Scrabble on the Brain

Happy Birthday, NNAYVI

2010-07-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

A totally not valid word in Scrabble.

Easing back into it

2010-02-20T21:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay. I'm coming back. Beating Matt in Scrabble tonight, despite a blunderific challenge of the word "Daw," has inspired my long awaited return! You know, from my many aways from the game. HAHAHAHAHA

Back to Scrabble

2009-12-11T14:39:00.001-08:00

Scrabble is so mean, man. You take, oh, say, five months off and you forget all your pretty steams and anamonics. You lose that crucial board sense. Time management? Ha! If you remember to hit the clock after your play, you're in good shape. Oh, and do you pick up any skills? Are you suddenly a natural anagrammer or have the ability to count? Are you a lucky tile drawer now? Nope. You still suck at what you sucked at and now you suck at all those other things too!
Grreeaaat.
As I'm sure you gathered, I went back to Scrabble club after a long hiatus. I got caught up in wretched Lincoln Tunnel traffic, so I missed the first 10 minutes or so of my first game against my nemesis Adam. Joel stepped in for me. I walked in just as he bingoed with spirula to hand me a ten point lead.
Yup. Spirula. Totally EXACTLY what I would have played!
I drew seven tiles: O O E E I A A.
Awesome.
Adam played something, I exchanged four.
"Ooh, Joel is going to kill you," Adam said as he made his next move.
My new rack looked like this: S A T I R E O

I shuffled and shuffled, but all I found was Satoire and well, come on, look at it! That just couldn't be right.
Adam dumped an O. So did I.
He then bingoed down the triple line with secondi/quays
Me? Oh no, I drew a J.
I played off the J on top of the O, I just dumped for Jo going two ways.
And ignored Adam's stupid 97 point stupid play.
I drew an enn.
Of course, now there was NO PLACE to play it.
Adam was thinking for a long time, so I saw I could play my letters through an E on the triple line. It took an embarrassingly long time to remember the eight. Thankfully, Adam took longer to play his Gae.
I played stearine.
I was still behind and when he drew the next blank, I was finished, even though he went over by four minutes.
Boo. A Joel handicap and I still lose!
My next game was against a wispy blond girl. Maybe in her twenties.
When she challenged my arenite bingo, I was like "yay! An easy win."
Nope. She drew both blanks and going into my last rack she had a 76 point lead.
I had ANTISUS and lots of time, but I couldn't find anything but sinatus. Which I was pretty sure was good, but it woulda been an outplay and she woulda challenged, so I just wimped out and played stains down the triple line.
I discovered I had two bingos in that rack. Sinatus was not one of them.
My third game was against a kid, teenager, I think. Hope. I opened with sestina against him. He challenged! I COMPLETELY relaxed. Okay, Dawn, you got this!
No, no I did not. I started doing tha awesome thing where I get 7, 8, 9 points in a row fishing for "any ess or blank"! Dude!! Why do I retain the bad habits after a hiatus? Shouldn't I forget those too?
Anyway, the kid was scoring 30/40 points AND he drew both blanks. But still I kept it close, Then I drew the dreaded qm on my final rack of satin.
Booo. BOO! BOOOOOO!
But the kid screwed up! He played tui on the bottom line. I was down only by 34 points. I can play qat on a double word score...I CAN. WIN.
I play qat vertical to the horizontal tui: 28! I am TRIUMPHANT! The stares at it, I am hoping for a challenge! PRAYING. I win easy if I get another consecutive turn. He thinks and then hits the red button...I think by accident because when I ask "you challenge?" He stammered and looked confused, but Joel had already heard me say challenge and came over. So the kid shrugged and said "yeah."
Joel was all "play is no good."
I couldn't believe it.
TUIT! Of course, TUIT's a word!!!
Tuit's not a word.
Cry.
I lose.
At the end of the game, the kid goes "You coulda won if you had played qat across tui on top." (Making qi/qat still on the double word square.)
Double word CRY.
I was so glum.
This old lady came over and sat across from me. She goes "You lost all your games tonight"
I didn't even look up at her: "Yeah."
"Oh good! I hope I play you."
Now, I look up.
I do not smile.
She clearly does NOT know me.
Joel announces matchups and sure enough I am matched with her!
I don't think I've been so focussed on beating the living wits out of someone since...since...when was the last time I played Fisch?
I did some fishing until I bingoed with some stupid satine word, but then I just hammered her face with 40 point plays, my favorite was Booze with the B on a TLS going two ways and the Z on the DWS, for 54. Plus, I was playing SUPER fast because it was the last game of the night and I wanted to go home. This must have rattled her because she tried to play AF under the ZE in booze. I watched her counting it all up and write it down and when she finally said "42, did you write is down"? I said "you haven't hit the clock yet." So she hits it and goes to draw tiles and I insta challenge.
Oh, you hope you get to play *me*?
Ask about me, lady.
I proceed to crush her, but not so badly that we hit the 200 point mercy rule. 189 points. Heh.
Stupid Scrabble.

Meta Scrabble

2009-07-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

My Albany tournament really didn't turn on my word knowledge.
In fact, I lost six challenges all tournament. And three were in one game - but that was somewhat intentional, and I'll talk about that in the context of meta Scrabble - the rest were in games against "weaker" players where they took a shot and happened to be good. (Like the challenge in my last game against a newbie who played "sickled" with the swiftness and fast tile grab of one who was trying to get over. (And actually, when I asked her, as we walked to the word judge, she said she wasn't sure.)) And one BIBICALLY ugly one which I'll write about later. Groan.
The other 20 or so times I found myself at the word judge I emerged victorious.
It's a good feeling being comfortable with my field and the tiles. However. Stupid howevers.
I am so weak at the nonvocabulary parts of the game.
My decision to play slower meant I had time to really think about the meta game, unfortunately, I really didn't know what to do when I ran up against these situations.

Some stupid ones first: In a game against Katya (who plays in Division three with her two kids - a girl about 11 and a boy about 15 - they are the cutest little Scrabble playing family you ever did see and I so want to stow away in their basement!) I had four tiles on my rack s a t ? I dumped three clunky tiles fishing and drew four more. When I realized I had overdrawn, instead of placing the four new tiles on the table, I put them on my rack - meaning I put my already possessed ess and blank at risk, sure enough she plucked my blank off (cause it was on the rack where *everyone* puts the blank when they get it) and threw it back in the bag. This was so stupid. First overdrawing was dumb, and then stupidly mixing them all was dumb. Chalk this up to exhaustion.
Then the three challenges in one game scenario:
I was playing this woman who was kinda spastic. So much so that I played cointer on her for 15 points. (These are very good letters and to burn them for 15 points tells you that I was not at all worried about her.) AND THEN SHE CHALLENGES It!! YAAAAY!
I then draw lstin?g. Jug is on the board and I know there are a billion words ending in gee that takes another gee, so I play listing/jugg. She holds the play and after two minutes, she challenges. It's not good, she plays arid. I then play listing/arids, she challenges. Not good.
I dump something, maybe gi and the game progresses. I end up playing toadies, she holds it for freaking ever, but lets it go. I am losing, so in a desperation move, with eight tiles left, I play darnels/uhs I actually think this whole play is good (it's not). She holds the play, but then lets it go. I draw my tiles and she says "no! Wait! Challenge." We call the director over and he says her challenge was too late. Whew. I then play "mim." She challenges. I panic. "Shit, mem is what I was thinking of." But turns out mim is good too!
I then play like something and mimo. She holds the play, but lets it go because I've opened up the triple and she scores big. No tiles left. I have alo on my rack. Only open letter is a t, I play alot. "8 and out." She challenges. I lose and I lose the game when she goes out.
The loss did not sit well with me. Ultimately, I decided that I shouldn't have tried jugg/arids because with a player that I have a substantial vocabulary edge over, I should just take my 15-30 points with words that I know are valid and wait to use my blank on some crazy bingo -but one that I am absolutely sure of. I should have been more patient.
The next meta issue is of the nature that I faced in the post below about what to do with the woman who played ioniser. In that case, I ultimately decided to challenge it off and play my own bingo in its place, hoping that since she couldn't find ironies/noisier after four minutes of shuffling, she never would. I was right, and on her next turn she burned off "ion" for 18 points. (Unfortunately, I played a vowel next to the dreaded TLS and she was able to hurt me real bad and play the ex on it going two ways. And I lost the game by 30 Blah.)
I faced pretty much the same scenario in my first game on day three. I had gone on a 6/7 tear in day two and was only three games behind the leaders, if I could tear it up on day three, I was back in it, and since I was in 20th, I should be facing weaker players than the leaders. My opponent was this dude who was kind of a stickler.
"Did you write down my score? 34." He barked at me after the third turn.
I wrote three and four on my paper and then looked at him coldly.
"Yes. I got it."
I then bingoed with a pretty eight letter word: estriols, which made four parallel plays. I was feeling pretty good about myself when he puts down quviet. He uses the blank for the u, with the kue on the DLS and the tee on the double word square. 54 points. I am 90% sure this word is not good. But he burned a blank for 54 AND the kue is now three squares to the left of the TWS and I have aid on my rack, for an easy 42 point response. I hold the play. I am still ahead even after his 54, plus my 42, I will be more ahead. Math says leave it. I do.
I take my 42 with qadi, he takes forever shuffling his tiles, then bingoes with unparted through my dee.
I hold, think of Moses and then super challenge. Unparted the sea? What the hell?
It's good.
UGH.
He then plays suey alongside the unpa in unparted, down the triple lane for another 54!
I don't challenge.
I am now down 70 and my rack is all vowels, so I have to exchange. Going into end game, with three tiles left in the bag, I have inertia on my rack, but it doesn't play. I burn an i and hope. I draw the zee. That was that. I couldn't win.
He then blocks the last bingo lane with rum and takes the last of the tiles. I am down by 125 and I see no spot for my zee. Bad mazel, yo.
I have time, so I look and look until I find THE PLAY of my whole tournament. In closing the last bingo lane, he opened the TWS lane. Alongside rum, I play zeta, with the zee on the DLS, and the a on the TWS, getting zeta/am BOTH tripled! For like 93 points!! He was stunned. I still couldn't win, but I had protected the spread! I took a picture.

Of course, in deconstructing the game later, I decided that the only reason I should ever leave a word that I am more than 80% sure is a phony, on the board, is if I can triple/triple through a letter in it.
Sigh.
My next issue came in the third to last game. At this point we have entered the King of the Hill stage of the tournament, where entrants with near identical records are paired up for the epic battle for 22nd!
The death match for 31st!
Now, since these games depend on the outcome of the games before, they don't have a set start time: essentially, when your last game ends, at some point your next game will begin. I ran up to the room to pack my things, so that between this game and the next game I could run up, grab those things and check out. I am a time managing machine on the last day of a Scrabble tournament!
Anyway, I return to the game room and many matches were in progress. I look around for my opponent, but can't find her. I ask another woman if she knows who the lady I'm supposed to play is, and she says yes and helps me look. The lady is NOT in the playing area. I wait around some more and decide to just go throw the stuff in my car and check out now, because this game is obviously going to end *after* 11 (hotel checkout time). I go and take care of these things. I return to the playing area 7 minutes later and see that my clock has been started and it now reads 21:48.
"Oh, the director started your clock. Sorry."
I am all kinds of livid.
"Well I'm here now, you should stop the clock."
Now time generally isn't an issue for me because I play fast, but I was pissed because I guess I should have sat at a board and just started her clock when I got down there the first time. However, as we were playing for ooh, 27th place AND there were still two more games to be played, I saw NO reason to be a jerk about her absence. This is generally my attitude when it comes to Scrabble rules. I never hit somebody's clock back on them if they dont write down what their blank is on the paper first. I never yell at someone for confirming the score on my time. I have never called a director over for the purpose of assesing a penalty on someone for any of the numerous possible transgressions.
It's a game, and as long as the broad strokes of quiet and nonviolence are respected, I'm cool. I have never started or asked to have an opponent's clock started. I agree to makeup games when my opponents miss a scheduled match. I don't ask for recounts. I am not an asshole. I recognize that I'll be playing this game, with these people for as many years as I am involved with competitive Scrabble, why be a jerk?
Of course, I have had opponents do all these things to me, so maybe I'm just a sucker and need to put away camraderie and take my advantages wherever I might find them.
Ugh.
Finally, my last game of the tournament I am matched with a girl who I had played poker with the day before. She said this was her second tournament. I think I was in 28th place at that point, with 9 wins and a negative spread, so I was super relaxed about the game. Basically, picture me swinging in a hammock with a beer in my hand.
She played a bingo early on with her blank: mel?ing, but she hooked the em under the word un for melting/num. I waited for her to add it all up, announce her score and then I instachallenged. Her next turn she burned off her em and I bingoed on top of it. I had this game. Then she bingoes with insulter for 58. I am still in the lead and not worried. Her turn after that she plays "suq" down the triple word lane, hooking the ess on insulter, getting a tripling of insulters/suq!
Mommy!
I am out of the hammock and the beer goes down the sink. I have crap, but respond with a 30 point play to keep pace. She then bingoes with sickled, I challenge and lose.
She hammers me with a forty point play and just like that I am down by 98.
I have heating on my rack, but it doesn't play and I am sad.
I take my time though, and I realize heating uses a stem I just learned!
I dump the aitch under an ess, opening up a bingolane and cross my fingers that I pick good.
Success!
Tee!
She doesn't block me and I decide the "craziest" word of my five options, is "tangier."
I chose wisely because she holds the play for three minutes before letting it go.
She then plays BA over the AN in my bingo.
I now have aeiotvz. I am still down by fifty something. I can get twenty five for za/aba, but a few more minutes shuffling reveals azote. I've never played the word before, but I'm like 65% sure it's good. And it fits snugly above ba for 41 points!
As I am weighing my options, she suddenly stops the clock and says:
"Your clock went to zero."
I look up and my clock reads 9:54.
"Oh, yeah...these mini Sam Timers are weird. When they get to ten minutes, it changes to all zeros before dropping the first digit and counting down from 9."
"Oh, ok," she says. She hits my clock again.
I decide to take the risk on azote. I need to score. She instantly challeneges! (I think she was still stewing in uncertainty about tangier.)
It was good!
I then played vain through the a in azote down the triple lane to take the lead!
She plays something and I play jo with the j on the triple letter.
We go back and forth until the bag is empty. I have three tiles left on my rack, she use the other blank and two tiles to play under my j to take a 13 point lead.
I have sog.
I can make sog and three parallel plays *on the triple word line* for 24 points and the win. My only problem is I was sixty percent sure sog was a phony. Plus, since it was an outplay, it was a free challenge. But if I didn't go out here with a greater than 10 point play, she could win. If I play my phony and she challenges it off, she definitely wins.
I decided to go for it.
Sog, 24 and out.
She turns her rack around and says "and you get 8 from me."
Yay! She wasn't challenging!
We fill out the score sheet.
"So the difference is 19?" I ask confirming the spread.
"No, you have to subtract all that time you went over."
"Huh?" I look at the timer, I still have 5:13 left.
"It went to zero. You're over."
I explain about the 10:00 -> 9:59 thing again.
She insists that I'm over.
I call the director. Maybe he'll have better luck explaining.
She had :21 left on her clock, so he says "ok, how about I hit your clock and we see what happens when you run out of time."
She agrees.
Sure enough, the timer shows a minus sign and starts ticking up instead of down.
"See? If she were over, her clock would have a minus sign. So I have to rule that she is not over."
I start to clean up the board, but she won't sign the sheet until she has hit my clock and the five plus minutes run out.
I wait it out. Again, upon reaching zero, the minus sign appears and the clock starts ticking up.
She sighs and signs the slip.
"Fine. But you know you were over. I showed you when the clock went to zero. This isn't fair."
I was kinda officially annoyed now and was tempted to point out that her winning move wasn't complaining about the phantom overages, but challenging sog.
But I thought better of it, after all, I am NOT an asshole!

Scrabble in the news

2009-07-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ugarles sent me this article with the commentary the mom doesn't "know how badly she's getting served, a 9 year old keeps nailing her with a phony!"

HAHAHAHAHAH

Today is my birthday!

2009-07-08T08:31:00.001-07:00

Hilarious e-mail from Phil:

Solve the anagram:

APT SHED NIPPY BY A HEARTH !

(And no Ugarles, it doesn't have anything to do with a PhD...wait...right? My rating is in the crapper.)

6/7

2009-07-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

I only lost one game today. I made some mistakes in that game, but ultimately, she beat me fair and square. Unfortunately, we learned a new word: keto. Actually, that game posed a question for me (and I confess I didn't do the math, I probably should have) and I want to lay it out here.

She bingoes with the word: ioniser. She places it right above the triple word line. I have the word natives on my rack which will easily fit under ioniser. She is ahead by 46 and with ioniser she would be up by 102. My natives would be 89. (Maybe a little less, I am not looking at a board right now.) Of course, ioniser is no good. As a matter of fact that is the senior stem which I think is a top five stem which she really should know at this point. (I've played this lady before, so I know she has been playing for a while.) So I had a decision to make...leave her with these letters (two easily findable bingoes) or accept the phony bingo knowing I had a response and hope to just outplay her to make up the difference?

I'll tell you what I did in tomorrow's edition after a healthy debate in the comment section! :)

Also, I am tweeting my stay here!

HAHAHA

2009-07-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

When I tell you I did every single one of the things on my list, except win games or have fun, I am not exaggerating. Oy. Well, at least I can still beat Ugarles in Scrabble.

Back in the Saddle

2009-07-02T03:19:00.001-07:00

I have been working hard on my Scrabble in the last few weeks.

The combination of having just accepted a position doing the most mindless, boring work on earth and the return of my original Scrabble nemesis have given me the time and motivation to really tackle new stems and esoteric word lists.
In addition to trying to finally get a hold on the threes(why did I think enn and fam were good until the last 48 hours?) I've also tried studying words with letters that I hate seeing on my rack together: wu, yu, bvu. Yes, I HATE the U. Unless I have the Q, but then I would have already burned all my Us on successive ulu plays.
My favorite ridiculous word: Ouabain! I wanna drop that on someone at Albany so bad!
Hmm, I've got five vowels and a bee and an en (not ENN!) Ooh I know, WHAP: Ouabain! Then I hope I get Coeloms on my next turn to hook that bad boy on back!
I have a bunch of goals for Albany:

1. Take my time. I play too fast, I miss things. I need to slow down, think about my options and make sure I've picked the best one. Too often I do something way too quickly (getting adeimnr and quickly dumping the em, hoping to draw a letter to complete the rained stem for a bingo. D'oh!) The worst part about these errors is not only do I make them and cost myself points, I also then dwell on them for the duration of the game/tournament and certainly cost myself games. It's stupid.

2. Play the game, not the player. Sometimes I get too clever by half. I start thinking "Well, this player probably doesn't know this word or he won't challenge that word because he just lost a challenge, so I'll go with some dumb fancy play or a phony, when some straightforward play of an ordinary word would score more points. I'll also tend to open up the board or fail to close it down because I think I'll be better able than my opponent to capitalize -- more often than not I am wrong wrong wrong. I need to stop relying on these flimsy "reads," and just rely on my vocabulary and sound Scrabble strategies.

3. Stop obsessing about bingos. I am good enough at finding bingos with whatever rack I have that I have got to stop fishing for one or two tiles. Just make the best five or six letter play that I can and hope for a better draw on the next turn. I don't need blanks to bingo! I don't even need esses: anergia! Sometimes, I don't even need stems!

4. Win games. My rating has taken such a beating in the last two months that I am back in the bottom division and I'm seeded in the middle. It sucks, but I need to take advantage. I think I'm better than my rating and I need to prove it. There is no game I can't win. (Yes, yes except Wordscraper against Ugarles. I meant Scrabble game.) I need to produce here. No choking!!

5. Have fun. Um...yeah...I really mean win this tournament, but figured that would sound jerky, so I oughta toss some touchy feely hippie goal on this list. But yeah, you know what would be fun? Winning my first tournament in America!

Wish me luck! Happy Fourth!

Not so random imparting of information

2009-06-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

If any of you know a Scrabble enthusiast with a birthday coming up, you might want to consider getting me ~~her~~ him or her this fancy fold up board, racks and travel bags!

In blue. She likes blue.

R.I.P Michael Jackson

2009-06-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

I think I'll be rocking "The Santer" in Albany.

via Scrabble Sense

Experts ain't so great!

