALING*, which I challenged off, mostly because it stole my spot for CRANIATE, which I played for 64. But I was a little nervous about hanging the E in the 3x3 lane. Then the room started to slow down when I pulled a ?RS. I pulled an HVLI after that. Shallow breaths. I thought "There's no way he'll leave it open for me". But I knew what he had from having challenged it off before, and I kind of saw that there was not much to do with it down there. He played of his W with LAW up top. I took a moment to collect myself and laid down SHRIVELs on both TWS. It took a while for me to figure out (14x9)+50, but I arrived at 176 points. My first triple-triple in a tournament!

I was so struck by my own good luck, that I forgot to hit my clock for about 2 minutes. Danny bingoed later with DINNERS for 84, while I eyed the high game on the wall. Well, I did beat the high game, but then someone else put up a new high game score that beat mine handily. I couldn't complain with a 538-411 win and a clear cut favorite for the tournament high word. We both totaled 949 for an average of 31.63 points per turn. 5 bingoes between us. Not bad.

Game 10 vs James: The karmic pendulum then swung the other way. I get RUNTIER, but then he got STRAINED, REGAINS, and VINTAGE. Nothing fancy but enough to beat me by 110. 347-457.

Game 11 vs Jimmy: I was 6-6 and out of the running for the money. But I so badly wanted a winning record. I let Jimmy get away with PANICK*. He played BURSTER and then I got RETINOL and LIMPEST. I was concentrating so hard on hooking what I suspected was a bad PANICKS* with TREASON, that I totally missed that fact that he played IH. Luckily he didn't challenge my PANICKS*. That would have made me steam, if he did that and then I realized I let him get away with IH. I later passed on playing RETTING, which is good, and walked away with a winning record with just 3 points.

I proudly accepted the prize for high word, which elicited some oohs and aahs from the crowd when it was announced. The prize was $10. I thought about framing it, but hopefully there will be more like that to come. My rating jumped up to 1301, a new peak rating.

My trip back was all sunshine, although a funny thing happened at a gas station in Mississippi. I walked into the store and there was a young policeman talking to the clerks.

"You know what happens when you put those in a bottle of Pepsi?" He gestured to the Mentos on the counter. "It'll blow up!"

"Gaw! For real?" the clerks said.

"Yep! I saw it on that Mythbusters show!"

I walked up to the counter with my water, but the clerk ignored me as he pulled out his cellphone.

"So you want to see what happens when you tie 50 sparklers together and light them? It's here on my phone."

"Really?" said the cop.

The clerk finally started to ring me up. "Just wait for about 30 seconds, then you'll see."

I was halfway out the door with my drink when I heard the cop go "Woe!"

Be looking for a post about my recent trip to Yazoo City for the MLK tournament there. In the mean time, take a look at some photos at my new Gallery installation.

I thought I had a poor showing at my last tournament in New Orleans, so I applied myself more in my pre-tournament study in the ramp up to the Baton Rouge tournament. I hit Jumbletime everyday. I worked with the Zyzzva cardbox. I studied flash cards (6 letter words with 4 vowels) while walking around the library during my breaks at work. I even reviewed every post on the QUETZAL to trigger my Scrabble memory. So I came into the tournament with more confidence than I had felt in a couple years.

But I thought all bets were off when I saw that the high tournament enrollment necessitated the addition of another division. With the change in divisional boundaries, I ended up being the lowest rated player in the second highest division. The highly rated players in that division included Helen, who usually plays in the highest division and uses about 5 minutes of her clock every game, and Conrad, who has beat me in every friendly game that I've played him in.

So I went into the first game with a "damn the torpedoes" type of attitude. If I was going to do well playing against players who I thought had better word knowledge than me, I would have to play aggressively. Thus I played a big fat phoney for my first bingo, AUXINES* (UNISEX and AUXINS are good). It stayed on the board. Ben played bIRDIES to take the lead late in the game. But I luckily drew a Z late in the game and played ZOOEY, a new word, for 34 points and went out on the next turn. Ben's unplayed tiles gave me 12 points to win by 9. I had just defeated the top-rated player in the division.

In my second game against James, I continued my recklessness by playing BLOND for 27, hanging the B in the triple column. Both blanks were still out. I breathed a sigh of relief when he played BURN. Come to find out, he had passed up the chance to play SNUBBIER for a 3x3 (120+ points), but he didn't think it was good. I played ACTIONS to take the lead for the rest of the game.

Game 3: I opened with YEARnER (which was the only bingo). Lindsay closed the gap with SENARII. But I had EINRST? on my rack, so I played STRaINED for 74. I lucked out by getting a late X for a 39 point EX, and won by 18.