2009-06-26T00:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a sad night for me with the shocking death of American icon, Michael Jackson. (I KNOW, CRAZY! It's not like he knew me or anything, but I DEFINITELY felt like I knew him.) Anyway, I was glued to the TV waiting for word about his condition until a little past six, so I was late getting to Scrabble club.
The way it works is that when you win the intermediate division, Joel makes you play in the expert division. (I presume this is to learn ya to be all cocky about going 4-0. "You think you're so great at Scrabble? Prove it.") I missed last week due, as I expressly wrote, NOT TO FEAR, but work. WORK.
Of course, I was hoping Joel had forgotten about me and my winningness when I showed up tonight. And indeed, he paired me with Judy Rosenthal, a strong -- but definitely still quite in my division player.
She crushed me. About eight minutes in, I was wondering if I shouldn't raise my hand and remind Joel that I'm supposed to be playing experts. Hell, if I'm going to take a whupping, at least let me be able to say it was by the hands of former Scrabble champions or, you know, people with FOUR digit ratings. Facepalm. (Not to take anything away from Judy, who is a great player, that is probably underrated because she can't play multi-day tournaments due to Sabbath restrictions.) Anyway, I didn't even bingo in that game and my highest scoring play might have been some 30 pointer. Humiliating.
Oh well, I'd get matched up with some newbie and crush him. That'd make me feel better.
But no.
Joel remembered all right and on my next pairing I was kicked upstairs to face the big boys.
I cry.
I walked over to THE EXPERT TABLE and sat down.
"You're first, hon."
Grrrreeaattt.
My rack was aeefiln. I knew I was going to lose, so I wanted to just get the pain over with: I played the longest word I could find: finale for like thirty. She comes back with flout for 8! WHAT?
My rack is an ugly gmpy?ew I play gamp through the a in finales.
Who has two thumbs and has been studying threes to make fours? THIS GUY!
I am leading. She makes another like silly dump play. I forget what I did next, but it opened up a triple line and she took it.
I just could not find a workable rack for my blank and just kept fishing.
I fell behind.
Finally, I bingoed with santera. She goes "nice play." I'm all, whatever dude.
I draw the second blank! Yay.
There are no open spots. I try to open one by playing "pun" through a u leaving a nice front ess hook for myself.
I draw great ne for a rack of: aennst? I have neatens or tanners (also inanest/stanine but they wouldn't play. Word had to end in ess.)
Of course, THIS IS EXPERTS. She played coins right through my clever, clever front hook setup and stuck an unhookable cee right up my craw! Stupid experts.
I dumped an enn.
Still nothing, I fished again burning three letters and drew uxo. DUDE.
I actually managed a nice find of "luxe" on the TWS.
I was down by forty and my final rack was aaeint? The board was closed, so no easy entasia/taenias for Dawn.
Oh no. THIS IS EXPERTS, DAMMIT!
She was not very good about time management, so I had tons of time on my clock and I took it. I had to bingo out to win.
I saw I had space to the right of the l in luxe to bingo all the way across to hit the other TWS.
Something with an El?
It looked very much like my entailer rack from last time when I tried "lineeater" -- but it didn't play. Neither would the anagrams. Back to work. I had room around the ell. Something starting with an a.
So I sat there and just did permutations of words starting with al, shifting each of my other tiles in the third position and so on until something clicked.
It wasn't pretty and took A LONG time (I could hear the lady sighing, but whatevs, that's my clock!) Finally: ALIENATE!
I wrote it out to make sure it was the word I was thinking of cause, I didn't want another Zeroxing incident! NOT IN EXPERTS! That's Intermediate play.
I played my word! And she goes "oh, good find. 16 points and you get 14 from me...okay, I win by 11."
And I'm all "uh, no...that's a bingo. It's worth 60 points, I win by 20. Nice try."
I guess she was having a bad night cause she left right after that.
My next expert game was against a mid 1400 player. He was an asian kid, who spoke English with a thick accent. My opening rack was an unplayable JNTZSWV I dumped the whole mess and drew eeinrt. I knew there were a BUNCH of bingoes in that rack, but I could only find one: trienes. (YES, I KNOW! entries, entires, blah blah MICHAEL JACKSON DIED, people! AND JOEL WAS MAKING ME PLAY EXPERTS!) Anyway, kid opens with nog. Now, I'm flustered I KNOW eeinorts is a word. I KNOW IT. I take FOREVER looking. Finally, I give up and just play trienes under the no in nog.
He then freaking bingoes with exiling under my bingo under nog.
I cry.
I dump two letters, HE BINGOES AGAIN COYOTES. NO BLANKS OR NOTHING. JUST, Oh look a Y two ohs and a C? Okay, coyotes here YA GO! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
I am flustered. I play "Ho" down the oy in coyotes for a stupid 20 points. Stupid because now I'm shutting down the board even though I am WAY behind. You know what he does then?
HE PLAYS ZORIL with the zee on the DLS and the ell on the DWS through my oh. MY OH! 52.
I might have burst out laughing at that point. Or I burst out laughing when I made my next move for a stupid 6 points. (I had drawn the blank and was fishing/trying to open the board. My rack was now ailrtv? The only thing I saw was travail and it didn't play. Then the kid plays venger with the vee right under the triple word line! ARE YA KIDDING ME???? WOOOOO. I LOVE EXPERTS.
BLAMO, I play my travail/avenger. I then reorder the tiles so that my real a was on the DLS instead of the blank. This move evidently flusters the kid.
"What did you say the blank was?"
"A"
He holds me.
I am now worried that travail is one of those stupid "sticky ess" words. Uh oh. What was I thinking! THIS IS EXPERTS!
He challenges the play. I am sad.
Larry says it's good!
I am happy!
The kid says he thought I was originally playing "trivial" using the blank as an i(didn't even SEE that possibility) so when I moved the natural a after the tr, he thought I had misspelled the word and challenged.) I capitalized HUGE. Making a 48 point play with paw on the TWS at the bottom of the board.
He couldn't come back and I won by 24! he sat there holding his head for a long time and then said "I had back to back bingoes and zoril...how did I do this? Why did I challenge?"
I tried to make him feel better by saying "yeah, I do that all the time too. Now I prefer when I'm playing from behind in a game, that way I can't blow my lead."
I guess he did not find that comforting because then he said "Your opening rack? The word you were looking for is oneriest," and he walked away.
D'oh.
OK.
2-1
I was matched up with my last expert. This guy was wearing the fancy little Jewish hat and was evidently like 1500 at one point.
He opened with WRING.
I had a bunch of crap, but like good crap. Good letters that together, were crap ZEPFYSR I looked at prez, but it seemed like a waste of a zee. PLaying zeps looked like a waste of an ess. So I went with "fe" and hoped for the best. I picked up another ess and a tee. Doh.
I eventually played "spry/wrings" Using my spry he played amity all the way down to the TWS for 54 points. Ouchy. I always forget that words can be played horizontally! It's a flaw.
Grr.
I decide to play zg through the i in amity with the zee and gee on DLS.
He plays wealth and then I see an amazing play. Under my zee in zig I play jato with the Jay on the TLS! It was so sick!

He plays vender, which I almost challenge (whew. It's good.) I play ho, he bingoes with continues (JEEBUS!) He is leading, I have the blank and my rack is beeirs? I see berries, but no where to play it. I look for something through the ess in continues, but seeing nothing I decide to take a 5 point play of reb and open up the board for myself. He doesn't block and I play olestra. HE INSTA CHALLENGES.
"That's a company!" and he hits the clock. I say nothing.
He yells "challenge! challenge!"
Joel comes over barely looks at the board and goes "it's good. Wait, what's the blank?" I roll my eyes.
It's a zee.
I win the challenge, draw the x play it on a TLS square going two ways! He does something, I play leer. As soon as I hit the clock, I was look "dangit! Why did I just hang an AR on the triple lane???"
But he played ulu for 3 way away from it and I drew: airline. WOOOOO
Airliner!
That was essentially the game.
Set em up, knock em down. Three experts, three victories!
Ah.
Have I mentioned? I love Scrabble!

Albany 2009 Part Two

2009-06-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've registered for the four day Fourth of July tournament.

Anyone else going?

Hmm...think they'll have a huge vanilla cake at the barbecue for any players who might have birthdays that week? Like any Division 3 players who might have Scrabble blogs and might have just registered for the Albany tournament who might be having a birthday that week? Such a person loves birthday cake. And an outdoor barbecue in Albany strikes me as a perfect place to have birthday cake.

Not so random assurance

2009-06-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Dawn Summers is not skipping Scrabble club because she is afraid to defend her title. She had to work late.

4-0

2009-06-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to lie, I got very very very very lucky to win on Thursday, although, I had been on quite a run of 3-1 nights.
Of course, that's the rub, isn't it?
That last win -- or, more likely, the first win.
Lately, Joel has been pairing me with Steve as my first matchup and Steve is ridiculously tough. He makes play after play of four or five letter words that don't take any hooks...no, actually sometimes they take random i hooks or l hooks (tae...tael???? UGH!) But don't try putting any esses or dees on the ends of his words. You've got to bingo early and really open up the board for yourself, or you're just dead. So, usually I lose to Steve, get paired up with someone else that lost in the first round, beat them and go on to win my last two games -- unless, that game is with Ellen Perr, then it's the old 2-2 for Dawn. And Jean L. always says she'd rather be 0-4 than 2-2. Ouchy.
On Thursday, Joel announces I'm to play Steve. I frowny face. But then he changes it up and says I'll be playing this guy whose name I always forget...so let's call him Paul. (Why? I don't know.) Anyway, Paul has never beaten me. He is a good player, but doesn't have very good board sense, i.e. he misses easy hooks, falls for obvious traps (like when I hang ava next to the triple line, he'll try to play his ess bingo down the line making avas, even though I obviously wouldn't have done that if ava was hookable. He needs to play Steve more.) and he opens up the board in disadvantageous ways.
I felt very comfortable playing him. (Unfortunately the Scrabble club was out of tracking sheets, so I had to play the game blind. Wow, what a difference (and not in a good way) it is just playing without knowing what letters are out or the chances of completing a stem for a bingo if you exchange or play off a couple of tiles. Paul had his own tracking sheets from home, so that was the one way I felt a bit off kilter during the game.) He took a pretty substantial lead on me, but I wasn't worried. Sure enough I was able to play zaire for 50 points and then bingo with moisten under it to make moisten/zaires and I had taken the lead. I could see he was trying to put down a bingo, so I started to block everything up and he kept exchanging in frustration and I kept scoring. In the end I won by 114 points. (After looking up letters in the Franklin he said he had the word toonies which he could have played on top of cry (scry/toonies.)
"Hey, that has an anagram! Isotone," I said, evidently having now become that guy.
JC, who was playing his own game, but sitting next to Paul said Paul also missed another bingo "deities." He quickly added "Sorry, I don't mean to be one of those people."
(That's the difference between the weirdo Scrabble players and the regular Scrabble players. We are all geeky nerds, but the normal ones acknowledge it.)
Having dispatched with Paul, I was feeling good. Until Joel announced that I would be playing Steve.
Bleeping bleep bleep!
Fine.
I opened with jailed. My last tile was a blank. I KNOW! Pout.
Steve took literally seven minutes before playing rete through my e for seven points. I didn't know what he was up to but I knew FOR SURE that rete didn't take an ess. Not because I know the word, but because Steve played it. (HA! I just looked it up, the only back hook is AN EM!!!! WHAT THE HECK??!!!!)
I drew really badly with my blank -- think vvchwi. I dumped the vees and made vav. Steve made some other small six point play to block me from being able to use an ess on vav, but he gave me an opening to play my newly drawn zee for 33 points. I took it.
He then took the triple word square for like 12 points or something, giving me the opening to bingo with canister through to the other triple word square. (It was the classic case of saving a penny, but losing a pound...or some currency saying.) I had a ridiculous lead on him. 140 to 66. But I have blown bigger leads, so I stayed vigilant. I drew the second blank. Then he bingoed -- but it was a 59 pointer. I was still okay. I played nit, giving me a chance to hook an ess either to the back or the front. Steve didn't block it and on my next turn I bingoed with frontes. That was game. I won by 180!!! But that wasn't even the luckiest part of my night.
Where fortune really smiled was that two tables away, Dulcet, a woman who plays for fun (though she is very very competitive and just doesn't study enough to be good) had taken down BOTH Jean L. AND Nikki - two of the stronger players in my division. So not only were two strong players out of the running for player of the night, but one of the weakest was now 2-0, just like me!
Sure enough, I drew her as my opponent!
OMG.
My heart started pounding. Dulcet was CAKE. If I like playing Paul, I LOVE playing Dulcet. So, of course, my mind jumped to match number four which would likely be against Ellen, who usually slaughters me. But, my spread was huge, so hopefully, if no one else was 3-0 by the time I had to play Ellen, my spread would be the deciding factor and I would win.
Of course, while I was busy gaming the fourth game, Dulcet was busy beating me ragged in the current game.
She had drawn two esses already AND had bingoed. I was losing by 70 and my rack was garbage.
"Exchange six," I said, holding on to an e.
She then played "odours." Dulcet was raised in Jamaica and is infamous for playing "British words." I insta challenged.
It was good.
OH NO.
Luckily my exchanging worked out and I was able to bingo with arenites through one of her esses and hitting a triple word score. I was hoping to draw the challenge, but it didn't work.
She then played rave. I had drawn aeeilnt. There was no place for me to put lineate, so since she didn't challenge arenites, even though I KNEW by her face that she didn't know the word, I tried to play lineater (as in one who lineates) through the ar in rave. But the problem is that the word looks like "line eater" which just sounds too weird to be right. I saw that very thought pass across her face, but I hoped against hope that she would assume that I wouldn't play such a funny looking word unless it was good. Sigh.
"Challenge."
"No good."
I pulled it back. I was now down by 56 points and running out of tiles.
But then she inexplicably played "fa" leaving the f just begging to get the e in my lineate on top of it.
"Here ya go, ef!"
Lineate/Ef
Woot! I took the lead.
Dulcet looked disgusted. She then had four successive single digit turns and I was pounding her with twenty/thirty point plays. In the end, I won by 111.
3-0!
Dulcet sat staring at the board and lamented that Dawn "knows all the stem words."
"I'll learn them eventually, Dawn. You'll see."
Joel overheard her and snorted.
"You think she knows stem words?" He starts picking out my tiles from lineater and reorders them until they read: entailer. He walks away without further comment.
D'oh.
I started asking around to find out how other people were doing.
" Nancy, did you win?"
"No, JC beat me."
Crapola.
JC, who plays "up" in expert level "for fun," is extremely good. When he first started at the club, last year, I used to beat him all the time because he still had the SOWPODS dictionary in his head and he was too proud to use Joel's cheatsheet for newbies. (Dude, if Joel would let me, I'd still be using the cheatsheet for newbies!)
But by the "'08 Big Apple tournament," it all turned around. JC would crush me every time. In word knowledge: (JC plays "Colinear." I challenge. Joel says it's good. JC goes "Its anagram is Acroline. My ex-girlfriend's name is Caroline." I want to punch him in the face.) In strategy, in word placement, in everything. He would crush me and crush me baaaaad.
So that he was 3-0 made me sad.
THEN I found out that Ellen Perr was ALSO 3-0! So, there went my spread-will-save-me hopes. Someone was going to be 4-0.
"Unless we tie," JC said unhelpfully.
Matchups were announced. I'm not going to lie, I was hoping for Ellen.
Nope.
Dawn/JC.
Groan.
JC is actually one of my favorite people at club, so I always enjoy my games with him, except for the losing, of course.
As we put the tiles in the bag I begged him to play the worst game of his life against me.
"Come on. Pleeeasseee??? You're so good, it's only fair!"
Then I came up with an even more brilliant plan.
"Dude, don't you want to see if your worst game can beat my best game? I think you do..."
He laughed.
"I'm playing like shit tonight," except it sounded elegant when he said it because he's British and everything a Brit says sounds elegant to an American.
"Great, you're playing like shit, but you're 3-0??? Bite me!"
Ok, game? On!
We had both gone first twice, so we had to draw for first. I won.
I opened with evite for 17 points, hoping he'd challenge. He doesn't. Dangit.
He then plays whiny for 30, after toying with playing whiney. I am so challenging whiney! But he doesn't play it and whew! It's good.
I play mo because I have a blank, a crapload of vowels and an em.
Bah.
He hits me with Joe for another 30. I am losssing! My rack is r d i t o r ?
I shuffle and shuffle, but I can't find anything, so I dump the or and open up another bingo lane for myself. I draw a stupid t and n. I find trident, but stupid JC plays lee under my or. (He originally was going to play eel, so I was happy, then at the last second, he switched it to lee...I can only assume, I was donktastickly leaning toward the board with all my tiles in the air, blinking the phrase "I am about to bingo under that word," in morse code.
Oh well.
I went back to work.
I saw nothing. The only spots needed words that started with an ess or end in a, but I didn't want to waste another turning fishing again. So, eventually I find nitrated through the e. It was like 60 stupid points, but I learned my "always play the bingo" lesson from Philly.
Scrabble rewards me! I draw the other blank! I am looking for something through the i in nitrated, because I am consonant heavy, but JC takes the spot by playing wind.
Boo.
I shuffle and shuffle, am about to dump some consonants because I am already down to something like 11 minutes on my clock. But at the last minute, I see a place, through an ar to bingo again. "Handlers."
JC looks deflated. His chin is literally on the table, so imagine my surprise when he bingoes with dipteran.
Now, I have bingoed twice, gotten both blanks and I am ahead by only 18 points. RIDICULOUS.
I have drawn decent. A Q AND a U! Yay. I search for a good spot to play them and I see I can stick an ar or tee next to lee, so I can do quit on the double word score or...hmm is "quirt" a word...cause that would get my q on the double letter and the t on the double word for 52.
I stare at it for a while. I decide to give it a shot. I am like 62% sure it's good.
JC challenges!
Boo.
Joel says it's good! Yay!
I draw the x and play it for 25, JC comes back with a big zee play.
I am in the lead comfortably though, so of course, I start fishing for a bingo that I DON'T NEED.
I play nag for three, then oka for 12 -- horrid. (Although, later JC says that my dumb oka play actually blocked his bingo...didn't make me feel better for missing the forty point play of "koa,")
I do get my bingo: soaking. But it's unplayable and then JC stabs me right in the kidney by playing "chef" down the triple line, front hooking the c on handlers.
Ouchie.
He takes the lead.
THE LEAD! Did I mention the two blanks, q and ex that I drew???? JC is obviously in league with the devil.
I retake the lead with vibe, he takes it back with moaner. I play cons. Dawn is +9. We are in endgame. He takes a loooong time (he's got tons of time on his clock because I was playing so slowly in the early rounds.) and then he sighs and plays jot.
He is up now by 2, but I've got a 17 point play of jota/yea!
I don't know what he has, but when he finally plays area (scaring me by continuing to lay all his tiles out for areaoi) I knew he couldn't win.
"YAY!!!!!!"
"Does that screeching mean you won," Joel asked walking over.

Why, yes, yes it does!

We're not that innocent

2009-06-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Rules are evidently being "tightened"?

Another interesting rule that was reiterated was the “hold” rule, where a player can ask an opponent to wait before drawing new tiles after his turn to prevent unscrupulous players from “fast bagging” – ie, playing a phoney word (often deliberately), then drawing tiles (which validates the move) without giving their opponent a chance to assess the move and challenge the legitimacy of the word.

As one former Gulf player remarked following last year’s controversy: “Scrabble has lost its innocence.”

These have always been the rules since I've been playing, though.

via Karol

They said it couldn't be done!

2009-06-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

DAWN SUMMERS IS INTERMEDIATE PLAYER OF THE NIGHT AT THE NEW YORK SCRABBLE CLUB! Hmm, and since there isn't another tournament till next Thursday, I'm basically Intermediate Player of the WEEK!

(I will write more about the Scrabble later, but thought I'd sharing this amusing post victory story.)

I've been playing Scrabble at the New York club since June '07.
It only took a mere two years for me to sweep the competition and win player of the night in my division!
To which my friend Matt replied "It took me two weeks."
My friend Matt is a jerkwad.
I'll save the Scrabble details for another post, but I had to get through two longstanding nemesii to win the night and by the end, I was bouncing off the walls.
So a bunch of my Scrabble crew went out after to celebrate. An annoying woman, who we all hate, tagged along.
The annoying woman, who is notorious for manhandling inexperienced players and then crowing for months and months about how she beat them and played whatever she wanted and then, HA, they challenged an obviously good word, aren't they so stupid. As you can imagine, I *love* her.
Well, a few weeks ago, I beat her in a similarly manhandling fashion, and so I took this opportunity to recount how she tried to play "raisinettes" on me. Except with a whole lot less letters for something that looked more like: raisents.
"What were you thinking?" I sneered, mocking her.
"I know, I know, but you've only beaten me twice, right?"
(She also keeps a running lifetime win-loss record for every opponent she ever faces.)
I shrug.
Nancy, Adam and Matt were also there.
"What's your record against Nancy, Dawnie?"
I rolled my eyes.
"It's Dawn. I don't know."
"Right, right. Sorry, Dawn. I keep doing that."
Yes. I've noticed.
She continued: "I'm 28-7 against Nancy."
I rolled my eyes again.
"Barbara, I don't keep track of wins and losses or game scores. I play Scrabble for the love of learning and the challenge of wordplay! Like for instance, if you were to ask me who won all four games tonight in the intermediate division, was named player of the night and had a mind blowing eight bingoes, I would be all I have no idea! Oh, wait, did I say *tonight*? Oh, tonight that would be me! I was player of the night with four wins and eight bingoes! But you don't hear me bragging about it and waving around my prize money," I said, starting to wave around my prize money.
(I called my mom to tell her I won and she goes "how much did you win?" I tell her and she immediately says "and how much did you lose last week?" I know what you're thinking, but N0! None of you can have her! She's all mine! So stop begging me, she's my mommy and that's how it's gonna stay!)
Adam is laughing now that I am rubbing the money against my face in Barbara taunting fashion.
"You know, Dawn, you should get a blog! You could write all this down and take pictures and put them up there."
I think I will!
I start snapping photos in the diner.
Adam asks to see the one of him and Nancy.
"Aww, we're so cute!"
I smile.
"Yeah, you guys should get married!"
Matt looks at the picture.
"Yeah... cute, you guys should have 14 children."
Everyone laughs.
"Nah, you guys are our children!" Adam says.
"Ha! Nice try, Adam. Now that I'm the 4-0 player of the night, with money in my pocket, you want to adopt me? Where were you when I was 0-4 and loser of the night."
Nancy started laughing.
"She's onto us!"
"I knew it! You adopted James last week didn't you! But now that I've beaten him he's out!"
"Yeah, that's how it goes."
Nancy tried to get me to agree to go with them to a Scrabble tournament on Sunday.
"Nah, I can't. I have a poker tournament at my place on Saturday."
"I'm going," Matt adds.
"How long have you been playing?"
"What? Poker? Oh, I don't. Is that the game with the dice?"
He laughs and adds "the hustle begins."
I laugh.
We finish up eating and I offer to give him a lift back to Brooklyn.
Nancy immediately says "oh wait till you hear the music Dawn plays! Oh my God."
"Oh, I already KNOW," Matt says, "she's taken me home before. It's crazy!"
"Yeah , it's like Barry Manilow and Billy Joel," Nancy says.
"Shut it! Besides, I have a BMW now...all music sounds good in my Beamer."
"Oooh, I'm going home in a Beamer...you're driving a Beamer to my neighborhood."
Hmm. Good point. I barely felt comfortable driving my Honda through his neighborhood.
"Um...it's okay. I keep my Glock under the front seat."
We start talking about the payments and insurance for Prince Eli, when I disappear under the table.
"What's that?" Adam asks, when I reemerge holding my bright side, cylindrical case.
"It's my Scrabble clock."
Matt laughs.
"Clock?? I thought you said GLOCK! What're you gonna do when they come to carjack you? Say "wait, hold on...let's see how long this takes...ready, set, go! Wow! Impressive 1 minute 12 seconds!"
I keeeelllll yyouuuuuuuuuu.
Such utter disrespect. Doesn't he know who I am?