Game 4: For some reason I thought NOONE* was good, but it stayed on the board, as well as my OUTMARRY* (84). (As in "NOONE* in Hollywood could OUTMARRY* Elizabeth Taylor"). With ENRSTT?, I first tried NiTTERS* which was challenged off. Then I tried SNoTTER* which likewise came back (STENToR was the word I was looking for). I unhappily played off the ?S for 45 points and was promptly rewarded with an EA to give me AEENRTT. I played ENTREAT for 72. Then I got AGLLORS. I entreated the Scrabble gods for an open I. My prayers were answered when Danny played NICE. His hand was still in the bag when I put down GORILLAS (the 70 point GORILLAS in the room). Then I pulled AADEFHT. Again I entreated the gods to look upon me with good grace. But Danny played PUL, blocking the only spot where I could have played FATHEAD. My final score was 491, within spitting distance of 500, but still probably my highest tournament game to date.

ABOVE: My highest scoring tournament game yet: 491.

Game 5: No bingos for me, but Broderick got down SOUpIEr. I phonied with ARRAK* (ARRACK is good) while Broderick phonied with PAVIL*. Not surprisingly, it was my first loss.

Game 6: I played a fun game with Conrad. He bingoed early with RENEWEd, and I answered with DIGESTER, which I played through the wrong E, allowing Conrad to make up some points by hooking an S on DIGESTER. I played NUDZH for 36 (what a fun word!) and somehow got down IDOLATRY the next turn. Conrad commented that IDOLATRY was a "cute" play. I let him back into the game by opening up a lane for his STOURIE. But his tournament-long bad luck streak stuck him with a Q and a J on his last rack and I won thanks to his Q.

ABOVE: Now that's a leggy board!

Game 7: Despite a big fat phoney: TAGLESS*, I couldn't draw a good rack to save my life. Juanita bingo-bangoed with PARTING and TEARING. My TUTTI or UNCIAE did me no good. I lost this one badly.

Game 8: My first game of the second day was against Helen, and I gave up tracking tiles against her about three turns in. I was lucky to get my hand out of the bag before she played. But we ended up playing a fun game. I stupidly set Helen up for a TWS bingo by playing LOUTS so she could hook the C for cLOUTS and cENSURE. Luckily I found REjOICE to keep it close (after passing up my first guess, which was just as good: REvOICE). Later, I had FATTING but with no place to play it, I opened up a bingo lane by playing AFT. She thought she blocked it by playing VOE, leaving ET hanging. Somehow I pulled the only H out of the bag and am able to bingo with HEATING. Under time pressure, I misplayed the endgame badly, and Helen squeaked out the win.

ABOVE: Oh, how I wish the J in REjOICE was a real J and not a blank!

Game 9: I drew the bag on Brenda, bingoing with RETRYInG and NaUSEAS. I missed a chance to extend LIMITED to become DELIMITED. I succumbed to the influence of Homer Simpson to play the phoney, DOH*. I thought it was a new one! The final is 397-237, a spread of +160. I'm sure Brenda will put this one out of her mind.

Game 10: In the first round of King of the Hill, I played Ben again. My luck continued as I drew the bag on him. I bingoed thrice with OILIESt, ARENITE, and SITTINgS (which he challenged unsuccessfully). I played the whole game thinking that I couldn't add an S to IXIA. Luckily I didn't need it.

ABOVE: Instead of SITTINgS, I could have played INSISTs, hooking IXIA with an S, IXIAS.

Game 11: Broderick had my number again as I couldn't draw a good rack. Everything I put down set him up perfectly. Finally he returned the favor late in the game by throwing a G into an open lane. I play RESOWING which he challenged and lost. At this point, I knew I was going to lose, but I needed to keep the spread from getting out of control.

Game 12: I got both blanks and bingoed with TrEATINg. Later I don't have much of a play with an X on my rack, so I purposely set myself up with an E next to a TLS. Juanita missed it and I played a 55 point EX. It's one of those rare tactical plays which usually doesn't work. I was actually thinking that she would see it and block it, but that in blocking it, she would open a TWS lane. Anyway, the trickeration* was enough for a win.

My record was 8-4 with a +279 spread. With my rating, I had been expected to win just under 4 games.

ABOVE: An envelope full of cash always puts a smile on my face!

At first, I thought I had come in third, but I had misread the standings. I came in second!

My rating went up from 1151 to 1270 which is a new peak rating.

Comments will be enabled.

I was sick in bed for a couple days with only my laptop to keep me warm. So I downloaded the ISC interface (Wordbiz) on my laptop and found that it worked with my Windows Vista operating system. I hadn't played on ISC for over a year, and it provided some relief for my illness. (I won my first two games). Earlier, when I first got the laptop several months ago, I had tried to download Quackle, and it didn't work. So I assumed that all my favorite Scrabble programs wouldn't work with Vista.

After my success with Wordbiz, I decided to try to downloaded Zyzzyva. And it worked! But the version I had earlier on my desktop was 0.14, and this version was 1.0.4. They added some new features! I discovered the "Leitner" cardbox system feature and was hooked.