Humbly Yours,
-The best Intermediate Scrabble Player at the New York Club

It's been a bumpy ride

2009-06-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

I have had nothing but a string of losing Scrabble tournaments. There was the Boston Area Tournament where, I believe, I went 4-14 or 2-12, just something so horrendous and awful that I blocked it out and vowed never to speak of it again. Looking back, I realize I was playing terribly (though I also did get wretchedly unlucky at times. I played qis late in the game with no tiles left in the bag. I was happy to have a place to dump the q and for 24 points! I was leading by 41 now. My opponent has four tiles on his rack. Do you know what they were? A I S U. Do you know how many spaces on the board separated my q from the TWS below? Do you know what he did to my 41 point lead? Sigh. The worst part? I WAS TRACKING. No, actually the worst part? I WAS TRACKING ACCURATELY! But, but who sees that coming? I walked away from tournament Scrabble after that. Unless I was going to put in the work to study, I wasn't going to throw away anymore money.
So I have no idea what I was doing in Philly on Sunday. Well, I know what I was doing: Losing. But why? Oh, right I have a Scrabble problem.
I drove down with a woman, Judy, from the NYC club. I was studying on the way down and was surprised that I retained quite a bit of information. (Ok, still shaky on the Lister, insert and easter stems, but everything else I remembered.)
My first game was against Linda Wancel, who I beat when last we played at Bayside some months ago. Much to her chagrin. (She challenged acinose!) Anyway, I know exactly when I lost that game. It was when I had "tonners" but decided to play off the en instead of playing the bingo because it was "only 59" points.) Sucker. She bingoed in my lane on her next turn. I drew a y, then had to play off "yo" at which point I drew "wu" and well, hello 117 point loss. I know I must have sounded like a complete jerkwad when at the end of the game Linda was all "you got unlucky there." And I just responded "no, I didn't. I just played terribly."
My next game was against an african-american woman from somewhere down South. (And yes, that might mean D.C. Sue me, I believe NYC is the center of the universe.)
She thrashed me within an inch of my life BUT I made a valient comeback. It was so great a valient comeback that I thought I was going to pull out a win! I didn't. But I did double double with "inserted." Lost by 17 in the end. But considering I was down by 170 at half-time. I wasn't too unhappy.
Unhappy came in my next game. I played this woman that I think I've beaten before, but couldn't remember when.
She was not very good. (Never mind that my the end of the day she was undefeated and playing for the championship. So's my face.)
I bingoed on her very early on, then I got the j and played it on the double letter square making jade through the double word square. It was a little dangerous because it left the j on the Triple line. Sure enough she played ibe next to it for 26 points.
The game proceeded, I was winning so handily that I decided to fish around for bingoes when I really should have just been dumping tiles and shutting down the board. Anyway, I had four letters left on my rack at game's end, and decided to just play two, to rack up more points. She then proceeded to go out and I won by 11 points.
"Do you mind if we recount?"
I shrug.
She starts doing that thing where she's all "you play piano for 13 and then I play paltry for 11...blah blah blah." At some point she goes "you played something for 8..."
I shrug again and say "I don't write down the words I play...I can't help you."
She soldiers on and when she gets to "jibe" she goes "oh, that should have
been 39. I just doubled it instead of tripling it. Whew I think that gives me the game."
I AM LIVID.
She finishes the recount and sure enough now I lose by two. Which, had I known that I was trailing by two would have totally changed how I decided to use those last four tiles. I am SO MAD. I really want to rail against these recount rules, especially since the error was hers, but she got to profit from it. I think there should be a five point penalty off any player whose score is discovered to be wrong after a recount -- so you'd have to think long and hard before requesting one AND it wouldn't save you if the game was close. (And obviously, if both players made mistakes, it would be a wash.)
Anyway, now I was down 0-3 when I got matched with the man I beat in Atlantic City to virtually lock up first place (unless I did something incredibly stupid like say that the blank was the wrong letter.)
I didn't remember him.
He remembered me.
He opened with helleri. I challenged cause DUDE? Helleri! WTF?
It was good.
I became even more deflated than I was. I bingoed with something easy that wasn't worth very many points to retake a small lead. Then he bingoed through my easy bingo with GOATLIKE!
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE.
(He got both blanks)
I gave up.
I did try to win the game with the heroic find of "violets" which I played on the triple line hooking the o on top of vas.
Unfortunately, ovas is not a word.
Hello 0-4.
It was a bad tournament for many of the Circuit regulars in my division Denise M was winless. I was Linda's only win. Ugliness. Nancy, on the other hand, was kicking ass and taking names. She (and recount lady) were head to head with perfect records for the championship. Nancy crushed her in the first game ("waa, if I had played ridotto I could've won," she whined after the game. "No, she wouldn't have," Nancy said under her breath. She beat Nancy in the second game, but Nancy's spread was unbeatable by that point even though they had the same record.) Judy, the woman who drove me down, also was undefeated and playing for the championship in her division. Leading me to dub myself the worst Scrabble player in New York. The only good thing was that, for some reason, the Philly tournament was unrated -- so it didn't hurt my already plummeting rating.
Anyway, I managed to finally win a game (two blanks and three esses will do that for you.)
But all in all, it was an ugly tournament.
Tonight at club Barbara asked me how I did. I glared at her.
"I didn't play raisents."
I won my first game against Steve tonight. I had belnrs? There was an open l on the triple line and then an open a on the line above the triple line. I kept looking for something through the ell and almost played off my own ell hoping to fish out something good. But Steve likes to shut down boards, so I knew I had to bingo now or risk not being able to at all. Finally I decide to take a shot and play berlins, hooking the b on top of aa at the other end of the board.
I was like 54% sure it was good.
Steve challenged and my certainty plummeted to 13%.
But Joel quickly said it was good!
The game was mine after that.
Then I faced Barbara. As usual she drew a blank and bingoed on me with disrobe. I came back with veritas using my blank as an e. SHE CHALLENGED. Joel yelled at her. I pointed and laughed.
Man, how I wish this story didn't end with me losing by five.
My next game was against a newcomer. I won by hundreds. (I played licensed, which I thought was cool.) She was a little spazzy. Like she'd slam the tile bag on the table after drawing and she'd talk to herself...weirdoes those Scrabble players are.
My last game was with a really good player. She kept play off six tiles for like 16 or 19 points (outlaid, aviated) the only thing I could think of to explain it was that she was hoping I'd challenge. But she's too good a player, I would always assume her words were good. I bingoed with hitless! And ended up winning by 40, for a nice 3-1 night.
Grr. Stupid Barbara.

Third place finish and a Barbara defeat!

2009-06-02T04:34:00.000-07:00

I had a great day at club on Thursday.
Sure, I got stuck playing Steve in the first round even though that is a fate usually reserved as punishment for those who show up late, and I was totally on time.
I held my own for a long time. Steve plays a very closed board game which stretches my knowledge of esoteric hooks and five/four letter words to its breaking point. But sometimes he gets a blank and he bingoes, which happened during this game, but I had satine + p and came right back with sapient.
I was down by 16 or so when he exchanges. I dump a clunky w and u for 12 points and now I'm only trailing by four. And then he gets the other blank and he bingoes with "blintze" with the b on a double word score and the z on the triple letter score for a million/billion points. Ugh. The only saving grace is that I didn't challenge the word, even though the "expert" players who saw the board later, said they would have.
I give up at that point and cruise to an easy defeat.
THEN Joel asks Steve to move up to the expert level to even out the divisions. Terrific. Couldn't have done that *before* I got blintzed!
Oh well.
My next match was against Ed Moran, who usually plays one bingo phony on me, one four letter word for a bingo-like total and then beats me by thirty even though I bingo out and he has all the over 8 point tiles on his rack.
I have beaten him a couple of times, but I wasn't holding my breath.
Sure enough, he bingoes on me early, I fish for a couple of rounds, then bingo back, but he still has a sizeable lead. I don't know why, but I then decide to shut down the board. I Steved Ed and it WORKED! He ended up with five consecutive turns of eight or less points, while I was using my tiles for steady 20/30 points. He then bingoed with talkers hooking the ess on liri, so I challenged it off. I had slavern on my rack, but 1) I wasn't sure if it was good and 2) it didnt play, so I dumped off the l and v. I made "lev" and stuck the v in the middle of Ed's prior bingolane.
He then played talks on the triple line, Tee on Triple word square, K on double letter square.
Ouchy.
I was down by 42 now, but my rack was aaenrss. I shuffled and shuffled but couldn't find anything. The bag was empty. "Man, if I had a tee, I could make...wait, a minute! "Talks!" I have a tee!!"
Yay!!
I bingoed out through his tee with santeras. He challenged. It was good. I got all the points for his tiles and won!
I was then matched up with Ellen P. She is really nice and was one of the first people whose names I learned because she has all her equipment labeled. Even her racks! I can't remember if I've ever beaten her. But for the last four months or so, whenever I'm doing well and am in contention to win, it is Ellen I have to face in the finals. And, well, you all know that you'd know IMMEDIATELY if I ever win tournament night at the New York club.
Anyway, I'm 1-1 and Joel announces I'd have to play Ellen.
"Noooo," I groan to the amusement of everyone in earshot.
"Gee, thanks Dawn," Ellen says.
Ellen always says she doesn't play rated one day tournaments because she is not a morning person and loses all her games in the morning.
"Okay," I offer, "How about we postpone this game till the morning?? 7 am! Yes, I insist!"
"Why, Dawn? So you can sleep through it?" an eavesdropping Matt says. Smart ass.
"Shut it! That only happened once...maybe three or four times."
Ha.
I told him.
Anyway, I go first...I try to play a five letter word, but can only muster a four. We both go back and forth with little plays until I get the rack einorxz. I look around the board and there is an open g!!! Oh my gosh! My heart is beating so fast. I. AM. A. SCRABBLE. GOD.
Ellen plays away from my g and I can barely hold the tiles between my fingers, as I slap down "zeroxing" for 140 points!
"Challenge," Ellen says pretty quickly.
Ha! I KNOW it's good.
Joel comes over "No. But ambitious."
I take the tiles off reluctantly...is this like that time you said "linkings" was good even though it isn't, I thought grumpily.
Whatever.
I got thirty points for my z and then set up an awesome spot so I could play the ex on a double word going two ways...Ellen didn't see it coming, in order to block, and I scored another 44. It was no zeroxing, but it would have to do. She and I exchanged bingoes and I was still comfortably ahead. I drew the second blank and bingoed again! Woo. There were only like ten tiles left, so I did my "no choking, no choking, no choking" chant. And I didn't! I beat Ellen! At night.
"I thought zerox had lost trademark status," I say to her as we're cleaning off the board.
"It did. But it's spelled with an ex."
"Huh?"
"It's xerox. Two exes."
Oh. My. God.
I. AM. A. SCRABBLE. IDIOT.
I spelled "xeroxing" WITH A ZEE!!!
Dude.
I can never go back to that Scrabble club. Ever.
As I was sitting there, thinking of where I will move to now that I was in the market for a new Scrabble club, Joel announced the final matchups.
I was 2-1 and he said the dreaded words "Dawn Summers/ Barbara Ep"
I groan internally.
Within minutes, the all too familiar voice descended.
"I think we're playing now."
"Yeah, that's what he said."
"Okay. You've only beaten me once, right? That one time."
"You challenged parsons," I said trying to move the story along.
"Right, but you haven't won me again, right? I played a phony on you and you took it. I played teglion, but it's only lentigo."
Awesome. Great. Shut THE HELL UP.
I smiled. "Okay, you ready? You're first."
It was annoying, she bingoed with the blank on her second turn and I had the promising eaetr followed by four consecutive turns of "aa" or "wp" and then "ee" COME ON, universe!!
WHY do you HATE me?! Finally, when I drew "br" I was ready to just give up the fishing and move on. But Barbara was taking forever to go and some bored shuffling brought up: rebater. I wasn't sure it was good, but I was down by 80 and when she finally played "mu on top of "en" I knew I had to try it. I bingoed with rebater forming emu/run on the end. She held the play for SIX AND A HALF minutes. I didn't say anything. Or look at her. Finally, she challenges it.
"It's good."
Woooooo. She starts her not-quite-under-her-breath carping.
"Okay, you got me. I shouldn't have challenged that. 'Rebater' I didn't know that one. You're good. Maybe you win this one. Blah blah blah"
I make my next move and take a 20 point lead. She then starts to play a bingo through an open a at the top of the board. She has THE OTHER blank, too! Grr.
She doesn't finish the word and pulls back her tiles. Another 7 minutes go by and she instead bingoes through the r. She plays raise?ts. She says "blank is an enn" 72 points, hits the clock with one hand and reaches for the bag with the other to draw replacement tiles.
"HOLD ON," I say grabbing the bag away from her.
"What is the blank?"
"An enn."
I write it out: raisents It's the nastier stem, one of the few eight stems that I know. There is only one word in that rack, and that ain't it.
I laugh. Out loud.
"Challenge"
Joel comes over.
"That's an enn," I say.
He laughs too.
Barbara has a couple of bingoes that she could have played through that a at the top of the board, so I decide to block that in case she remembers them since it's obvious she couldn't find retsinas. I play wanting through the a.
She takes another 8 minutes with the tiles and then plays ?asiest hooking the blank on top of "avo"
"The blank is an ell. 75 points"
She hits the clock, I start laughing hysterically and insta challenge.
"You really have no respect for me."
I tell Joel the blank is an ell. He just rolls his eyes and walks away.
Now I shut down the r lane.
She is in full on tempter tantrum/whine mode now. She is already three minutes over on her clock. We play back and forth and then at some point I guess she forgets to hit my clock, so halfway through my turn she notices her clock has now run over four minutes.
"Hold hold," she screeches. "My clock was running and it's your turn. I'm not counting that. I'm only taking off forty points."
I was stuck with pretty ugly ending letters, q being one and unfortunately, no u or a. I had qis, but no place to put it.
"Can you be quiet, I'm trying to make my move here."
"I'm only taking off forty."
"Shhh"
"Whatever, you won already."
I channeled my inner Adam.
"BARBARA! SHUT UP."
She was finally quiet.
Fine, she doesn't care? I played qis under pst. I hit the clock.
"Challenge," she screeches, "That doesn't take an ess. Joel! Challenge"
I roll my eyes and take it off.
She plays off her blank for 4 points.
I play off as many letters as I could, accepting that she's getting 20 points for my unplayable q.
She goes out and calculates the score. She only subtracts 40 points from her score.
"You're over by 5 minutes. That's 50."
"It shouldn't have been running. It was your turn."
"Not my problem. Hit the clock when you're done."
"You already won, what's the difference, I took off 40."
I wasn't arguing with her anymore.
"Joel!"
"Ok, okay fine."
She is like terrified of Joel banning her from club! Hahahah
I came in third in my division for the night. I also made the department of terrible cleverness for "rebater," because that's the *only* bingo in that rack!

I beat Steve!

2009-05-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

One of my earliest great memories of playing at the Scrabble club involved almost beating Steve. I opened with the bingo jennies and went on to amass a huge lead on someone that was once one of the top players in the country. Of course, he's still quite good and I had, then and possibly now, a very weak endgame, so he managed to beat me by like five or so points in the end. Still, it was quite thrilling to have come that close. Anyway, in the subsequent 20 months, there have been LOTS of "close to beating Steve" games. And they are most definitely, no longer a thrill. In fact, they were getting to be downright Jim Piazza level frustrating. Why can't I beat him? Arggh! Anyway, on Thursday, Steve was my first match because when you arrive to club late Joel punishes you. I arrived late.
I won the "see who goes first" tile draw, but then opened with "Jap" (I had japonll on my rack). Steve instachallenged. Damn. He then played "tae" for six points and I played jape through the e. He then played another silly 7 pt thing (eating up five minutes on his clock) and I made another 20 plus play. After six turns, I was well out in front and had drawn a blank and an ess. Trying to clean up my rack, I stupidly dumped an Fo on top of a y hanging next to the triple line for 18 points. Steve immediately came back with HEX down the triple lane for 52 points and an 11 point lead. Stupid, Dawn! My friends Jess and Javon had come down to the club to watch me play. (I think Javon really wanted to see why I am near suicidal every Thursday night and to verify that I was not actually playing Monopoly.) Jess was sitting beside me as I let Steve suddenly take the lead on me in the game. I was feeling rattled and mad that I was going to be on the wrong end of another close one with Steve. I has pretty good tiles ?ANGTSI but Steve also plays a hardcore closed board style, so there wasn't an obvious place for my bingo. I had a lot of time, since I was pretty much playing my whole game on his clock, and after a few minutes I found a spot for a play under a T. Anything ending in a, I or o would work. Ingesta for 69 and I retook the lead. I then went into serious defense mode and even though he drew the second blank and scored on the triple lane under my bingo with banks for 31, I held on and won by 22!
Woo! First Barbara, now Steve! I am slaying my dragons one by one...one of these days...Jim Piazza!
There weren't that many people at club, so Joel was in friendly teacher mode. He talked to Javon and Jess about getting started in the game...though seemed alarmed when Javon said he had never played before. Joel also watched as Ellen brutalized me in a game where she drew both blanks, all four esses, the q, the z, the x, the j. I tried to open up a bingo lane by playing off an o leaving me with orient on my rack...I hoped for any one of the ten letters that combine with that stem to make a bingo...so I played "no" for two points. Of course, I draw another stupid ar AND ellen takes the spot I have opened up and uses her blank to play triples. Bah. I then use her t and bingo with tritoner. She challenges it off. Later Joel shows me that I could have used my orientr on the other side of the board to bingo through an F with Frontier. Pout.
I decide to blame Jess and Javon because they had left for that game, whereas the other three games they stayed for I won! So, I have now required that they come cheer me on every Thursday, so maybe I could actually win my division one of these days. Hmmm...or, at the very least they have to come the next time I play Jim Piazza! I need all the help I can get.

Wherever you go, there's Scrabble

2009-04-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

I took Lent off from blogging...but definitely not from playing! I'm not sure where to start...well, I guess I am officially a mediocre intermediate player an improvement over beginner, to be sure, but nothing to write home about...unless you've run out of everything else to say...in which case an "oh, I almost won...again" note mightbe called for.
I've mostly been focussing on threes to make fours and my six letter bingo stems (though I have managed to cram in a handful of seven letter stems). This is what makes me an intermediate player - I bingo much more frequently cause I see way more openings on the board (and bingoes on my rack or through letters). However, that I barely look at anything else and so challenge words like foin or xenon is what makes me mediocre. After Saratoga, I was really quite burned out on Scrabble and pretty much just dropped out of the scene. That lasted...oh, thirteen days! But I definitely enjoy playing much more than studying. I actually managed to rack up a two week champion streak against Phil...I found the word tutelage through a tee for a triple word scoring bingo in one game and in another challenged off notarise ("hmmm...I know that rack, Phil, and that aint one of the words in it! Challenge!") But he destroyed me last week in horrifying 3D monster fashion. Ugh.
My friend got married last month in Arizona...I was going to be in Tempe for a few days, so, of course I googled Arizona Scrabble. I actually found a $3 buy-in tournament happening at the Tempe club! So my friends drove me out there (just to make sure the club really existed) and after one or two wrong turns we founf the community center. The tournament was scheduled to start at 1:15 , but at 1 the center doors were still locked. So my friends and I did donughts in the parking lot until they opened up. Heh. My first game went super poorly. In classic Dawn fashion I jumped out to a big lead and then...gag, gasp, CHOKE! I ended up losing by 112. I crushed my next two opponents (getting a challenge on isatine, which emboldened me to play anything I wanted after that oh and did I play some doozies! Hahaha...Actually this weekend I played in the Bayside tournament (I think I placed fourth, but the prize I won was for best phony: tealiest. I also played alinear, spinned and acenose...but only got away with the first two!) Then I had the game from hellopia! I think in the end, he bingoed five times, hit every triple word square and killed me by 300 or so points...and that's a conservative estimate. Groan. In the end, I came in sixth place and won a dollar, which I donated back to the Tempe club. Everyone was so nice and if you're ever out in Tempe, you should check it out.

Heh

2009-02-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

I out tripled-tripled Phil.

Saratoga

2009-02-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

My blackberry stopped being able to scroll, so I wasn't able to live blog this tournament at all. I am currently in fourth...I feel like I'm playing poorly and am really just hoping to get out of this mess without destroying my rating. I feel like I'm done with Division C. (Ha! The way I say that you'd think I was in first and undefeated.) I had dinner with an expert last night and he very cleverly said "there is no half way house for Scrabble." You are either in or out...maybe it's back to back weeks of multi-day tournaments talking...but I'm not quite sure where I want to be.

Huzzah

2009-02-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

4-3!

I crushed my last opponent like CRUSHED. With beautiful beautiful crush-producing blanks and esses and kues and jays and zees!!! I would have felt bad for him if he hadn't tried to open with a bingo against me: hautier. Dude. Not. Born. Yesterday. OH MAN!! I couldn't wait to post a picture of this board!

In honor of Matt I bingoed with "slander," and then on my next turn...or maybe a couple of turns later, I bingoed down in front of it with "ingesta" Ha! My opponent didn't challenge though, I think he was feeling too beat up by the bag...at least that's how I was feeling all damn day.
And check out how our hero found the dee hook on top of rum to get the zee on the TWS!
I found quag to get the kue on the TLS...
I also was trying to bingo on the bottom lane with some word ending in ess or with ess in teh middle cause I know leasings is good, but I thought it might draw a challenge...he got the last ess though. Stupid tile rack. Grin.
In my second to last game I finally drew a blank and I almost cried. I am now debating whether to play in this same division tomorrow or go back to the kiddie pool. Fact is, as I've seen some Division 3 players arriving I suddenly remembered there are sharks in the kiddie pool too.
Gulp.

1-1 (early Bird saratoga)

2009-02-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

Remember the woman who beat me after I thought I had won, but then we recounted and she won by three? I just played her again! I was drawing well...opened with a bingo (outseen), bingoed in the middle with inanest, but I kept "pulling a Dawn" and opening up triples for her and she hurt me bad each time...ugh, so she was ahead by like 50 or 60 with no tiles left in the bag. She takes like seven minutes or so to track (I am having a terrible time with my clock management in this division...I keep second guessing My own EVERY move...liek th second time I opened up the triple, I thought she had a bingo and the triple line would only fit five letters, so I thought I was safe...nope...she punched me in the gut with like "fiery" or something horrible.) Anyway, she has lots of time, she like retracks the game, my tiles are eeilrss, but I'm not sure that ireless is good and it would be an outplay, so it's like an automatic challenge. Anyway, I sit and sit and the best thing I can do is relies for like 26--and I would still lose. Then she makes her move and plays "tope" I AM SOOO HAPPY I NEARLY JUMP OUT OF MY CHAIR. Of course, she takes it off. (Why am I so dumb? It's like I have never played poker before! Which I have...and have a poker blog.... Anyway, she takes another three minutes, shrugs and says "okay, I know you got it anyway" and plays tope again. i bingo out with tireless!!! I win! And I tell her I didn't have it otherwise. She is sad. Almost as sad as if she'd won by 1 and then we recounted and she lost by three.
Of course, I looked at the standings, I am in last. My opponent in that first match had high game of the tournament and I have the worst loss. Seriously, it's just like last year.
I played the woman from charlotte who played "crepier" on me. She got both blanks and used them both for mid thirties point plays which baffles me. She bingoed twice potties and like some satine word. I thought I was done for, but then she hung an ar on the triple line and I bingoed through with retrains (learning the eights has been one of the single most rewarding of the mundane exercise of Scrabble study.) Then I got a nice sick 40 point play with woke and suddenly I was back in it. With no tiles left, five on her rack, three on mine she was up by 17. She used my woke to score 8. I found a 15 point play, with lave/lie. (My decision on this was (semi) interesting. I could have gone out with vine for 7 points plus the 3 tiles on her rack, but I knew they were only 1 pointers, so I decided to take my chances that maybe she couldn't go out and just scored as many points as I could.) She scored four more BUT INEXPLICABLE went over on her clock by ONE SECOND!!! It was BIZARRE. I go out with a six point play, plus her tile AND I win after her penalty!
OMG!!
Pout.
Lost the last game. I no longer remember what a blank feels like...I only recognize them when my opponents drop them on my ass.
2-2
Lost another one. 2-3 AND I'm her only win for today. Hawesome. Still have not touched a blank. Good news? Still bingoing withuot them. Be fucking nice to play someone who doesn't get them both though. Tom Brady jersey coming off, There Will Be Blood sweatshirt going on.
PLAYING UP IS SOOO STRESSFUL!! None of my mind gamey tricks work here...like putting down my letters for words that I'm not sure about and waiting to see if my opponent will write down the score, thus confirming that it's good. Nope. They stare at you the whole time untli you hit your clock. THEN they write or challenge or whatever. Not to mention the sheer word knowledge. WHAT THE HELL IS BLET!!!?!?!?!?
I have not made one challenge. NOT ONE. Too scared. (Good thing too, everything I have looked up later was all good.)
I am 3-3. Just had a CRAZY game where I got to play "lacings" and draw the challenge. Studying the pluralizable ing words has been the fourth most useful thing. I shoulda taken a picture of that board...my rack was lacins? And I had to play horizontally over cay
owe
w

So I was looking for sla something but the best I could come up with after oh...ten minutes was lacings. Eh. A win's a win.

Kick ass send off

2009-02-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

So, do you know what you get for coming in second in back to back multi day tournaments? You get kicked up to the next division. You, consequently, know just as much as when you started. That is to say nothing.
I got crushed in my first game in Division B 501-218. I want to say it was because my opponent drew both blanks, all the esses, the kue, the zee, the aitches, the ex and the kay -- which she did. But honestly, I don't know that I could have beaten her unless the drawings were exactly reversed. I definitely feel over my head. My only consolation is that since the matchings are done in degrees of best matched with worst for the first few rounds, she is probably one of the best in Division B. But anyway, as I signed her card and got ready to leave, she goes "hope your next game is better."
I almost burst out laughing...except there were still twelve other games going on and that would have been rude.

Shenanigans

2009-02-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

I really am playing the best Scrabble of my life right now. (Okay, I've only been playing tournament Scrabble for 18 months, so that's not really that impressive a statement, but whatever.) I went 3-1 at the club tonight. I took pictures of my boards because, well I was feeling really good about today. I decided to try out my Tom Brady jersey to see if it would fare as well as my personalized jersey (which I washed and packed for Saratoga!) My first game was against Dulcet, who used to be in the core Scrabble crew until it fell apart, but I don't think she's really been studying or anything, so I settled in for an easy win.
Yah. Fat chance. She opened with a freaking bingo on me: DEMENTIA! Arggh.

I played quip for some nice, she came back with hue hitting the triple to make equip. I HATE THAT DAMN WORD!!!!
Okay, focus Dawn. I bingoed with destain right about the triple line, she hits me with ZAP for TWS. Waaaa. Then she bingoed AGAIN (with the second blank...the freaking tile rack) But I never gave up...and actually, I never felt like I was going to lose. I kept hitting strong four letter plays for solid scorage, including my favorite play of the game: There was a double word square surrounded on three sides by e I had the ex and was desperately trying to figure out how to stick it in there for the ex going double two ways and then I cam eup with EXEC!
Dawn +74

My next game was with the guy I hurt real bad by bingoing out with osteoma. He had come back from a close win against one of the strongest players in our division, but he was telling me that he had missed a ess hook on creaming. I also told him I would have missed that too. So in our game when I played "coping" to get rid of some crap tiles and close down the board a bit because I had bingoed and I was ahead, I was so hoping he'd miss "scoping." Sure enough he played "raisers" hooking the ess onto lo making los/raisers I insta challenged. Then he tried to hook an ess onto ava -- Challange again. This time Joel gave him a look and he said "stop that, you're getting me in trouble!" I laughed. And then won by 197.

My third game was against Nicki, the first person I ever played at Scrabble club. She's very nice, but also very competitive. I have come close to beating her many many many times, but she always finds a way to win. Mostly by playing phonies on me that are too plausible for me to challenge (i.e. vyse) But my last game against her, I was making really good challenges and playing well until I "pulled a Dawn" and left my ex hanging next to the TWS. D'oh. I decided I was going to beat her. She bingoed on her second turn with linking. I bingoed right back with linters, which she almost challenged. Then she hooks an ess on linking to make boast/linkings. I insta challenged. I spent a cross country flight to Utah memorizing all the ing words that take esses. Linking, not one. Now, at the club, Joel is God. We don't have a computer for challenges, just his word. So he comes over, I show him the play and he says "it's good."
I lose a turn. I am mad at myself for evidently learning my list wrong AND now falling behind by a bingo. She then plays "axings" for 44 points, but I can't challenge it cause...well, it's self evident.
I bingo a couple of turns later with "whatever," an AWESOME find, if I may say so myself. Oh, look at that. I just did! We are playing closed board Scrabble, I am ahead by maybe 20 and I decide to open the board waaay up: rutile hitting the top TWS opening up five new bingo lanes. My last tile was an ess, but it wouldn't fit. She doesn't use it AND the Scrabble gods reward me with tenail. I have to play through a letter, so I choose the ar. I can't remember what nastier plus ell is, so I sit there and write out all the satine plus ell words and see if I can do "re something." Nope. I then write out al the retina plus ell words and see if that take esses: BINGO! rETINALS. She challenges! I win by 85.
I am 3-0!

Guess who else is 3-0? Barbara freaking Epstein.
ARRGGHH.
She takes my card from me and goes "oh, you're 1170 now, so I'm only just a little bit better than you. I'm 1202. Oh, you have a big spread. blah blah blah." Her voice really is just the worst.
Anyway, I get off to fast start against her with "stander" I am leading the whole way and she is talking to herself and whining about tiles. I've got this. And then she says "exchange two," hits my clock, throws in two tiles and takes two new ones. I check the bag an dnotice there are only 6 tiles left. I call Joel and explain that Barbara exchanged when she wasn't allowed to anymore. Penalty? I get to turn over four of her tiles PLUS see all the tiles left in the bag and give her any four out of the combination of all the tiles left. I give her qbga. I was feeling pretty good until she played "qis for 38 points to take a pretty sizeable lead with only four tiles to play. And I just couldn't catch up. I lost by 14.(No picture, I was mad.) And took second place in the intermediate division.
On the way home, I was stuck in horrid traffic, so I pulled up my ing list and LO AND BEHOLD: LINKINGS IS NOT GOOD!
JOEL.WAS.WRONG.
I was right. Joel was wrong.
Be afraid, people. Be very afraid.

Help

2009-02-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

Is there a Scrabble Club in Las Vegas? And I mean a real one, not the fake one at the Rehab Clinic that almost got me murdered last year.

Day Three

2009-02-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

I got up super early, nerves I guess. I went downstairs did some blogging got some breakfast and readied myself for the day. The guy in first place (Dave) was playing the top seed (Russ) in the first game of the morning. If I could win my game, and Russ beat Dave, I would be in first place. I had lost a very close game to this woman opponent on Day 1. I think I underestimated her when she played an ess for like 23 points until I realized she was just one of those players that will always just play the best word they have at the moment with no “rack balancing” or “completing racks” stuff. Truth be told I have the hardest time with these players because once I see (what I consider) a boneheaded move like playing an ess for 23 points, I’ll go into fish mode and then I end up facing three turns of steady 20-30 points versus my three turns of single digit turns, so that even when I bingo I’m still behind. Of course, you’d think that once I identify this about myself, I’d change…but you’d be wrong. I never learn. Anyway, luckily, things went well for me in this game against her, I drew the blank and decent letters right away, so I only had to fish once before bingoing with piaster. I then drew indiies, she had played quip through my pee, so I dumped off one of my eyes next to the q making qi right by the double word square and giving myself a bingo lane. I drew a cee. She then plays stab next to the qi using HER BLANK as an ess for like 30 points. Seriously, drives me NUTZ!! But whatever. I actually find indices after a minute of shuffling and bingo down next to her bee. She makes a really nice like four letter word multi word parallel play, but I am too far ahead now and I basically barrel through the game…I might have bingoed one more time to really seal it. I won. ALSO RUSS WON! I was in first. Joel walked by and asked me how I was doing. I told him I had lost five games.
“Today?” he said.
“Uh, no, the whole tournament. I’m in first place in my division.”
His eyes bugged out of his head. I laughed.
My next game was against this new guy who was unrated and had never played a Scrabble tournament before. He beat me on day one. Again, his style was similar to that woman’s in that he played a very natural Scrabble game. He didn’t know stems or many “Scrabble words” and would just play his tiles. I was also drawing HORRIBLY. So I really felt like I could beat him. Dave was matched against a girl I hadn’t played or SEEN all tournament. I thought that was strange going into the home stretch that he should play someone who wasn’t even in contention for winning. But whatever, I had to concentrate on beating this guy who had only lost 1 game in all of Day 1 and was first going into Day 2.
Again, I don’t quite know what went wrong. I opened with zones for like 48 points, but he managed to get a big score with quip and then bingo on top of quip with loaners/equip using the blank as an e…bah…this game I freely admit he outplayed me absolutely, completely and thoroughly. Then when he played “re” through the TWS for reequip for 57 points. The game was over and all I could try to do was manage the spread. The board was completely closed, I played off the d from my satine + d rack next to an id to open a bingo lane for myself. I drew and e, but he came back with val next to my id for valid. I didn’t even hesitate; I played etesians down the triple line making etesian/valids. He held the play, but I think the sheer confidence I was projecting, stopped him from challenging it. Whew. Valids is not good. But I cut down my loss to a manageable double digit. Of course, Dave sliced through that girl like butter and so was back in first, with me in second. So we had to play again.
Once again we had pretty high opening sequence scores. He opened with zig, I came back with jane, then he bingoes with marasca making zigs and using the blank as an arr. WHAT THE FUCK is MARASCA. Once again I was in the same place with him when he played mureins. Does he mean maracas which wouldn’t have fit?? I had the bingo weaners on my rack and was getting ready to play it next to zig. Otherwise it didn’t play. I thought about playing off the w…but if I looked marasca up later and it wasn’t good, I was going to kick myself. Might as well bite this bullet now.
It was good. He went again.
I played off the w and drew another e. I decided to just try to score some points. He then played boniato which…what the fuck? But I can’t lose another challenge, so I let it go. I’ve got crap on my rack and exchange. He bingoes with tritoner, through the ar in marasca. I challenge it off. He dumps the to and picks up an a and a blank. How do I know? Cause his next turn he bingoes with retinas. Fucking fuck fuck!
The wheels have completely come off my game. I can’t even protect the spread anymore.
He is in complete control. He gets the q and the ex and I finally get a bingo isolate, but it doesn’t play anywhere…so I take a shot with isolater through his ar in that STUPID Marasca. He instantly challenges it off. Ugh. I just want to get out of this game. I finally do. I’ve lost by 200 plus. He is now in first by two games. I think Russ was now in second and I had dropped to a three way tie for third…though I had the best spread of the three.
I walked away from the room. It was lunch and went back to the room, looked up “boniato” and punched myself in the face.
I’m kidding. Ish.
I packed my things and valeted my bags because my flight left Charlotte at 4:45 and the last game looked like it was going to start at 2:45 meaning I’d have an hour to get from that conference room to the airport and through security. It was going to be close. I went back to the room to tell the organizer dude that I wouldn’t be able to make the awards ceremony because of my flight.
“Well, are you in contention for anything?”
I was surprised at the question and wondered how badly my back to back losses had left me.
“I thought so…I was in first for like six minutes this morning.”
“Okay,” he said shrugging “well, I’ll just mail you anything, if you win anything.”
Bah. If. I hate Scrabble.
I ended up playing a game with a living room player who was covering the event for the Charlotte club. I was going real easy on her, and on my brain. I was just playing like cat, run…whatever, just to pass the time, so the living room player was doing well. Not winning, but definitely keeping pace. We both had like 120/117 points going into the end game. One of the black women from the expert divisions walked by and watched me play for a bit. She wanted to give me some tips, but the living room player wouldn’t let her, like it was “cheating.” This, of course, triggered my unhealthy competitive spirit and I decided to stop fucking around and crush her. Which I did. She then wanted a rematch as if I’d just suddenly gotten lucky there at the end, I agreed, but decided to start crushing her right away this time and I did that until the post lunch matchups were called.
My opponent after lunch was tied with me in third. The first place guy was squared off against Russ. I had beaten her twice already. The first time pretty handily and the second time by a little because I had decided to shut down the board after bingoing on her twice. In four rounds. So I was pretty confident. I bingoed on my second turn, then played hay in a way that left the why hanging next to the vertical line leading down to the triple word score. I ALWAYS forget that doing that is also opening up the triple. She decided to take the spot by playing legs vertical and parallel down to the triple line. This was a serious mistake though, as it left a ess sitting right between two Triple word scoring possibilities against a player that sits there trying to build bingo racks and sure enough I had one and played creatins for another bingo. She exchanged. I started building another bingo rack.  She had a nice play with zoeae with the z on a DLS and the e on the double word square. Then she got her kue on the TLS above the I in my creatins. (I need to watch out of that more.) I then bingoed with nidates –which she challenged! (I love that word. It’s one of the “new” satine rack words, so a lot of players don’t know it, they see that it has all the letter of instead, so they figure it’s no good and challenge. They then learn a sad painful lesson.) Of course, we were running out of letters and I was still ahead comfortably. I then drew the second blank. I had a bingo, raiment/minaret, but it didn’t play, so I dumped the em on a TLS going two ways. There were 11 tiles left in the bag. She used her turn to exchange five. I decided to play off two letters to open another bingo lane that wouldn’t need an ess. Of course, then I drew the last ess…which made me comfortable that she didn’t draw a bingo. She dumped a couple of more letters. There were two spots for my bingoes, so I just decided to play off one letter. I now had satine and as the evil whys, q and jay were out, I knew I could keep playing off one letter until the bag was empty and then bingo out on her. That is exactly what I did. She drew the last two tiles, I asked if the bag was empty, verified that it was and then bingoed out with retains.
“Fuck! I just drew the ex.” She was maaaadddddd. I think she had been fishing for that second black.
Ouchie.
I won by A LOT.
Dave also beat Russ by a lot, so he clinched the division by two games and didn’t have to play the last match.
I had to play Russ in the last match.
He was in a very bad mood. He was angry that he had been matched with Dave twice in one day and thought I should have had to play Dave because I was second. (This is when I realized that even with back to back losses I had the second best record in the division by a game. And even if I lost my last game my spread was twice the closest person with eight losses.) I felt like I had a pretty good handle on Russ’ game and knew I could beat him, but his mood was very much “I don’t care anymore-ish” I bingoed on him early, but he came back with back to back bingoes. I tried to play a phony “lorrains” on him, but he challenged it off and I had to seriously refocus. I found some cute internal plays, drew both blanks, and in the end was able to beat him by 40 to clinch second place.
And then I ran like hell to catch a cab to the airport.

Playing the field

2009-02-17T12:47:00.003-08:00

"I beat Joe Edley! Doesn't matter what happens in the rest of the tournament" - guy in elevator after someone asked him how his day was going.

In Albany, I signed up to play a "Late Bird Open." Basically, it's a tournament with no divisions, everyone from experts to a girl that walked in off the street after reading an ad in the paper (true story! I swear) all get matched up randomly by the computer for the first couple of rounds and then get matched up based on performance after that. My rating at the time was in the low 900s and I was told this was a fast easy way to increase my rating. If you can win two or three games against people rated higher than you, it's worth a nice bump. Of course, emphasis is on "win," which I didn't so much do. I came close...really close TWICE. I lost one game by two points for the e on my rack and I won one game by 4 points, but then the lady asked for a recount and I ended up losing by three. (That was a painful game, I double double bingoed with sheitans, but then stupidly dumped an m over a triple line while fishing for another bingo because "hey, what can she do with an em?" Well, marliest is what. Of course, I challenged it. Pout. Then completely gave up on the game until on my very last turn my rack was aeinnot she then dumped off her aitch on top of at making hat right under the triple line...I couldn't believe my eyes and I dumped my bingo right on the triple line making enation/that. I had pulled it out! Until I hadn't. Sob.)
Anyway, I only won two games against the only two people ranked below me, so my rating actually went down.
I was unhappy and decided never to play another open. I am not in this Scrabble business to lose.
So when the Charlotte people turned the Nite Bird event into an open, I was glum. My first game I was matched against the number 7 or 6 seed and I literally gave up before I drew a single tile. I couldn't beat him. And sure enough, I didn't. It was so bad at one point he played overlaid. I was working on a tories stem and then drew an h for heriots, shortie or...um...hoister! Whew! Then I don't know what happened I look at my rack and I have eight tiles on there hooister? So I neutralize the clock tell him, I guess I overdrew and he turns over three tiles, give me back both ohs and throws back the ess. I play hootier. Anyway, as we reach the end of the game he realizes that the extra oh had fallen off from overlaid! Which was now just verlaid. Ugh. I lost by 160 or something. Funnily enough, my next game was against a beginner woman I thought I had beaten a bunch of times during the Atlantic City tournament, so I went into it very confidently. I beat her by a lot! And not even with bingoes, just a lot of forty point four letter word plays and playing fast. She kept exchanging letters and taking like six minutes on a turn...but at the end of the game I realized she was actually an intermediate player from Albany that had beaten me! Whew.
My next game was against a beginner woman that I should have beaten in Albany, but she was able to block my bingo because I made the rookie mistake of not shuffling the tiles anymore once I found it. I completely destroyed her. I won by almost three hundred points.
I was feeling good until I drew my next opponent the number 8 seed. He was a young kid...but they scare me the most, with their little evil hands and beady word knowing eyes. He was winning...he opened with korai and got off to a hundred something point lead, but I came back with two bingoes and by the second to last turn I had a forty point lead on him. He then played brr vertically forming four words, said 42, hit the clock and grabbed the last tile out of the bag all in like 2 seconds. By the time he put the tile on his rack I noticed that the word formed by the last arr in brr was a phony. I was soo mad, but I don't think there was any remedy since he drew...though I dunno maybe I could have asked the director. Anyway, so I lost that game by 8...though grrr...still burns me. I was 2-2 and I guess that was pretty good because my first game the next night was against the NUMBER TEN seed! A guy rated in the 1300s. I was wearing my personalized Patriots jersey that I won after winning a football bet last winter, so I was feeling the mojo from that victory. I drew a blank early on...but also had a y and two eyes and and eff, nothing I could work with (I looked it up later and saw I had filmily (yah, like I said, nothing *I* could work with.) Anyway, I dump the eff and y and draw the second blank AND the second y. DAMMIT. I dump the why and pick up a p...my opponent is now up about like 86 or so...I need to bingo now, but there really is no high scoring place for it, so I just play panties next to ka to get it over with. He very nicely says "hey good job." And I'm all glaring and thinking-- shut the hell up, I have two blanks and pante, if I couldn't find panties, I should be shot. I do my thing where I grab a fistful of the first letters I touch and turn them over on my rack one at a time in exactly this order: g n i (okay, I can working that) r (okay, still good) r (boo, who the hell needs two arrs) e (okay) h. gnirreh Hooray!! There is an ess hanging all by itself at the top of the board, so I wait for him to make his move and will him with all my might to play at the bottom of the board...he does! Yay! I plunk down herring and take the lead! He congratulates me again...this time I accept it...though his credibility with me is already shot if he really thought my panties find was all that great.
I then start shutting the board down and with two or so tiles left in the bag, he say s"I think you've won yourself a game young lady." Tee hee, he called me young. And a lady. Ha!
Of course, I don't celebrate until he makes his move cause too many times at the NY club, some player has been all "I don't think I can win this" and then suddenly finds some ridiculous 35 point outplay and I lose. So, he makes his move and I play out AND WIN!
Wooo!
Of course, that win just meant that I got matched with the NUMBER THREE SEED. NOOOO.
Okay, whatevs, I've got my lucky jersey on...rock and roll.
Since I decide that I am way outclassed in this game, I literally just start playing the longest words I can find on my rack...I played fierier for 18 points cause I thought it was a cool word.
Then I played liquor for like 25 for the same reason. I wasn't holding onto anything...if I could play it, I did. He then bingoed with meadows using a blank as an ess after having set up his hook like the previous turn by playing oot for five. It was sad, I saw it and thought...oh, oot isn't pluralizable, so I'm okay. Except 1. oot IS pluralizable, I was confusing it with noo and 2. oot takes a billion and one front hooks! Doh. Anyway, he makes meadows/soot and takes the lead. I however, bingo right back with hairnet. I'm a little worried cause I have played the h right on the top triple line and my tee landed right by the middle triple line. BUT HE DOESN'T TAKE EITHER!
I quickly play mash on the top triple line and take the lead. He then dumps some other tiles somewhere. And I take the middle triple line making baas/hairnets I am waaay in the lead now. With no tiles left in the bag, I notice there is a triple line open at the top, for a word starting with dee, so I shut it down by playing five of my tiles and make dancer. Of course, then I see an ell open on the bottom. He is shuffling and thinking (I always love that moment when I'm playing a better player who at the beginning of the game wasn't at all taking me seriously, is now sitting upright and totally focused and working really hard. It means I'm doing something right!) and I try to figure out what he has left. Finally, he sighs and said, "can't do it" and then plays "yells" next to my liquor for like 40 points, but not enough to win. I go out and get the tiles on his rack! He then tells me I have a "beautiful game"!!!! And said that instead of dancer horizontally, I should have played crane vertically, cause the cee sticking up would have effectively blocked the top line, but then he couldn't have used the liquor line either.
Wow.
My third game pitted me against the woman that was currently in fourth (that's when it dawned on me that I was in contention to cash IN AN OPEN!!) She opened with crepier. Whatever, lady I may look like I was born yesterday, but I KNOW creepier has another e. Challenge! It's good.
Waa.
I had a zee on my rack and was gonna play z on the TLS to make zee through her fake creepier word. But she blocked by playing emu across the rep. Dammit. But then I remembered zori and played the zee on the other TWS through the arr. She was killing me with forty point plays. I came back with jus with the jay going two ways, but that would leave the ess hanging next to the triple line...NO pulling a Dawn! So I switched the word from jus and played juns. I hit the clock and then I panicked that jun doesn't take an ess...but she didn't say anything and I drew my tiles. (Whew, I looked it up later, it doesn't take an ess.) I then bingoed with some satire word AND drew wearies out of the bag! And it played! Back to back bingoes, but I was still trailing by a little. She then opened up a triple line by playing her ex on the DLS two ways and I was able to capitalize with HOW to take the lead. AND I held it!!
Three wins in a row!
My last opponent was the number two seed AND he was in second or third place.
I forget what he opened with, but I drew air?esc out of the bag AND COULDN'T FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember what aiders plus cee was...nor could I find any other bingo that played (it couldn't start with a cee) I was so mad. I played off the c for cup because I knew (again after being painfully taught by Adam in Albany)that scup is a freaking word.
I played randies/scup on my next turn, but the r was on the triple line and he came back witha forty plus play. I drew the second blank and played shouted. He then bingoed with atelier...we were neck and neck the whole way until he played grantees and I challenged it. Then he was wayyyy ahead and won. But I came in 7th!! And won like 60 dollars for the performance prize of the person who finished highest above their seed!
And just like that my Patriots' jersey has become the official Dawn Summers Scrabble tournament playing uniform!