Basically, all new words are added to Cardbox 0. When you quiz, all missed words remain in Cardbox 0 and will remain there for the next day's quiz. But a correct answer will land the word in Cardbox 1, which will appear in your quiz 3-5 days later. Another correct answer will place that word in cardbox 2, which will appear in the quiz 5-9 days later. Subsequent correct answers will place that word farther away in your daily quizzes. Any missed word will go back to cardbox 0, which will be in the next day's quiz.

Knowing how memory works, I had been thinking about how to replicate the very same thing with actual physical notecards. Now I have software that will do it for me.

I'm only three days into the cycle and I am super excited about it. This system is the Holy Grail to memorizing words. I just need to learn how to tweak it, because I don't want my daily quizzes to be too long or too short. I think 100 words a day would be good. It takes me about 20 minutes to work through 100 anagrams.

My first lists were the most probable singletons (to review what had been my most studied word list) and all the new OWL2 power words (any word containing J, Q, X, or Z) from 4 to 7 letters in length. My favorite word from that list is FUNPLEX.

In the interim, Lila posted some pics from the tournament.

After 7 games my record is 4 wins and 3 losses. Not bad but it could have just as easily been 6 and 1. My last two games were textbook examples of self-destruction.

Game 1 versus Juanita: I found two easy bingos. ATONING and a no blanks PIGLETS. I think that's the second time I've played PIGLETS.

Game 2 versus Aline: I was steamrolled in this one. I never had a chance. She drew the bag on me. Drawing the blank on consecutive turns she bingo-bangoes with NOODLES then WRINGERS. Then she hooked ESQUIRE off my WAUK. The Q hit a double letter and the word hit a triple word, plus being a bingo it all totaled to 140. I started to say hold because I was a little unsure about WAUKS, and with the amount of points at stake, it might have been worth the challenge, even if I was pretty sure about WAUKS being good. But as I said "hold" she had already started drawing tiles. I let it go, but I could tell she was a little shaken up through the rest of the game because she wasn't sure if her bingo was legit. Luckily for her it was, and actually I was glad that the controversy was avoided.

Game 3 versus Broderick. I was holding INTAKES when he set down an open M. I threw down MISTAKEN and never looked back. I later threw down a bingo-bango with TEARING and then SHOALIER. Then the game turned into a cat and mouse game of me not wanting to open any bingo lanes up, while working on my own bingo. I threw away an o holding RETAIN three times, and drew an O each time. Come to find out, I was missing ORIENTAL the whole time.

Game 4 versus Lindsay. I was behind until I found METERING for 72, followed by POUCh for 40 and XI for 41.

game 5 versus Ruth. Ruth was pulling away with SUITERS and ZEATIN on a TWS for 61 and 48 points. I pulled out a 67 point DELUXE. Near the end of the game I drew both blanks at the same time with two bingo lanes. Ruth blocked the wrong one and I put down PAGEANT to pull ahead. She took 11 minutes to try and pull out a win, but didn't have enough.

By this point I'm 4 and 1 and feeling pretty good. But the game with Ruth had taken something out of me. Five straight hours of Scrabble had my head throbbing.

Game 6 versus James: Things are nip and tuck for a while. James draws first blood with NAILSEt. I find SHOJI for 42 to pull close. I get a mingo with REGULATE for 58. I'm up by 56 with only a few tiles left. I get the bright idea to play AVENGES for 26, hanging the A in front of the TWS. Then James violently reminds me that the Z is still out as he throws down WIZ for 78 points. I had forgotten all about ZA! I lose by 21. I tell you now, I won't forget about ZA again.

Game 7 versus Nancy: I needed to get one on Nancy because she was leading the field in my division. We dance around with some small words for a while until I finally get down TROLLER for 64. I follow that up with JOEY for 66. I had it all locked up when I decide that rather than block the last bingo lane, for minimal points, I should go for the gusto by playing RESIDE for 26. Well ROASTED came out for 67 points and I lost the game by four points. All I can say was that I was tired and was ready for the game to be done. I still had 3 minutes where I could have found the best play, but all my ambition had long been drained and I took the lazy way out.

I took my huge headache to the parking garage so I could go to the Garden District hotel to check in, but I found my car wouldn't start due to what appeared to be a battery problem that had never happened before. Since everyone was quickly leaving, I had to leave my car there and catch a ride to my hotel (thanks to Kaye and Maneck). I didn't want to jump my car only to find it needed to be done the next morning and then after the tournament.

After I checked in, I found a nearby bar that served "Vege-burgers", which, along with an Abita Turbodog, hit the spot. But I knew my nerdiness was in a full out heartbreak when I thought to myself "I can't wait to get to my room, take a hot bath, and curl up with a good dictionary".

There's more about the second day to come.