Are you hot and play Scrabble?

2009-02-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

Then this is for you!

via Wall Street Poker

Second place

2009-02-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

I scheduled my flight wrong, so I had to leave right after my last game, but I won the last two games after lunch (the trick was not eating) so I think I came in second. The first place guy was Gibsonized and so got a walk in the last round.

Gack

2009-02-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

Won my first game by a lot. Got beat by the newcomer in the second, then got my brains bashed in the third. Both of my last two opponents got both blanks and most of the powertiles...I mean really. At the end of teh third game...where he got both blanks, the kue, the zee, the ex, three esses, bingoed four times, he goes "I kind of outtiled you there." Yeah, no shit. It took all that I had not to spit in his face. I'm kidding. Sorta.
Sigh. It's lunch now. I've plummeted to fourth or ninth or a hundredth. Bah. I hate Scrabble tournaments. I'm a world class choker. I should be in a chokers tournament...but then I'd choke at choking and actually win.

Pout.

Lunch is my kryptonite

2009-02-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

I dropped two games after lunch yesterday.
I dropped two games after lunch today.
One of those was totally fucking Barbara Epstein's fault. She likes to walk around telling everyone about the crazy bingoes she has learned. One day she comes around saying she played "murrine" And then she adds "and it doesn't take an ess. But there's another word murine, that does take an ess for murines." She has a very distinctive voice so I usually hear her and remember. So I'm playing this guy I beat yesterday (Nancy Pelosi eyes) and we have a sick opening sequence. I get the ex going two ways on a DLS, he comes back with the zee two ways on DLS (damn zax) I come right back with the j going two ways on TLS, with jo/jet he comes back with a bingo mureins with the blank as an ess.
I hold the play.
Mureins makes jetes, I count the squares and figure out that murines wouldn't have fit. So I decide he knows murines, assumes I don't and figures he can BS me with this play.
Challenge.
Nope, mureins is a fracking anagram. I lose a turn, he plays through his n and makes knob with the k on DLS and b on the TWS. Fuuuucckkk. ALL stupid Barbara's FAULT!!!! And her incomplete information.
I battled him hard, bingoed through his b on the triple with blasters using the blank as an ess...but it wasn't enough. I lost.
I lost to the top seed too. This guy plays twice as fast as I do...and you all know how fast I play. I think we finished our whole game in 12 minutes. He basically did to me what I did to Michael B. I would bingo, but then he'd take the power squares with the powertiles and make me cry.
I did manage to beat this other woman, who I beat yesterday in her worst beating of the tournament. I drew a natural bingo to open the game "triaged" Then I bingoed again with something else that I can't remember. I saw she fishing, so I looked at the score and decided to shutdown the board. Wouldn't you know as soon as I stuck vees and cees in all sorts of nasty places, I drew the blank and satire. Dammit!!! So I won, but it was a squeaker and made me question the strategy of shutting down the board early in a game even when I'm ahead. I know that in those situations I should make my opponents work to get open lanes to catch up to me, but I'm pretty good at finding 7 letter words, so maybe I need to trust that (tiles permitting) I'll be able to outbingo them. I dunno.
My last game matched me with the top seed AGAIN!! Ugh.
I was nervous because a loss to him would knock me out of contention and he was good. But what I learned after looking up words from the first game I played with him is that he plays phonies "cofit" my ass. But he also knows weird words "gutty" so I decided to pay much more attention to his body language. This served me well. I mean, I also drew like a girl with a horseshoe up her bum. I drew ?eniorm out of the bag to start the game. He was supposed to go first, but exchanged four. I bingoed with merinos (blank was ess). He then played sage on top, I bingo again with cristae/sager. Then he played punko/pid, hit his clock and reached for the tiles sooo fast! "Hold!" I obviously didn't know punko, but I forshizzle knew pid was garbage. I challenged it off. I made a mistake and played "up" next, he put down punk hanging right over a DWS. (Doofus! You saw his pee! Why give him up!!!) I thought he might have the y or an ess, so I tried to block by playing avo. Didn't work he played an a and an o making punka/avo. For 45 points. I held the play and watched him. I figured punko/punka must be good...otherwise why play it twice...THEN I saw the sickest play! Next to Ka and above the o in avo was a DLS I had a y, so I could get some points that way...I looked at my rack and saw I also had a dee and an aitch, so I could make YODH with the Aitch hitting the TRIPLE WORD Square!!! With the y on the DLS, aitch on the TWS, plus the y two ways for Kay, I came back with a 63 point play!!! (I owe my knowledge of yodh to Adam, who taught it to me painfully in Albany. Cry!)

Anyway, he just couldn't do anything after that. I bingoed again and that was all she wrote. I beat him by 146.
I checked the tournament blog last night and it said that guy was in second...but when I made an inquiry, the director realized he had inverted our scores. So I'm in second, leader is Nancy Pelosi eyes by one game and we have five games tomorrow...
Wish me luck! And if you leave comments I'll tell you all about how I beat three experts tonight in the Nite Bird "open" tournament and won the performance prize by coming in 6th out of 24, when I was seeded 21st. Ah, who am I kidding, I'll tell y'all anyway, just not now. Now I must sleep because I have five games to win tomorrow and I don't know aiders plus c.

Funny things Joel says

2009-02-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

Joel told the tournament director that he doesn't want them annotating his games anymore because he always draws terrible racks when people are writing them down.
It was funny and I think the tournament director thinks he's crazy.
Of course, I have two inane superstitious thing too. 1. I will not wish my opponent luck or say "you too" if they say it to me. I always just say "thank you" or "okay." I said "you too" once and that chick drew EVERY powertile in the bag!!! Seriously.
2. I will pickup any tile I touch...so my picking style is mostly grab a bunch of tiles and hope it's seven. I just hate feeling like I brush the blank or an ess, but then end up picking some crap vee. So, yeah, I'm crazy too.

Charlotte Eastern Tournament Day Two

2009-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

The food here is wretched.
For breakfast yesterday we were served eggs soaked in gross egg water with an orange colored "breakfast punch" which I'm fairly sure was made out of the water the eggs were soaking in. For this delightful meal we were charged ten dollars. Dinner, and no, I didn't think it was possible, was even worse. I had an ear of corn and refused to pay the $18 bill. Anyway, this morning I decided to grab raisin bran cereal from the breakfast cart after my first game. After about an hour, I learned a valuable lesson. While fiber is a good thing, fiber in the midst of a four hour tournament session is a BAD thing...I barely made it back to my room after my last game! Oh man...what? Too much information?
Okay, I'll write about some Scrabble.
My first opponent was a woman I thought I'd played before...but I couldn't remember how she played. When she played "dishers" as a freaking bingo on me...I remembered she was good. :( A few turns later I draw maliner, there is an open d from her bingo, so I play marlined. My next turn I draw ttian?r Yay! I play tertian. A few turns after that I draw deisgto and bingo with dogiest. I am ahead by HUNDREDS! So I start shutting down the board and can see her getting frustrated. She plays some words that I don't know, like agone for 14 points...but it just wasn't worth a challenge...glad I didn't cause it was good AND I drew the second blank! Hurrah! I had swarme? But neither warmers or swarmed played, so I counted up the esses and aitches and played my w on top of an to put wan right under the triple line. She didn't block on on my next turn I bingoed with marines/swan. Another 500+ point game!

My next game was against an old black woman who reportedly was once ranked in the 1800s, but hadn't played for a couple of years...or decades. My strategy against her was simple, play as many new words as I could find AND play fast.
She was quite good, but my quick play was flustering her, she drew both blanks and came up with a clever bingo of beignet, but it wasn't worth very much and since I opened with query (kue on DLS and DWS) she was still behind. She made "quite" for 28 and I drew orates plus K. I dumped the K hoping to complete an orates rack and drew an ar. Roaster. But it didn't play...so I decided to get cute and hook it on quite for roaster/quiter. Hah. She challenged sooo fast.
Dammit.
She then took a 26 point lead and I dumped the ar and picked up an a. I played the "new word" in that rack, santero hoping to draw the challenge...but she didn't bite. She made up some ground with a high scoring zee play, but I managed to hold on and win by 23 points. Whew.
My next game was a woman that creamed me in Albany. I opened with grill leaving oe on my rack I picked up hrnir, I took a chance on grille being good and played hornier. She didn't challenge! I then drew outpas? I knew I had a word there, but it didn't play (or so I thought! I looked it up later and I could have played outpass on top of hornier for thornier!!! Dammit!!) So I dumped my p and drew an el. I bingoed with outsail/ops. I dominated the game from there, I bingoed again with the second blank with stinkers/rhos. I drew the last two tiles in the bag and wouldn't you know I picked up the dang kue. There were no eyes anywhere. I had qata on my rack...there was no place to put qat either. I decided to place the second a in a spot where I could then use it to hang the tee on my next turn. However, I started to fear I wouldn't get a next turn, so I decided to figure out what she had on her rack.
Now, I don't know how this happens, but even though I cross off each letter as they are played, by the end of the game all I have is a big ole dang mess! So I had to start over...I gave up once I figured out that she had a p and would just snatch my a if I tried to play it...disheartened I looked at the board again and found my miracle! The word id with two spaces in front!!! I put down qa with the kue on the double letter square! I ended up winning that game by 167. She said it was the worst beating she took all tournament.
My last game was against an old black dude that beat me in Washington D.C. It was one of those bitter 14 point losses AND then at the game's end he told me his bingo was a phony.
I WAS SOOOOOOO MAD!!!!
As I sat down to play today I was thinking "I owe you a beating!" Of course when he open bingoed with stormed, I guessed it wasn't going to be today. He then started making one and two point plays and I knew he was fishing...I drew a blank, but the rest of my letters sucked, so I exchanged hoping to catch something before he did...unfortunately, he bingoed with baiters. I cannot tell you how close I came to challenging it. It was just like a brain freeze or something. The other day Phil played aeriest and the same thing almost happened. Anyway, I hold the play and like right before I hit the button I see "rebaits" and that triggers the satire rack and I remember the word is good. Good lord!! Anyway, I play my own bingo through his ar "greeting" with the blank as an I, but the g is hanging right above the triple line and I'm worried he has an ess...but I decide against blocking, which was good because a turn or two later I get the tonies rack plus an I. I played inosite on the triple line for greetings/inosite. I take the lead! At one point he plays garot, I hold the play, he looks so confident, but I'm pretty sure the word needs an e, so I challenge. He tells me its good. I shrug and say, well might as well put it in the computer anyway. It's NOT good!! I extend my lead. Of course I draw the last tile...AGAIN kue!!! And of course, he asks "are there any tiles left?" I shake my head no, and he promptly blocks the last open I. And on the play which resulted in my drawing the kue, I played hum using the last u!!! Fortunately I had the second blank, so I managed to play qua and win the game by 96! So, I'm 4-0 for the morning session, with a 970 spread. They don't show standings here, so I have no idea where I am...but I know the guy in second lost a game this morning, so I might be third now.

Day 1 of Charlotte Main Event

2009-02-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

First game is over, I'm already in a 146 point hole. Bah. I think I played fine, but it's hard to win when your opponent draws both blanks, the q, the z, the J and three esses. AND she played them well! Bad combination for me. I think I made one mistake (challenged metering) but on the whole I made the best of the holy crap I was drawing. I am also sitting next to two kids who were playing all kinds of nonsense that my brain was starting to hurt ("wott" "habs" "omenic"- if this is what Joel goes through every Thursday watching us play at club, no wonder he's so cranky.
Onward.
Game Two:
I played the cutest little black boy you ever did see! He was 14 "from Atlanta" with braces. He was one of the two kids playing the game next to me with all the bad words, so I thought I could play phonies on him, but he busted me on stinners and then he played grok and I challenged it. Like insta challenged. What the hell is grok? 38 points and another turn for the kid, that's what.
He very impressively came back from a 96-0 deficit after exchanging on his first turn and then having me bingo with juniper. But in the end, I squeaked out a 38 point win. 1-1, spread still horribly negative.
Game 3: "You are officially my Scrabble daddy, the person that just beats me everytime." -Michael Barrett
I first played Michael in Albany, he was winning going into the last few rounds, but then hung a t in an empty lane and I was able to bingo out on him with runtiest" for the win. I then won the second game I played against him. Today's game was a sick sick one. I drew saltie plus a blank to start the game and never looked back I beat him by 169 points and now I'm positive again. It was a great game too. We BOTH bingoed three times, I had elastin, counted and overman (thanks for the -man list, Nancy!) I used the blank as an em instead of the ar he thought I was going for and drew the challenge! Woot! He had rapines, heating and inosite. But he played his bingoes alongside the triple lines and I was able to capitalize HARD! I got the x going two ways on the triple word line above heating, played jerks on the triple word square through his inosite and of two ways on the triple next to rapines. It was a very fun game. Oh he played mein on me, I didn't know it, but after he burned me with smaize at Albany I couldn't challenge.
Game Four: I won by 253 points and racked up my first back to back 500+ point games. I did let him get away with two bingo phoneys though, so I probably shoulda won by a much bigger spread...though I know how dickish that sounds. But still missing easy challenges is a bad, bad thing. Oh, and I had tories + u on my rack and it took me a RIDICULOUS five minutes to find the bingo AND then it didn't even play! Pout.
Woo! I just one 5 bucks for "high game".
Lost the first game back from lunch. I thought it was because I was too chicken to challenge her phonies, but turns out everything I would have challenged was good, so I just got regular ole beat. I did miss the bingo in this rack; tolanns? Which would have won the game for me since I only lost by 8 points.
Lost two in a row. Bad. My opening rack was waeiaas, I played aw. Then I drew a blank and an e ee?iaas, I played ae, then drew two more ees. It was ridiculous. Meanwhile he's scoring up a storm, I play off those ees and then draw a o and a zee. For realz!! He then bingoed with toadies, I played "zee" and drew uu. TWO FREAKINg YOUS!!???!!! Arrrgghh. I HATE THIS GAME AND IT'S ENDLESS STRING OF STUPID VOWELS!! I need chocolate.
Woo, got another five bucks for high game!
Finally got a post lunch W...wasn't a very interesting game though. My opponent had the Nancy Pelosi crazy eyes though, so I couldn't look at him.
My last game was with a very friendly Southern woman. She wasn't very good about hitting my clock and said that she had only played a few tournaments, so I confess I relaxed a lot. I bingoed with senarii and ashe said "oh I know that word," that made me less relaxed. I had a pretty sizeable lead and then bam she bingoes on me with an eight! What zee hell! Then I had to dump a couple of consonants And Blamo she bingoed with ANOTHER eight!!! Mozzerfocker!! I was now only ahead by 20 when I drew cleaner...there was no where to play it though, so I decided to take a shot playing "reclean"...she didn't challenge! Whew! We went back and forth for the rest of the game, when I finally had two letters left on my rack, she had six. I had my outplay all rearing to go, it was going to be close, but I would win by putting my fs next to of THEN she plays PR in front of my of And blocks my damn outplay. She was now ahead by 12. DAMMIT!! I played my ef between an e and an I for ef/if and ten points. She then played vie for 12, so I needed to score 15 points to win, but all I could find was 14 (including the two tiles on her rack) I was sooo sooo sad. You've never seen a sadder face. I play my ess next to her prof and take my stupid 14.
"Wow, one point, good game," she says.
I just can't bear it, so I did something I have NEVER done before...I ask for a recount. She agrees. Right away we find that vie was only TEN points!!! I win by one! Of course, she insists we keep recounting in case there's some mistake in her favor. There isn't! I shorted myself four more points on my bingoes and she over counted another one of her plays. Dawn wins by four!!!! Woooo....except remember how you never did see someone sadder? Yeah, that lady, totally sad. I am in fourth place going into Day Two.

Cash is good!

2009-02-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

I came in third at club today. Jim Piazza is so my Jim Piazza that he beat me even though we didn't play!!!!! Damn you, Jim Piazza!
First off, I have to thank Joel for making up for the many many many many weeks of making me play Adam first by letting me play the newbie at the club. She seemed like a very nice lady and I am never sure how to gauge a person who says they have never played before. Of course, when she went first and played "avail" using her blank as an el for 28 points, I was pretty sure where I could place her. So then I did the thing I do to see if I can get away with playing phoneys...play the phoniest looking acceptable word on my rack. Tonight's winner: Feeb. She challenged it. SO I pretty much dominated that game after that, I played whatever I wanted (Phil, now I know what it's like to be you!) and challenged off every bad word she played: dox, zoots, di. At one point Joel yelled at her for not using the cheat sheet...she went over by 11 minutes on her clock and well, somewhere around minute 21 (right after I challenged off zoots and then bingoed with seagirt...) I saw her love of Scrabble die. She left after our game and I'm pretty sure we'll never see her again. Sigh, the New York Scrabble club is not for the faint hearted. Her experience made me think of this story I read a couple of years ago about a first timer's experience at a Miami Scrabble club. I am someone's worst Scrabble nightmare. Heh. Oh and to top it all off, I bingoed out on the triple line with sthenia when she played ray vertically on the line below. Tee hee.
Okay, so first game was a win with a 200 point spread. Joel rocks. Next game? Barbara Epstein.
Ugh. At least I had the "never beat her" monkey off my back...and hey if I can be the one to go first AND get two blanks like she ALWAYS does (even in the game I won against her) maybe I could go back to back. Alas twas not to be. I was drawing poorly (she played a w right against the triple line and all I had in terms of vowels were A and I) Grr. Then she bingoed with trainer, I came back with toadies and then she used her stupid blank to bingo with penates/trainers using the blank as a tee. I challenged and then had to suffer a twenty minute diatribe about how she had it on her rack one time but didn't play it and it was good and it's a Roman soldier blah blah blah. Dawn loses by 69.
My next game I won pretty easily making lots of high scoring small plays. I'm starting to appreciate those more and more -- though I did manage to bingo with exerted, though he came back with outdoing, which I almost challenged, but then didn't...whew. My last game was against the orthodox Jewish woman that inspired one of Joel's greatest moments at Club. She's a very good player...I think I beat her the first time she ever came to club, but then never again. I used to fear playing her, but then I heard Nancy say that she was only rated in the 900s. Hey, I thought to myself, I'm rated above her! I can win this!
With positive thoughts I drew a natural bingo out of the bag: unrobes and jumped out to an early lead. I then drew the ex and played it going two ways on the DLS, with the word ex. I was worried about the play though because I left the word ex sitting alongside the triple lane just waiting for her to play down with any of the billion front hooks the word ex takes...instead she played "cov" on top of the e for cove! Missing Vex/some other vee word down the triple lane. I quickly took the spot with king/kex and then she said "fuck! How did I miss that?" I pretty much took over from there...though she caught up by bingoing with gristed using her blank as an ess. I held the play, but decided to let it go because I was still ahead by 50 points. This was a mistake. First, the word is no good. Second, I ended up beating her by 50, but Jim Piazza had a better spread than I did by 40 points and so he ended up winning second place even though we had the same 3-1 record. I repeat: Damn you Jim Piazza! I will beat you one day!!!
Tomorrow I'm out to play the Eastern championships. As Matt said "why spend a miserable lonely Valentine's here in New York..." when there's Scrabble to be played in Charlotte. I hear the action will be liveblogged. Wish me luck! And no choking!

Oh, and here's a fun board from my Sunday marathon session with Phil...damn you kame.

Nancy is the Devil

2009-02-03T22:16:00.001-08:00

I think I'm doing Easterns...and then Saratoga...this is INSANITY...anybody else going to either?

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's SUPER SCRABBLE!

2009-02-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't really played any "isc.ro" Scrabble-- though I have a userid now and at Larry Sherman's suggestion, have been watching some of the "expert level" player games. He said it will show me how to manage my board better, and I think it's been helping. Although Phil still calls opening-up-the-triple-line-so-that-your-opponent scores-twice-as-much-as-you-did-using-your-power-tiles, "pulling a Dawn." Sad face.
Thus, the only online Scrabble I play is against my friends on facebook. But, as I've written before, the facebook "Beta Scrabble" SUCKS. You can't play phonies, no swear words or other "offensive terms" are valid, it's super slow and...um...did I mention you can't play phonies? Bah. SO instead, I've been playing a thing called "Wordscraper." It is Scrabble on illegal Mexican steroids. They have double word/triple word/quadruple word score boxes that are within four squares of one another, so you can double/triple/quadruple, for like 200 points on one play: I got 169 points against Ugarrrles when I played quinoa(which I was pronouncing "quin-oh-ah," until my adopted mom chastised me at dinner and said "it's pronounced Keen-WAUGH, dear." Mah bad. Ugarrrles and I, who met playing No Limit Hold 'em poker, now refer to wordscraper as "omaha" for the crazy number of combinations. You get eight tiles, the board is almost twice as large and the tile distribution is nutty (three whys, five (or six grrrr) essses.
Anyway, tonight I was introduced to the Real world version of "wordscraper" -- it's called SUPER SCRABBLE. The board is huge, there are TWO HUNDRED Tiles (two kues, four blanks, etc.)
I'm visiting my adopted mom in Utah, and she has a mini Scrabble club going here. So you draw twelve tiles --any word using seven or more of your letters is a bingo, blanks can be reused, if you exchange it for the letter that it represents and then use that blank during the turn in which you exchanged for it. I was so out of my element the first time we played, I couldn't figure out how to value things -- do you bingo, or go for the five letter word triple/triple (which is possible for the Triple Word Squares were five spaces apart. It was weird, I bingoed three or four times, but lost because my adopted mother, who I've been teaching, triple/quadrupled with the bingo anointers and then won by the tiles in my rack. Oh, they also play with four people. So I came in second out of four in that game. A woman then left, so I played "the fourth" in two games simulatenously. By then I had the hang of it AND Crushed all the games. I scored 802 points! Which was almost double my closest opponent (a super competitive Asian woman, who hates when I play with them because she usually always wins.)
I got to bingo with "outfoxes!" I kind of like playing these games, because it's helping me work on seeing eights and getting the hang of playing through letters. I found "corniest" and "menacers" today -- playing through an i an a cee, respectively. Everyone was amazed that I could play two games simultaneously AND bingo on pretty much each turn. I'd just shrug and say I was drawing lucky. Oh I found bicycle on my rack too -- using no blanks! Hee hee.

Sundays with Phil

2009-01-31T20:54:00.000-08:00

I remember when I first started playing Scrabble with Phil. The games were always utter disasters and after five or six turns, the score would be so lopsided that he'd basically offer to play my racks for me...even then, he still beat himself pretty handily.
Pout.
However, in early January I started to get up to a respectable 1-6 win record...and now only three or four of his victories would be outright blowouts. So, when we met up today (yes, I know, today is Saturday, but since I'm leaving town tomorrow, I'm calling this Sunday) I wasn't surprised that I won the first game. I had back to back bingoes (the first was entailer, one of my ever growing list of eights!!) and then with violate (which I can only remember by putting the tiles in ovalite order and then saying "Silly, Dawn! Ovalite's not a word don't violate the English language like that!" I kid you not. My head is a strange place to be. Although, Phil taught me four eights today using a similar trick...let's see if I can remember...the angriest rangiest something goes in the ganister...I missed one...but that's still three more eights than I knew this morning!) Anyway, so winning the first game....no biggie.
But when I also won the second game...whoa! AND he had both blanks that game...it was crazy. He said that I pretty much played perfectly except missing a easy move where I could have played ing under din for a TWS and playing dey instead of dye with the y on the triple letter square.
BUT THEN I WON THE THIRD GAME!!!! I think I got both blanks that game, but still UNPRECEDENTED! I played tasering on the triple line through a T...Phil challenged it off and I was mad. HOW IS TASERING NOT A WORD?? But ganister?? GANISTER IS GOOD!??!
But then he tried to play "outloans" and I was pretty sure I learned that it wasn't good...either by having it challenged off when I tried it or looking it up on my own after letting someone else get away with it. So I challenged that off and bingoed through that T with the one of the good words in that rack and went on to post my first ever three game win streak against him...actually...I think it was my first streak of any kind against him!
Of course, I was talking so much trash as we played the fourth game "I don't need blanks to bingo!" "I don't need bingoes to win!" "I'll go easy on you this time."
So obviously, he crushed me. And proceeded to crush me through the next two games after that. So at our dinner break (is it a break, if we play all through dinner? Hmmm) we played the "championship tiebreaker."
This game was RIDICULOUS: We both scored in the mid four hundreds. We both bingoed twice...well, let me backup.
I bingoed with ordeals, hooking onto weeped (I almost challenged weeped...cause dude, that many ees, it just looks wrong! But I didn't. Whew.) He came back with back to back three letter word plays, involving jays and hs (how do you spell H?) that basically equaled my bingo. Then I bingoed on top of rig with instates (I wasn't sure that giga was good...I started laying down satinet next to gig and tried to gauge Phil's reaction, but he gave me nothing! So I chickened out and played instate, even though it opened up THREE triple word score possibilities. Of course, (BECAUSE PHIL ALWAYS HAS IT!! No, really..I play ritz. He has a y and scores more. I play violate right above the triple line, he has an s and a c and zee and all kinds of high point scoring tiles!) He bingoes down the triple line with disuses...THEN I DRAW ZAX and play it on my own triple line for EIGHTY FOUR POINTS!!!!!!!! SOO SICK!
But then a few turns later...HE DRAWS THE SECOND BLANK and bingoes with Oblique!!!! ARRGGGHHHH.
That was pretty much game...I got some points back with cell...but it wasn't enough I ended up losing by 20. But I couldn't go down like that, so I called for one more game, WHICH I WON!
So then we had to play one more championship game....heee heeee.
Scrabble = fun! I am so ready to beat Jim Piazza!

I BEAT BARBARA

2009-01-29T22:48:00.001-08:00

The Scrabble circuit attracts its fair share of "characters."
You know, people you don't quite believe exist until they are there sitting across from you shuffling tiles or hitting clocks. Barbara certainly fits this description. I've tried to describe her to my non Scrabble friends a billion times, until one day I just furtively took this picture.

Of course, the thing that is MOST distinct about Barbara is the VOICE. It's like a high pitched nasal combination of Steve Urkel and the Dana Carvey's Church Lady...but worse. Unfortunately, Barbara is also a TALKER. Nonstop. Before the game, during the game, after the game...blah blah blah blah...The first time I played her was in a bookstore when the "Scrabble crew" used to meet like everyday to play until 3 in the morning. I remember I played Ki right next to the triple line, forgetting that it took an ess front hook. I had been in the lead the whole game and she kept prattling on about how she couldn't believe I was going to beat her and she was asking me what my rating was (it was in the mid 600s hundreds then) and she was appalled that I was going to beat her and then I made that mistake and she was able to bingo out to beat me by ten points or so. Of course, afterward she wouldn't stop talking about how I almost beat her. And then the next time we played, she was prattling on about that time I almost beat her...constant nonstop...shove something sharp into my ears, please. (Evidently, she is a very nice lady outside of Scrabble...I wouldn't know cause I barely can tolerate her enough to deal with her in the Scrabble sphere.) Anyway, I always dreaded playing her because she would always start off with the irritatingly high pitched recap of our previous encounters "you've never beaten me, riiight? We've played four times and you've never beaten me."
"Yeah, you've never beaten me, riiight, we've played five times and you've never beaten me...yeah."
"Oh, Dawn...I heard you did good in Atlantic City. We've played six times and you've never beaten me, riiight?"
I KILL YOU!!!!!
Anyway, tonight was club night and as usual my first game was against Adam. Seriously, every time! Joel thinks I'm exaggerating...but I checked the archives...it's always ADAM! Anyway, he ended up winning our game because I was a chicken and didn't take the chance on playing "plaiters" till it was too late and I lost to him by four points because I went over on my clock. The loss set me up to play a Barbara in the second round.
"Hi, Dawn...so yeah, you've never beaten mee, riiighhtt?"
I glared.
WHY? GOD, WHY?
The last time I played Barbara I almost won, when I found a bingo late in the game, but I had to draw the last remaining tiles and she was able to go out before me and win by the tiles in my rack. I was bitter.
Of course, as we set up for the game, Barbara reminded me of the game.
"Yeah, you almost beat me the last time when you bingoed at the end...yeah...but you've never beaten me, riiight?"
In my best Scarlett Ohara, I looked at the sky and shook my fist: I SHALL NEVER NOT WIN A GAME AGAINST BARBARA EVER AGAIN!"
She opened with WAX, for 26. I played back with ZARF for 38 (AND I've always wanted to play that word, so it was doubly awesome). A few turns later I bingoed with parsons AND SHE CHALLENGED IT!! Joel laughed in her face and openly mocked her...as is his way.
"You know all the weird words, but you don't know regular English?"
I got to go again and now the score was a lopsidewd 163 to 48. I was in the zone. She was panicking. She'd let her clock run for seven minutes AND then exchange. So I'd exchange and hit her clock right back. She'd do it again. It got the point where I had 22:00 to her 5:34. Then she opened a bingo lane with ref and I used it to bingo with isatine. She started mumbling. "I think you've got me. You've got me."
I started to tell myself not to choke. I tried to play as quickly as possible so that she would never regain her composure, but it cause my one error in the game when I played um next to the triple line because DUDE, (with both pees showing) it only takes ONE LETTER and the other em was already on the board. Of course, Scrabble rule #35: if there is only one letter than can hurt you, your opponent has it. She bingoed with madeira (oh and she got both blanks, which she always does whenever we play.)
But I held on to take a 156 point win! The dragon is slaughtered!

Of course, after the game she was all "so, you're one and six against me now, riiiighht?"
ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Obama loves SCRABBLE?!?!?!?!

2009-01-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

Among those things, were important facts such as "Number four -- in addition to enjoying basketball and cycling during down time, Obama loves to play Scrabble." In addition to the top five, Glor later added: "Now one more thing we learned that didn't quite make our list, Julie. Obama's job as a teenager was at a Baskin Robbins and to this day he does not like ice cream." Chen responded: "So rocky road is like his Kyrptonite?"

Oh man! I so wanna play President Obama in Scrabble! Though...I'd probably choke.

How Scrabble is ruining my normal person life

2009-01-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

I was placing a telephone order and the customer service representative asked me to read the order number to her. The number was a sequence of letters and numbers which started with NAK, so I started off really easily "N as in Nancy, A as in Apple," then it got crazy "K as in...Kop...Kue...Koa?" Finally I just said "K as in Kay!" Oh man. Yes, someone has been studying her short Kay words. Even now I can't think of a normal word that starts with K, oh kitten! oof.

Fun

2009-01-27T19:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a blog from a friend of mine from the NY Scrabble club...I've got to get him to show me how to post boards...

The Scrabble religion

2009-01-21T17:18:00.001-08:00

This post reminded me of something I have been thinking about a lot recently: Scrabble rituals.

Tournament Scrabble is quite mysterious like many religions. Although widely played socially, is not known as a highly competitive game by many people.

* Scrabblers are often trying to 'convert' people. I am always thinking "who would make a good Scrabble player?"

* Scrabblers have strange meetings where they play a game with strict regulations and guidelines kind of like a church meeting.

* Scrabblers all learn from and recite a strange book, (like the Bible,) which can make or break a Scrabble game.

* Scrabblers have a belief that they will reach enlightenment if they memorize all the top 5000 sevens and eights.

* There are so called Gurus of the game have a strong commitment to the game like a priest's commitment to their religion.

* Some Scrabblers have strange rituals when playing the game. Some have to pick the tiles out of the bag in a certain way. Others have to use lucky charms when playing games.

* A naive young man once said of Scrabble: "It's more than a hobby. It's a way of life really."

Quote of the Day

2009-01-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

"Now you're going to have to change your blog name to 'I could only use six.'" -Phil after three consecutive turns of blocking all my bingos.

And now for another segment of things Joel says

2009-01-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

So, it's my first day back at the club after my second place finish in AC and my new four digit rating. Now, I'm not expecting confetti or balloons...I mean, it's not like I came in first or anything, but I figure a "hey, good job" from our Director might be possible. Okay, I'm kidding, I didn't think that was possible, he is Joel, after all. However, when he says "Wow, you finally had a good tournament, what happened?" I smile and reply "got lucky, I guess." And without missing a beat, he says "I'd say."
Ah, that wacky wacky Joel.
Later in the night he yells at me for missing obvious bingoes in my rack. (In my defense I had ?litter, but the only space open for it was like a spot worth 59 points and I thought it was worth it to burn a play and give myself a chance for more points, so I just played off a t--which is what Joel saw-- and then I bingoed on my next turn with lustier. In Joel's defense, lustier didn't score all that many more points and it gave Jim a spot on the triple line to play zoon and basically halve my bingo anyway...what? Scrabble is hard.)
I had a 1-3 night. I won my first game against this guy, who I can't remember if I've played before...but he let me get away with bingoing with tiniests, so I dunno how often he's played, but the best part of the game was when I needed to find an outplay ending in a and my rack was aemost? I had been studying the solate stem all afternoon (though I couldn't remember the em one for the life of me...stupid maltose. Not that it would have fit...but still, what's the point of studying if you can't remember it during a game. Stupid maltose. Anyway, I had lots of time, so I shuffled and shuffled and shuffled till I found it! The only a ending bingo in the rack! Osteoma! (It was played on my ass during that "Scrabble Open" I did in Albany and oh, how it hurt then.) My opponent challenged it, but it was good and he said it was the most painful experience in his life...I said, it didn't even rank in the top ten things that happened to me during that Open, but that it did hurt enough that I will never forget the word. I also assured him that it helps the pain to play it on someone else. Heh.
My next two games were against people that I have never beaten, including the famous Jim Piazza. The first game against Baraba, I drew so horribly...blech, five to a stem racks and then I'd get a cee and a y to complete nothing...over and over again till I'd give up on the rack, play some four letter word and then draw a new five to a stem rack. Sucky. But she has absolutely no respect for my game, so I challenged off her phony bingo and when she opened up a bingolane on the triple line, I bingoed on her ass with ruinate. Unfortunately, there were still four tiles in the bag, so I didn't go out and she was able to dump her c and v for enough points to hold on to a eight point win.
Then I played Jim Piazza, I outbingoed him 3-0, got both blanks and he won by sticking me with the q in the end. Cest la vie. (The worst part is, when I had my first bingo, I had like satineq, so I traded in and put the q back. When I got my next bingo I had seaqrn?, So once again, I threw the q back. And of course, the last five tiles that are left in the bag when I draw them qrfat. Bah.
And then my last game, because he wants to reinforce the fact that I suck at Scrabble, my AC tournament results notwithstanding, was against Joel himself.
He got both blanks, bingoed on me twice, kept the board on absolute lockdown and then after blowing me out by 200 points, he said "HOS is a word, so it doesn't matter what else was on your rack, AH was an awful play."
I wanted to tell him that I KNOW HOS is a word! I FOUND OSTEOMA!!!!
But I don't want to get banned.

I'm like a 1100 player now!!!

2009-01-15T16:14:00.000-08:00

OMG! In other news: I know eights!!

Woee is me

2009-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

I confess that I’m still a little sad and in shock about what happened. But I am ever so slowly moving more and more from the “I can’t believe I choked so bad” mindset to the “holy crap I came in SECOND in a THREE-DAY tournament!” mindset. And I thank everyone who has been part of that “snap out of it, you did great” brigade. Now just so you know I’m really not just a big baby, I’ll say right up front that I lost the championship game because I said the wrong letter when announcing my blank. Instead of s, I said e. And as my little brother would say “Dawn, E is a whole different letter.” Indeed. So it was a big collapse at the end of a game I was controlling the whole way and should have won, after three days of playing the best Scrabble I’ve ever played in my life, which is why disappointment ranks so high on my emotion scale. However, looking back at entering a tournament as the 19th seed, having never cashed in any tournament in the United States, a second place finish at a huge tournament like AC, was huge. Plus, I ended up losing to the number 1 seed, so no shame in that. So, we’ll do a final writeup of the tournament in a more characteristically upbeat style. (Oh, and as it’s come to my attention that more players have found this site, I should also say I don’t mean any offense or disrespect by anything I write, this blog is just a collection of my thoughts on learning this game and starting to play competitively…I respect (and am mostly still terrified) of all my opponents and am in awe that you guys have been doing this so long and I hope to be able to have that kind of staying power.)

At the end of the second day I was 12-1. I was solidly in first place as the only person with only one loss in Division 4. I was flying…but I was also shaking in my boots. At Saratoga last year, I was in first going into Day 2, which meant that I would be playing the very best of my division that day and boy did it show. I think I only won one or two games in day 2 and I had a three hundred and fifty point loss in my second game. It was ugly. So, I knew Day three was going to be tough, Adam in particular, kept saying that the top three seeds were stronger players than I was and I’d probably come in third or fourth. So I was registering a high ten on the freakout scale. I was restudying my stems and my twos to make threes and threes to make fours until I fell asleep around two in the morning.
I got to the tournament room early and played a quick game with Adam where he taught me a valuable lesson about looking for your best play. My rack was plit?zs, so I was ready to just dump the zlp and bingo on my next turn, but instead, after looking at my rack, he found a play through a b, to make blitz for forty some odd points! It was a great thing to be reminded of right before the last day. My first opponent was one of the top five seeds, he had only four losses and was a strong player, yet I could see he was visibly nervous! Of me! It was so weird, I’m like “dude, I’m nervous about playing YOU!” I think I went first, I had a great almost bingo rack, so I dumped the junk: two ohs and an H to make OHO, I drew X, I, A and my rack was examins – for some reason, I thought this was a word…I don’t know, in the light of day, I now realize that it is not a word (and not just because my Microsoft word keeps correcting the spelling and underlining it in red and screaming “you moron, you need another e”) Anyway, I decided to take advantage of my opponent’s nerves and play examins hooking the ess onto oho (which doesn’t take an ess.) Well, turns out he wasn’t all that nervous at all and challenged it right off the board, but then he made a mistake and hung an “I” right over the double word square, so I dumped my m and x for like thirty points on the next turn and drew very well to complete a real bonafide bingo. “Stanine” I was up by like 70, when I drew another bingo right out of the bag, I played “boldest” under mix for boldest/mixt, I was now up by 150. I started shutting down the board and he started fishing for a bingo. He finally got one four turns later: stinter, but it was too late. I won the game handily. My next opponent was my first repeater of the tournament, a woman I had beaten in the fourth round and had beaten at the Philly tournament, the first time I ever played in a rated tournament. I wasn’t too worried about the game, but that was a mistake. She bingoed on me very early, AND I was drawing horribly. IIIUUOOO kind of drawing, I’d exchange and get WWYOOOA. It was horrible. I was losing bad and I knew that this was going to be the easiest game I would play on the last day, so if I lost this one, my chances would be bleak going into later rounds facing higher ranked players with better records, so I hunkered down into my “you don’t need to bingo to win” mantra and started making my best three/four letter plays. I was finally rewarded with a satire + p rack, and found a nice place to play pastier under jab for 82 points. I was still behind, but it was more manageable now and I had plenty of time. My opponent, on the other hand was already down to four minutes on her clock with forty-something tiles left in the bag. I had well over 20 minutes left (that’s the one good thing about having to exchange twice early…takes no time at all and puts the clock back on your opponent). I took a deep breath and went back to work. She was also a big talker during the game…like “oh, I didn’t need that,” “I know you’re looking for a bingo, I should block,” stuff like that, which is difficult to concentrate through, but since I thought it was eating up more of her clock, I figured it was a net benefit to me, so I didn’t say anything. I bingoed again to take a small lead (rewarded for studying my threes to make fours when I remembered that HAY took a front ess hook and made townies/shay), she then made a mistake and played a French word “mer” which I challenged off. I then started shutting down the board on her and blocked her bingos. I know this because she kept saying “you’re shutting down the board and blocking all my bingos” as she stared hopelessly at them as her clock ticked away. In the end I won by 70 points. I then had to play the top seed, Supriya, who was out of the top five because she had three losses already, whereas I only had one and the next three only had two, but she was the top rated player in the division and I had seen some of her boards, she was no joke. And sure enough, she took the lead in our game and never gave it up. She was a wicked defensive player and strong offensive player. I bingoed with manless, she came back with a bingo of her own. Bah! It was hopeless and I lost by thirty something points, but it felt like a blowout. I think my mind was set on that being the game I was going to lose, so I made it so. The loss dropped me back to second, because although I only had two losses, John’s spread was higher than mine, so he was in first now.
Once the King of the Hill began, I had to play John again. I was so laser focused. I opened with Dairy for 26, he had a nice counter with LEK for 27, it went back and forth for a little while, till I jumped out in front with a bingo: diaries. He exchanged and then I bingoed again with a blank: sinuate. HE CHALLENGED! WOOO!!! I had a comfortable lead now and I was in shut down the board mode, but then he played ort, blocking my sweet q on the double letter e on the double word square play that I had been setting up. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE WORD ORT IN MY LIFE. I held the play and even though it was only 12 points and scrabble strategy says that when you’re up by 100 points, you don’t challenge 12 point plays when you’re not sure if they are good or not…I challenged. I figured I have been studying for weeks, playing for two years, how could I have never seen a three letter word that’s good. Well. It’s good. And now I’ve seen it. Awesome.
Anyway, He then bingoes with gallons and is within striking distance of me now with four tiles left in the bag and my rack a dismal: AEEHIRV I start to panic a bit. I want to get my h on some kind of power square going two ways, but my options are limited. I start shuffling the tiles like a crazy person, when I find a BINGO! Heavier!! OH MAN!! I look desperately for a place…but see nothing. I look and look and look and then I see the word TET hanging over a triple letter square and a wide open lane. I know the word ETH and NTH And had recently studied the Hebrew letters which often end in ETH. I did a bit of calculating and figured if TET took an H hook, The play is worth 87 points, I draw the last four tiles out of the bag AND there was no more bingo lanes for my opponent to go out on me with; if I was wrong, his next move might open up a place for me to score big with my h and maybe I could hang on to win by a little. Okay. Let’s take a shot. I played Heavier/Teth John INSTA challenged. TETH WAS GOOOODD!!!!!!!! He lost his turn, I drew oon and went out with goon, getting 38 points from the tiles on his rack because he had like both pees, a C a Vee and H. It was awesome! I won by 136 points.

And I was flying high cause I was now the only person with only two losses. Unfortunately, Supriya’s huge spread and the fact that she hadn’t lost a game all day leapfrogged her into second place.
So I now had to play her in a sudden death match for first. This time my mindset was totally different. I could beat her. I would beat her.
It was funny, we both opened with UGH. I played mine horizontal, she played hers vertical. This made the next couple of moves very hard because UGH only has weird ass front hooks, no back ones. So she played Vau going horizontal over the top of her UGH and I played PRY going vertical in front of my UGH, SHE CHALLENGED IT!
I was suddenly feeling better and better. I drew a blank and found a bingo, she blocked my lane, but I found another one and played entasia. I was in control the whole game (AND DRAWING LIKE A LUCKY SOB!)
She bingoed twice for like sixty odd points, but I still had the lead and then…choke job. I meant to play woes/zins for 37 points and instead played woee/zine for zero. Then I played wey for 27 points, but it was challenged off for another zero, plus she went out and got all the tiles on my rack wylo blah blah blah…who remembers, I blacked out at some point after saying e instead of ess…or evidently just before saying e instead of ess. Blah.
Second place. But my mistake notwithstanding, mad credit goes to Supriya, I literally drew every tile in the bag…maybe she got one blank, and she still kept the score so close that she could still win. I can’t believe that I managed to play Scrabble as well as I did, against tough as nails opponents, my big choke job in that last game really highlights how hard this game can be as the pressure builds and I’m just grateful that I didn’t have mistakes like those in every one of my games…though my examins play comes close.
Anyway, I had a great time in AC. I’m really getting to love the folks “on the circuit” and obviously, I love this game.
I was a big head hanging mess of "I'm a stupid choker" after the game, and everyone helpfully kept coming up with big chokers through the ages to compare me to: Buffalo Bills, Tony Romo, The Mets, some golfer guy I've never heard of. I remember saying "I'm a big choker and don't deserve to go back to New York. New York doesn't want stupid chokers," and Matt said "It's okay Dawn, when we get to border crossing we'll cover for you." I laughed. And then every one was like "hey, but you're second! That's amazing." And I said "Yeah...and it even has an Ess AND and E right there in the first two letters of the word!"
…Face Palm.

Obama's America

2009-01-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

The roughest, thuggiest, gruff looking black guy you ever did see just beat me in a Scrabble game. I had been undefeated through nine rounds and the loss dropped me back into a three way tie for first and his win brought him up to the four way tie in second. As we both looked at the rankings to see how close the tournament was he goes “Yeah, baby. Dats what I’m talking bout. Ya heard! That’s Scrabble! That’s Scrabble!” And then he fist bumped me. If I weren’t so pissed about falling out of first, I would have been laughing so hard. Bizarre.

12-1

2009-01-11T16:39:00.000-08:00

I typed in that title and blogger tried to auto fill the field with "12-12" which is what I ended up being in Albany last week...what a difference. I lost my last game before lunch,
then had my magical amaretto sour -- which I drank every day in Albany before going on my brief winning streaks -- and came back to win all my games after dinner. And these games were tough. I feel like I can honestly say, mostly because the guy admitted it, I lost my one game because I went completely tile dead, while he was picking up powertiles and laying them down like nobody's business. But even with the unbalanced distribution, I still only lost by 40...protecting the spread. I will also admit that I have been that totally annoying girl that is complaining because she lost her one game. Waa, poor me. (But c'mon, really, he GOT EVERYTHING! Pout.) Anyway, Phil actually set me straight at the end of the end when he said that no matter what happens tomorrow, I've accomplished something pretty spectacular. Out of 25 people most of whom have been playing for years, I sit atop the field. "We're not looking at anybody else's name here. We're looking at yours and everybody else is looking at it too." So, I will stop my carping (and try) to stop worrying about the last four games tomorrow. I have had all manner of games this tournament...close ones where the tiles were fairly balanced, close ones where I got nothing, but made lemonade, blow outs where I had every tile (sorry Nancy) and blowouts where my opponent had every powertile, yet I found a way to win each one (except that one), so hopefully I can keep that up tomorrow.

Plays of note today:

*While playing the second seeded player who also had an undefeated record at the time, I made sure to keep track of every tile in the bag. With ten tiles left, the q was still unseen and with my rack of piguini, I decided then and there to hold onto that u until I saw the q. My opponent then bingoed with pingier (which I challenged off the board) so I knew she didn't have the q. I played off my p, so I wouldn't open up any spot for her to play a real word if she found one, and picked up another i. She played off five of her tiles, but I still held onto my u and sure enough I drew the last tile out of the bag: Q. I quickly played quod on my next turn before she could go out. I won that game by 31.

*Playing my first game after lunch and soooo regretting my alcohol drinking decision, I am playing the last undefeated player in the tournament. We are neck and neck, there is one bingo lane left -- a front ess hook word on cot. My rack is a ridiculous inino??...I can't think of anything with those letters ending in ess, so I play off in -- there are 7 tiles left in the bag. I draw br. I am up by sixty. She bingoes with listers/scot. I am all FECK. She takes a 13 point lead. I hold the play. I only have 4 minutes left on my clock and now my rack is ??binor, her el is standing right at the start of the triple line, so I start shuffling my tiles looking for a bingo through the el. Thankfully the obvious ing made my search easy and I bingoed out with laboring and winning by 21. (I also played a phony bingo in that game atresiae, which, while I knew it wasn't good, I also knew was way too plausible for her to challenge it. She didn't.)

*A dude tried to bingo on me with stroding and unsiked (with the blank as a d) Nuff said.

*My game with Nancy I had zesting, but since she opened with the unhookable duh, I couldn't play it. I was sad. I did get to play Fique on her, though! She almost challenged it too!

6-0

2009-01-11T04:34:00.000-08:00

I am playing the multi-day Atlantic City tournament. When I had to wake up at 6 a.m. and drive three hours down to New Jersey, I was certain this was a mistake. When the first person I saw from the New York club was a woman who I have NEVER beaten AND she was in my division, I was doubly certain this was a mistake. When my first opponent didn't show and I was told to start his clock, but right when his time got down to three minutes, the director came over and gave me a substitute opponent and took away the time penalty, I was convinced that this was my worst idea ever. Oh yeah, I didn't even write about my 2-10 extravanganza in the "Scrabble open" after my 24 game Albany tournament polooza...bleech. So I was going to play this because I was here and all, but my heart wasn't in it...until my opponent used her blank as an H to hook onto my yea and make hay for a whopping 18 points. Is she kidding me? I quickly checked back into the game. And although she drew all the esses, managed to get a J on a triple letter going both ways on me, had both blanks and the zee, I won the game by more than 100 points. When I saw that I was being outtiled, I just kept telling myself I didn't need bingoes to beat her, a steady diet of nice three letters 20-30 point plays would more than offset her insane 7-18 point plays. My next opponent was the very first woman I ever beat in tournament play. I had, on a whim, driven down to play in the Philly day tournament, I went 1-8 and Joel mocked me mercilessly for "throwing my money away" when I returned with a dismal low six hundreds rating. But I had one win. And she was it. AND if there was anything I was sure of, I was way better than I was back then. Sure enough I bingoed on her early, I bingoed on her in the middle and I bingoed on her late. This game my mantra was "You don't need blanks to bingo!" Plus, I blocked her nice outplay to preserve my healthy spread. With two tiles left in the bag she was already muttering "yeah, this is your game."
I also played Ida, a woman from New York. She had such a bad game against me in Albany that she started to cry after, I felt bad, but I had to go hand in my "I won" slip. She has this habit of challenging my words off the board...mostly because I have a habit of trying to see what I can get away with against her...forgetting that she's been playing Scrabble since before I was born. Anyway, once again, I decided to dump out my letters and play what I like to call "plausibles" I played adeestt: estated. She held the play. I was already kicking myself, when she said "okay,"
and let it go. I thought I'd gotten away with something, but I looked it up. It's good. She also "taught" me a nasty lesson about nil taking front hooks, but then I taught her a nasty lesson about Dawn being able to guess about anil taking back hooks. Oh, how I love you letter e!
Anile was good!
Then I played this dude, who opened with key and my rack was ENTIRELY vowels, so I played Fetch through his e. He comes back with SOIREES using a blank and an ess and making keys: MOTHER BLEEP BLEEEP!!! Again, I still had all vowels, but I scored 40 points playing jolts with my j on a double letter and the ess on a double word. I was fallen hopelessly behind though with my lovely combo of crap letter drawings and his tile rackness...so I decided to play a "plausible:" Goosing. He didn't even hold the play! (Turns out it's good...given my a 100% guessing at words record for the day.)
But the memorable thing about my game with him was that he was playing well and drawing well, yet I managed to play better. He played Lox for 24 points, hanging the x on the fourth line from the TWS. My rack was a dismal eiilnnn, so I was going to play off ni making nix for a few points, or exchange, when I saw that my best play was actually to play e i l so that I get that x on the TWS with ilex. His audible groan of disgust was ever so satisfying. Late in the game when I had an almost perfect bingo rack, I decided to play off my ess and lovely bingoeable tiles for a mere 18 points so that I could shut down the last bingo lane on the board.
"You're ahead Dawn, you don't need to bingo, you need to win." I played twins, taking the front ess hook spot on nit. When he pounded the table because he had wasted the last three turns drawing at the bingo I just blocked...mmm, priceless. He opened two lanes for himself, but I shut them both down by playing "craw" and sticking a lovely c right between his two lanes. It was probably my toughest game...though the game against Ida was also tricky as I drew the J and Q out of the bag on my last turn with one tiles left in the bag and she had both blanks at the time.
Sanksfully she had ??ewrld on her rack and had to play through an enn, so she couldn't find anything.
Whew. Today is another day.

Par for the course

2009-01-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

I went 2-2 AGAIN. I lost my first game to Adam, I was drawing horribly, but I knew it was going to be a tough game, so I decided to take the 11 or 14 points for my two/three letter words rather than exchange tiles completely. I still don't have a sense of when taking the zero is your best play (except in the obvious all vowels or all consonants scenarios.) I have been studying the top hundred stems, but despite their *supposed* high probability, I didn't get 'em once in that game. (Okay, I did manage to get adeeils, but there was no where to play it, so I dumped the extra e and drew...an e! Having already wasted a turn drawing for my bingo, I decided to fish again. I dumped the e and drew...oh yeah, that's right, an e. But I kept opening up new lines, so I was finally able to play it. But he came back with a 50 point Zee play and that was that.
My second game was against a guy I had never seen before, I was drawing crap, but decided to play the craziest fours/fives I could in order to draw challenges. I played zincy, dawk, zoon...but he didn't challenge anything, plus he drew both blanks, all the esses...bah...I draw so bad, but still he only won by 32 points.
My first win came against a newbie who was still on the cheat sheet. He played two phoneys on me: barfers and voom. I was ahead by a lot and thought barfers might be good, so I didn't challenge; voom gave me a place to dump five tiles, so I let it stay.
My last game was supposed to be against Barbara (who is still telling the annoying story about how I played raisens instead of arsines) but when she saw she was going to play me, she said she was too tired and went home. Joel took her place. I was so not happy. I didn't need a 1-3 night. Luckily there was one game still going, so I got to play the winner. She was an intermediate player from Telaviv, so Joel let her use the cheat sheet for nonSowpods words. I opened with rex, she bingoed with "bingoed" I held the play and after thinking, I challenged. I vaguely remembered that bingoed is a famous nongo. I was right, I dumped a u under the x, and she came back with exuding, I bingoed with steeling through her g and then bingoed on my next turn with tortoise through the ess in steeling, she bingoed with ablation, but then I played za with the Zee on the triple letter square going two ways for 64. I owned this game. I was bashing her head in...and then, she played jigs/ablations for 90-odd points. Gross. I started fishing...I had saltini then saltinn then sartini...blech, she had taken the lead...then she played some word which made eel. I had just complete my satine rack, and played sinuate on top of eel. I wasn't sure seel was good, so I sweated it when she challenged. But it was good and she lost a turn, so I won by almost a hundred!

Conversation of the Day

2009-01-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

Me: Well, that's like one of the most famous Scrabble games.
Karol: Why?
Me: Because 830 is the most points ever scored by a single player in sanctioned Scrabble play.
Karol: Really? So...I should stop telling people you score thousands?

Androgny Tilt

2009-01-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

My second match was “Miriam,” so I’m all looking for a girl. I see no girl. A guy comes up to me and says “Hi I’m Lulu. I’m playing you next.” I’m all…a boy named Lulu? Okay, whatevs, but…”no, I’m playing Miriam.”
“That’s me,” he says, “but I go by Lulu.”
Alllrriiighhtyy Then.
Lulu says he’ll she’ll be right back, he’s she’s going to the bathroom. I immediately want to follow him her to see which one he she really goes into.
I refrain.
Of course, as we set up the board there’s the usual “where are you from” conversation and he she says “I’m originally from California. San Francisco.”
OF COURSE you are, I say in my head.
The first word he she plays is “hard.”
I lose it.
Then lose the game.

12-12

2009-01-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

Well, if consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I have a very very tiny mind. Once again, I finished the tournament at .500, which is where I've been after every tournament since my fast start in Saratoga last year. My word...has it been a year already? Yes.
Anyhoo...
Let's see...the last day flew by mostly because we had the last four games condensed into this morning. I lost my first two games and won my last two. My first game wasn't very memorable, I got whooped, but good. She bingo in her second turn, I tried to play off one of her hook words and make "roofy/yean." It was no good and she challenged it off. (Even worse, Nancy was playing her game right next to me and she had the crazy start. Her opponent opened with mothier. She challenged it, already knowing that my opponent's double double bingo of dressier was fine and good, I focused on the Nancy/Other guy challenge. MOTHIER WAS GOOD! Scrabble = RIDICULOUS. Anyway, right after that HIS NEXT PLAY was YARNING. Nancy challenges again! I think I was up there getting my "roofy" kicked off the board, so I got to see her LOSE ANOTHER challenge. He was up like 250 to ZERO. Again, disinterested in the butt kicking I was taking, I watched her try to bingo back with BELEAPS. He challenged this time. NANCY LOST! (The actual bingo in that rack is BELEAPS.) INSANE. I consoled myself through my beating with the knowledge that at least I wasn't Nancy.
My next game was interesting: if only for a VALUABLE lesson that I learned. If I knew how to underline I would. I was better than my opponent. She challenged oud, left spots wide open, just newbie player stuff (mind you, I'm only slightly one step above newbie...I'm like newishbie (CHALLENGE!)) Anyway, she bingoes with something, I bingo back with something else and we are neck and neck...maybe I'm slightly ahead, then she hangs a g right in the middle of the triple line, ie you go bingo with something ending in ing or something starting with G. It stays open for like three turns, both of us trying to use it. We're shuffling and shuffling and playing off one or two letters for single digit points and then finally I get deletin. But it's her turn. I am just staring at her. Waiting. And waiting. And she senses it and closes down the lane. I'm sooo piisssssed. She ends up winning by like twenty or so and at the end of the game she says "Did you have something there? I felt like you did." I said that I did and she said "yeah, you were so still." And it's true, I went from shuffle shuffle to..."hurry up lady I want to play my triple word scoring bingo word now, please." So I've learned to write down whatever bingo I find and then just keep shuffling my tiles like I do when I'm still looking. Stupid learning.
However, as if karma felt my pain for losing that game on such a silly amateur mistake, I won my next game because my opponent made a silly amateur mistake! I was losing by forty, no tiles left in the bag and my rack is aeelns? I have the worst time with double letters and blanks, but again, I had lots of time on my clock. So I shuffle and shuffle and find "leaners," I'm fairly sure this is good, but the only open spot on the board is next to na, so I really need something ending in e or n to hook on...but I just can't find it (turns out there are four for those of you playing along at home. Two are regular words, that I probably should have found...probably...definitely when I get to be an oldish player.) With one minute left, I decide, screw it, I've got to leave myself enough time to maybe play through something she plays, if she challenges...so I play leaners/nas to go out. It's a free challenge, so she takes it...except on the slip she writes down "leaners" AND THAT'S IT!! Leaners is GOOD and Nas escapes unchallenged!!!! I win by thirty!! Hawesome.
My last game was with a really nice kid that I had beaten twice before. I don't even know why I was paired with him. Actually when he told me we were playing a third time, I might have very subtly said something like "aw man," which I think he took to mean "aww man, you're really good." But I actually meant "aw man, no way my rating is going to go up by beating you again, you're ranked below me." But when he assured me that I "was a good player and shouldn't worry," I didn't clear up our misunderstanding. I'm a jerk...just not that big of a jerk.
Anyway, he opens with "mazily" using HIS BLANK AS A Y for 38 points! (Huh?! WHAT?!), I play under word for my own 36 points. We trade twenty point turns and then he bingoes with unmates, I hold the play...but after "learning" remates yesterday, in that ever so uniquely awesome way of the computer screen flashing green after you challenge, I was gunshy and let it go. I had my own bingo ready to go, so I knew I'd still be in the lead. I bingoed back with sonsier, he held the play AND CHALLENGED!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (SONSIER is also Seniors, but you wanna play sonsier so that you draw the challenge. Hee) I then drew Urinatd, I played off the UD and drew IE. At first I was mad about the double i, but then I saw retinai -- I bingo again. I am feeling blowout -- when he mounts a NICE comeback, he bingoes with booting, I exchange, he then plays "jading" with the j on the double letter through a DWS for 50. I challenge, it's good and I lose a turn. He dumps two letters and I figure out that he has the second blank and is looking to bingo. I shut down the triple lane by playing cog under the ja in jading. He dumps another two letters. I count the tiles in the bag: eight left. I play savants under the ag from jading/cogs, hitting the triple, and leaving him with one tile to take even if he bingoes. The play pretty much killed his hope for the bingo and I won.
I was a grueling four days. So, there's no wonder that after all that I decided to enter the "Late bird Open" where all players are in one division. THAT'S RIGHT. ALL PLAYERS. EXPERTS, INTERMEDIATES, NOVICES AND ME!!! I. AM. NUTZ.

Penultimate Day

2009-01-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

Jaybus this is a long tournament. I'm really starting to feel it...actually I felt it this morning when I crawled out of bed at 9:30. I so wanted to go back to bed. My first opponent was a nice lady. I was not my nicest self though, being that it was early and I was tired, but I felt bad about being a grump, especially after I mauled her by 190 points. Sawy. My next game was with a 14 year old, maybe even 13...UGH. UGH. He DESTROYED ME. First off, we were playing on the new "Diamond Scrabble" board which has all the new colors AND THUSLY SUUUUCCKKKS. I think they should be banned from tournament play...actually, I should have just refused to play on it. But I always try to be accomodating. Blech. He killed me. I mean, in my defense, he got both blanks, zee, ex, all the esses; but in my not defense I had seven turns in a row with single digit or less scores. Not my finest hour. He wiped out my positive spread. He was also frustrating to play with cause I think he has ADD or something and kept like jumping around moving tiles....BLAH. My next game was with another super nice woman from North Carolina. We each got a blank and bingoed early, but then I picked up the rack earlike and I knew that tealike was good -- didn't know about earlike (also didnt realize there was another bingo in that rack, but whatever) so I decided to fish for a tee. I KNOW. Dawn =moron. I used up two turns looking and it didn't come. When I did get another bingo: sealing, I stuck it under up making upe/sealing. She challenged upe. It was no good. I lost a turn and she managed to play on the triple for forty points and draw the last esses in the bag. That was the game. I just gave it away. UPE!!! ARRRGGHHH. That's how I learn.
I hate learning.
I then got beat in the next game by another lady who outtiled me completely.
At lunch my nemesis Adam kept saying that I can't blame the tiles, but I feel like I know when I've lost a game because my opponent is better than I am/I play like crap and when I've lost because the universe wasn't cooperating. Nancy also went into lunch having gone 1-3 in the morning. She was yelling "freaking q" all the way to the restaurant. We both hate Scrabble and are going to take up boggle now.

Yay!

2009-01-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

Another win, this one also very close, although I jumped out to a huge lead early, Nancy who I play with all the time, managed to bingo to get back in the game. I had an almost perfect rack entriei, so I started fishing a bit to try to complete my bingo, so she caught up with her twenty plus points a turn compared to my one or two a turn. Finally I got the bingo entries, but it didn't play, I needed a word that started with ess, but I took a shot and played a stirene, Nancy challenged it and it was no good. She took the spot and bingoed with sculled! Using her second blank of the game (my last three opponents all got both blanks) I thought about challenging sculled, but I was only down by thirteen at that point and had a feeling sculled might be good so I let it go! (Whew, it's good.) I opened up lanes for myself, but she kept shutting them down, finally with one tile left in the bag I drew sanieri I knew there was a bingo there but couldn't remember what it was, again I had a lot of time left, so I shuffled my FINGERS off till I found it. Then for a place to play it, the only open lane was above rooks, but I didn't have a cee, so I contemplated trying to get away with srooks (what? If fricking smaze is good!) But then I saw the word cons right below the triple line!! I played senarii/icons! And won! Whew!
THREE WINS IN A ROW NOW!!
Tile God was merciful and I got both blanks And in Two separate turns! The first was tinniest playing off a t he dangled above the triple word square and the second was a tricky play with saline? Which had to fit its last two or two letters alongside quest so it very specifically needed to end in ins or its or ist something like that...it took a looong time, but I found it! Hee.

A Bright Spot...Finally

2009-01-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

I am playing a college kid from Michigan. I am scoring very well, I had three 41 point plays in a row. He then bingoes with the two blanks making avenue. I start to fall behind, but then he plays aid right under the triple line and I bingo on the triple line making booties/said. I am back in control, but my rack is all oooopar. Awful. I play troop for eight, he then bingoes with shadier hooking an Ess to the front of Maze, for SMAZE!! What the Bleep?! I insta challenge. It was good. Pout. He starts talking about how he hoped I would challenge that cause not that many people know it blah blah blah. I want to strangle him. He is now in the lead and its his turn. My rack is a now crappier ooocqsi and the board is closing in on me. I play off an con. My final rack with two tiles left in the bag and one bingo lane through an I is tirnesq I decide to play off the q for 11 and hope for the best. I draw a U. Of course. I am so mad at myself for not tracking. Blah. Game over. Tirunies makes nothing. He plays turd. I think and think and think (I have like ten minutes left) finally I come up with turniest or runtiest...turny...runty...ugh...I go with runtiest to bingo out for the win. He makes the challenge. He asks me if it's good. I shrug. I have NO idea! But... It is! Woo! First win of the day.

More Albany

2009-01-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well, I am on yet ANOTHER hours long break. I hate to say it, but this is the worst run Scrabble tournament I have ever played in. I understand they had some problems with the weather, but the lulls between games is ridiculous. Yesterday's session started at like 2 and ended AT SIX! WITH AN HOUR LONG BREAK. COME ON! Frankly, the last two days have pretty much been wasted time, which equals wasted money on hotel room fees...although I did get tonight FREE because they didn't give the wakeup call I asked for. So, that's a win. Other than that I'm at 3-5. Two wins by byes. Not good. I can't say that I'm playing badly, though my first game today I opened up a bingo lane late in the game by playing crud which I didn't know could be pluralized, so I gave up a bingo and lost a challenge, after leading pretty handily the whole game, it was a sucky loss. Then I had the bye because a player is sick and then I just lost to this man...I dunno maybe I wasted two or three turns fishing, which was no good...plus I let him play gheer cause I figured it was some weird hook that I didn't know. Turns out he though the G was a C. Ap-cray! And now I'm on break for TWO more hours. SO retarded.
I don't think I'd do this one again. But we'll see how the rest of the day goes.

Ugh

2009-01-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

I have more forfeit wins than actual wins. 3-4.

Albany

2008-12-31T13:45:00.001-08:00

I felt really ready for this tournament. Of course, I felt really ready for Washington too. And just like that tournament, I went down in flames to my first opponent. She was all smiles before the game and real friendly-like, but the minute the game started she was super aggressive McGrinch Scrooge. At one point, after I played "rallies" using the blank as an ess, announced my score and what the blank was, I hit her clock. She hit my clock and snapped "you have to write it down on the paper first." A rule I have NEVER heard before. But whatevs. I'm all No drama Obama, so I let it go. She then bingoed twice in three turns and well, that was that. She tried to triple triple on me with needliest, but as we used to say back in the day I challenged that shit off the board. I lost by a huge spread. My next game was against an unrated player, who was playing in her first tournament. I was still reeling from my loss, so I was looking forward to an easy game. No such luck. She was very good. I had a million bingoes. A MILLION, but every time I'd open up a place for them, she'd close it. I finally managed to bingo with visitors, but it was waaay late in the game and no real comeback was possible. She bingoed with voicers, I wanted to challenge, but after getting burned with challenging wanters yesterday, I let it go. Ugh. I'm afraid to look even now. She also tried to play "pricings," which I let her spend a lot of time counting up the points for, only to insta challenge it since I know all the ing endings that takes esses (like endings) and pricing aint one of 'em.
I, sad to say, took out ALL my frustrations from the first two games on my Game three opponent, a very nice older gentlemen. It helped that the tiles were finally cooperating. I bingoed in my first turn with stamens, using the blank as an e. Then I go every powertile imagineable AND he was opening up every hot spot imagineable. I used my x on a TLS going to ways, Got the Z under the Q on the TWS (Zin/qi) Got the J on the TWS going two ways. It was gross. But I needed that win and I needed it to be big. My spread is still negative, but it's a manageable negative. Hopefully, we won't lose anymore games.

Pay It Forward

2008-12-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

Well now that the New England Patriots are done for the season, for ridiculous craptacular technical tiebreaking stupid rule reasons, I now find myself bitter AND with lots of free time! This is BAD news for my opponents in next week's tourney! I plan to take my hatred of the AFC East (except for the Bills, cause awwww, they're the Bills) on each and every person unfortunate enough to sit across me at a Scrabble board! I will break the thousand mark. I will have a winning record. I will cash! For Belichick!

Kicking ass, taking names

2008-12-25T22:39:00.000-08:00

One of my all-time favorite shows is Buffy the Vampire Slayer...actually, it's probably The all-time favorite. My blogonym comes from a character in the show. Well, there's an episode where one of the bad guys shoots Buffy and as she and her friends hunt him down, she says "I find getting shot very motivating." Losing all my games last week, was very much like that. I've been studying up a storm ever since and even though my friend Ugarles managed to crush me in a game of Wordscraper yesterday, (I hate him and his little whap, too!) I've been feeling a greater confidence in my game.
So much so that when Woody, one of the expert players at the club, showed up early, I asked him if he wanted to play. I've only played Woody once, maybe a year ago, and it was such a disasterous blowout that about six rounds in we simply switched to him playing his rack and telling me what he'd do if he had my rack. This time was different. I started off poorly, playing Tom instead of Mot because I doubted my grasp of the threes. This led him to play boxy/tomb I then drew a rack of einortu, but there was nowhere to put my bingo, so I got rid of the crap letters playing off my new favorite word: roue (also euro) and then picked up aniy, he played Taj hanging off the triple line, so I bingoed with inanity on the triple line hooking an I off raj. He challenged it off because raji was no good. Waa. I played Tinny, he bingoed on the triple line with earners. It was not looking good for our hero. But I picked up another good rack, and double double bingoed with toadies to get back in the game. He opened up another triple line and I played zoea for a crapload of points and to tie the game. I bingoed again with something simple and took my first real lead, he mounted a brief comeback, but I was able to play qat with the q on the TLS for thirty-odd points. It was a nail biter till the end, but I managed to go out and with the tiles on his rack I won by twelve!
I couldn't believe it! I was in such shock I barely registered that I'd be playing my nemesis Adam in the first real game of the tournament. He had recently discovered my blog and swore to punish for everything bad I wrote about him. "I think the word was dork" he say after playing some disgustingly high scoring word like "quare" with the q on the TLS going two ways and the e on the DWS. SICK! I had opened with Hex, and then bingoed with "forties" making sox and ewe as well, he exchanged and instead of exchanging my double ui, I played them off, setting up his quare move. Boo. He went back and forth, he pulled head toward the end, but I managed to go out first and get the tiles on his rack. He did the math and in the end...we tied! Afterwards Joel showed me two plays that would have scored huge (glidepath for a TWS or icily, neither of which I saw. So he yelled at me.) I played Nancy next. We always manage to create a horrid blocked board early on, so I was making very low scoring single digit plays, using one or two letters. I played an a and e off a v, for ave, setting up Nancy to bingo with retinal. Boo. It opened up the board though and I managed to bingo a few turns later with denials. It was a close game, and then I drew esquire! She didn't block my one spot for it, so I pulled ahead by what I thought was a comfortable 60 points, right up until she scored 53 with jinn, with the j on a DLS and the blank on the triple word. So gross. We went back and forth again, but I pulled a lucky ess and was able to play hours for a bunch of points with no more tiles to draw. Whew.
I have nothing to say about my third game. I played like crap (case in point, I had aasnier and knew that was a stem, so I played off an a and hoped for the best, I drew another ess. So I had aeinrss. I played raisens. Joel was standing over my shoulder and when my opponent instachallenged, he said "no good" and snorted.) I then played off "ar" hoping to draw a t. I didn't. I didn't stop hoping. Horrific. I scored 6 points or less five turns in a row. Blah.
Anyway, my last game was with a guy I'd never seen before, so I assumed I would beat him. He played gama. I challenged. I lost. Uh oh. I bingoed with snottier, he used my e to make equine with the q on a TLS and the e on a DWS for 70 points. I triple worded with Josh, he bingoed with magnetic. Arrrgghhhh!!! I was losing and losing bad, my only hope was to bingo AND that he'd go over on the clock, I had like 15 minutes and he was already down to 3. Sure enough he went over, he was already at minus 20. But I was behind by 50, I played vow to open a bingo lane for myself...the only problem was I didn't have an a and I didn't draw one. In the end I was down by sixty. There were no more tiles in the bag and an open L and an open T. My rack was eeilrts I had a lot of time, so I shuffled and reshuffled till I finally came up with "retitles" through the t and hooking the s to ado. He sat and thought for a long time, costing him another ten points, before he challenged "ados." It was good! I managed a three point win! Woo!

I love Scrabble!

Cool gift

2008-12-22T22:13:00.000-08:00

If only the colors weren't all wrong.

via Karol

Not my night

2008-12-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

Here's how much not my night it was: I actually left my house early so that I wouldn't have to make now weekly call to Nancy to have her tell Joel that I'm running late. BUT I missed my exit off Park avenue and ended up ensared in third avenue traffic for 30 minutes. I think I was later today than I ever had been before.
My first match went terribly. I was outtiled, outplayed, outscored, out everything. I lost and by a lot. As I walked to get snacks I remember thinking it had been a long time since I had been beaten like that. Well, turns out it wouldn't be long before I was beaten like that AGAIN.
My second match, same thing, just beaten. I had a couple of bingo racks late in the game, but there was nowhere to play anything. AND when my opponent opened up a bingo lane on the triple for herself: my rack was titnesd and I needed a word ending in r. Nothing. She bingoed out with overbear and I had by second 100 plus loss on the night.
My next opponent was a 14 year old kid, who was winless on the night and when I challenged off his opening play of rancider seemed to give up on the game. So, naturally, I started to play badly too, fishing for bingoes, making terrible plays, ugh. I played so horribly. He started to realize that the game wasn't over, even though I had a nice lead, and he made quite the comeback. I picked up a q and y with my last draw and there was nowhere to put them. So I lost again.
And then to cap off the best night I have ever had at Scrabble club, somehow, someway on the day when I am 0-3 Jim freaking Piazza is 1-2, so he's my last matchup of the night. JIM PIAZZA.
WHAT THE HELL??????????????????????
Oh, and of course, he draws both blanks in his second turn and bingoes with weapons OH YEAH AND HE HAD AN ESS. Actually he drew three esses. I drew the last ess on my last turn and had a final rack of antions. I had to bingo out right then to win because he had the q on his rack. So I played antison. It's not good. I lost. 0-4. On my way out Joel told me I had anoints. Awesome.

I hate Scrabble.

I won!

2008-12-11T02:22:00.001-08:00

Okay, second place, but still! I actually got money back from my buy-in to the weekly New York tournament! I want to say I felt victory (and yes, victory for the rest of this post...and um...well, this blog, will always be 3-1 with an almost three hundred point spread...if I ever leave the club with a 4-0 record...well, suffice to say with some degree of certainty, I will never leave the club with a 4-0 record.) when I sat down to play. But honestly, I hadn't been studying, the previous week I had gotten clobbered and well, my head was elsewhere. I played my first game against Jean Lithgow. Who, when she heard the matchup, said "yay, I love playing you." I made my sad face because she usually beats me. In fact, I think I've only beaten her once or twice before, so I wasn't expecting much. I opened with a five letter J play for a nice lead...maybe jewel. I think she must have drawn the blank at that point because her next two plays with two letter words for like four points and I felt like she was fishing for a bingo. I scored a steady 25-35 points when she finally used her blank to play qaids with the q on a double letter square and the s on a double word square, but I was ahead by enough points that it didn't matter. She then opened opened up the triple line and I bingoed through with mantles and I think that was the game, she couldn't catch me after that, though she did get both blanks and the rest of the esses.
My next game was against Jim Piazza. I would often refer to people who I can't beat as "my Jim Piazza" because I've never been able to beat Jim Piazza. I think I dubbed him the unbeatable Jim Piazza in a game where I was leading the whole way, until in one of the late rounds he took back the lead, but then I drew aenprst on my rack with two tiles left in the bag and the word ka was sitting right next to the triple line leaving me a nice bingo lane to take back the lead and probably win the game. I played panters/ska. He challenged. It was no good. He blocked the lane. I ended up losing by a lot. Anyway, here was the original Jim Piazza, he also drew a blank and opened the game with a bingo: tentiest. I think he thought I was going to challenge it. But I already learned that word the hard way against Steve Williams last year.
Pyscologically I probably lost that game when I was matched against Jim Piazza, his opening with a bingo cemented my state of mind and I lost. Not by a lot -- maybe thirty points or so, but he drew both blanks, I don't think I bingoed the whole game and at no point was I ever ahead.
My next game was against Dulce. She is one of the weaker players in my division, so I expected to win. This is the game where I relearned the lesson "no matter how weak a tournament Scrabble player is they are still a tournament Scrabble player!" I played a phony on her "bew" to get my w on a double letter square two ways, she let it go, but then bingoed on the triple line with both blanks playing minutia with the a atop my 'by' for minutia/aby. For some reason the word didn't look right to me, and for eighty odd points I decided to challenge (I thought it was supposed to end in e.) Obviously, the word was good and I lost my challenge, but she used the free turn to exchange letters, so I didn't fall too far behind. I bingoed twice: first with some stem word and the second time with charters to end the game. I ended up winning by 100 plus, but with a rocky start due to overconfindence.
My last game was against a guy I had dubbed "Jim Piazza" in the past. His name is Sal and he had his boy with him picking the tiles for him.
It was cute.
I picked a lot of high point tiles, but no vowels to go with them, so I had to use his vowels leading to him getting more points playing off my big tiles than I'd get. I played "wiz" through his i but landing the z on the triple line. He played le in front to score with lez. I used his u to play qua he played some crazy y word to make quay. The game was really close until he bingoed with sections using a blank. I had ettines on my rack, and was down by 70, so I took a chance and played et for four points and hoped for an a or a blank on my next draw. I picked up ag! Hooray, he used his turn to open a bingo lane by playing a u on top a p for up, so I had to play something with the t on top of the u (I didn't realize sup was also good.) which suck since the easiest satineg bingoes to remember are the ing ones...I finally remembered ingesta and played that. I was now only down by fifteen and with no more tiles in the bag. My fourth straight game without drawing a single blank! He tried to bingo out with his remaining tiles through an e on the only available lane. He played defasted which I challenged off. Then he played feastedd which I challenged off and in the end, I went out and then got all double for all the tiles on his rack for another 100 plus win!
Twas a good day.

Not so random question

2008-12-04T23:02:00.001-08:00

Is it wrong that I think those crossword puzzle people are nuts?

Happy Birthday Kearns

2008-12-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

Maybe this will be the year you finally beat me at Scrabble.

The new boards are soooo UGLY!!

2008-11-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know about a Scrabble themed wedding

2008-11-24T10:14:00.001-08:00

But I've thought about game playing instead of dancing!

via Karol

Living room Scrabble

2008-11-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't played non timed livingroom Scrabble since July 2007...it might have been July 1, 2007, if I recollect correctly. I was visiting my friends in D.C., a husband and wife duo which had been cleaning my clock at Scrabble for nearly ten years. They were so nuts about Scrabble that they brought the game with them to the delivery room when their daughter was born. They were very good, but after a year or so of playing tournament Scrabble, I was better. And that day in July, I won both games and pretty handily, they promptly vowed never to play me in Scrabble again. Truth be told, although I enjoyed beating them, without the fast paced action induced by the clock, I was a little bored. So I gave up on livingroom Scrabble too and just played with my fellow New York wordfreaks. But this week I'm out visiting my friends in Utah and one of them has just started to play the game with her friends. On the drive back from the airport she told me an all too familiar tale about losing all the time and needing a Scrabble tutor. So tonight we went over to her friends house, after going over some simple Scrabble strategies and played with her neighbors. They have some quirky rules, like one person keeps score (and hell, as long as that person ain't me, I was cool with it), you get to look up words before you play them AND once the blank is played, you can replace it with the actual letter, if you have it, as long as you use it on your next play. And of course, no clock. I got the sense that my friend usually loses during these games, so I went in with the express purpose of winning and winning by a lot...these house rules definitely helped. I pretty much reused those blanks on every other turn to bingo and I could look up the words I wasn't sure about to boot! Throated, roached, beadily - all good! All bingos! I also got to showoff my ever growing impressive anagramming skills. It was super fun...plus, I think I've infected a whole community in Utah with my Scrabble obsession. Throated! That was an awesome play. I also had the oppurtunity to triple triple with anles?? Through a d, but just couldn't come up with anything and I felt like a jerk taking twenty minutes trying to find it when I had a million sevens. It was annoying though. I could have also regular tripled with some eight ending in an e with those same letters, but nothing. I ended up playing antlers/ami for 63. Bah.

Sandwich...Pancake?

2008-11-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

There's a famous opening sequence in a game (I think) between Brian Cappalletto and some other dude. One of them played entasis and the other played realise right on top for a perfect bingo bango.
realise
entasis
Well, my friend...er...nemesis Adam, had a similar play. His opponent played
boniest and he played back with
anosmia

And if you're wondering why I'm writing about other people's Scrabble games, it's because I hate Scrabble again. Stupid losing challenges.

.500

2008-11-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

Whew. My rating will go down, but I won seven and lost seven, which is waaay better than losing more than I win. Crushed all of my opponents on the last day. Yet another chapter in the "Dawn still in bed stories," evidently the hotel made the director end the tournament earlier, so the day three was started at 9 instead of 9:30, as the nice lady informed me when she called me in my hotel room at 9:10. My opponent was really sweet and didn't start my clock...unfortunately, I went on to tear him up...like brutalized. I bingoed four times with outraise, outpens, salines, and something else I don't remember now...maybe hurdler. I also bingoed multiple times in each of my next two games. I don't hate Scrabble anymore, but I'm not talking to it for a while.

Oh, and I just can't figure out why everyone laughed at my Scrabble board all weekend...just because the face is cracked, the plastic side is broken and it doesn't spin.

Find the bingo!

2008-11-10T18:40:00.001-08:00

Not to be a total ingrate...but man double blanks are hard.

Awash in a sea of red

2008-11-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

They make you put stickers next to your name after each game. Green is a win, red is a loss, yellow is a tie.
My name looks like someone stuck a sticker knife into it and red stickers are pouring out. Which is pretty much what it feels like, so I guess it's apt. My rating is going to plummet. Which is fine, my next tournament I will be put in the children's division and crush them. Ow. My head. I mean pride. Things we learned the hard way? People can play through the TWS both horizontally and vertically. Avast is a word. If you play a word because only one letter can hook on to it, your opponent has that letter.

Scrabble lesson the first

2008-11-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

1. YOU CANNOT WIN, IF YOU ARE IN BED!!!!

For the second time, SECOND, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly, Dawn Summers had been in bed while her Scrabble tournament clock was running. I am a moron.
In my defense, when I came back to my room and blog my sad 1-2 post, I thought the first day of the DC tournament was over.
As I said, my first game was against a woman who I thought I could beat easily because I am ranked eighth and she is ranked 21st in the field. I was wrong, she beat me and she beat me handily. I don't even think she bingoed, she just hammered me with an endless stream of nonstop 30-50 point plays. I, on the other hand, kept looking for "just one or two" more letters to get my bingo with my blank a n e l d. So promising...but no...I kept getting double as double is vees, by the time I did get a decent play, lo and behlod there were no spots. I ended up playing a phony (at least I think it is) climated with the blank as an m. Luckily she was too slow in challenging, so it stayed on.
I lost a challenge when I objected to joles. It's good.
My next game, I won. I played another phony (tilders) because I knew if I didn't just dump it, I'd spend forever trying to draw a tile that goes with lister. She was also too slow to challenge, so it stayed on. I then drew crap and had to exchange first five letters (oeeee) leaving me with es and then exchange six letters uuooee. But I ended up getting a play with q on Dl and r on dw (queer), i pretty much outplayed her from there.
My third (and not so much last) game was against the top seeded guy. The old woman from my first game had just beaten him and he seemed a little out of it. But he was ranked first so I didn't take anything for granted. He played just awfully. He left an e open on the Triple word line and I played through it with zeta (z on double letter and a on TWS). was winning right up until I wasn't. Toward the end of the game I was drawing awful. I should have changed, but I was ahead and wanted to keep it that way. Instead I started opening up profitable lines for twelve points and he punished me, And how. I lost by thirty.
Disgusted, I went back to my room. Took my medicines, searched for local Maryland crabhouses, blogged a little and climbed into bed.
I was merrily enjoying Countdown with Keith Olbermann when my phone rang. I thought it might be the folks I drove down with calling about dinner, so I almost didn't answer. But what the heck, I'd just say I was out because I was going to sleep.
Instead:
"Is this Don?"
"Dawn?"
"Yes...we wanted you to know that there is another round of play going on."
"What? Now?"
"Yes, your clock has been started."
"Ok, I'll be right down."
I dashed downstairs (stopping to comb my hair, lest we have another "bad photo incident). By the time I got in my seat, I had 14:27 on my clock. It had been running more ten minutes. She still had her full 25:00. We drew to see who'd go first. It was me. She started my clock again I had a rack full of junk junida. I played jun. And from there I just raced. I looked at my rack and played the longest words I could fine, to speed through. Vetted. Petite. It was the four-five letter game that I should really be playing all the time. I even drew a blank and managed to find the bingo almost immediately ?niuadl (I know you guys like to play along at home) I had the lead the whole game until I challenged magi/indoles with the i as a blank. It was good. Pout. She drew seven tiles. Three were left. She kept trying to play FEH under indoles, but would realize at the last minute that Le was no good. I guess she could see my challenge finger getting ready. (By the way, at this point she was down to THREE Minutes on her clock and I HAD EIGHT AND A HALF!!! I think my insane speed Scrabble rattled her.)
She ended up playing FIN for 33 points and a twelve point lead. I then played zas for 32. She then hit me with KI going two ways for 23. I had orods left on my rack. I needed 24 points. I looked around and saw an outplay for 17 points. I was sad until I remembered her H!! That's another eight points, plus the other four tiles, worth at least another 8! Boom, baby! I quickly played doors hooking it to week and won.
I WON the game that started with me in bed.
I don't recommend that, but I will start playing more fives and sixes rather than fishing for bingos. If I get rid of tiles, the bingos will come.
And now, I am going to sleep. For realz.

I hate Scrabble

2008-11-07T19:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am 1-3. I got beat by an old lady who played sooo fast I got flustered and almost went over my clock. ARRGGGHHH.
Oh, and in the not so random category, you should not be able to delay a game so you can go to the bathroom, come back and delay the game AGAIN to get some water.
I'm going to bed. Lessons tomorrow.

Politics and Scrabble!

2008-11-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

If you anagram Republican, you get Cure B Palin! Palin '12! (But mostly because I'm a liberal Democrat who believes that she'd be the easiest person to crush in the 2012 general.)

My word against yours

2008-11-06T20:53:00.000-08:00

I played in the final match for second place and lost. I didn't challenge the word vyse because the game was so close and I just didn't think she play a phony at such a point in the game...plus, I challenged wyn once and it was good. Blech. But I did beat two women that I rarely beat, so that's something. Oh, one of the women I played with told me a funny story. She said that she always likes to know what words mean before she plays them, so during a match one time she asked her opponent what a word meant and he said "what does it mean? 42 points."
I laughed. I'm the same way. I have no idea what anything means, just if it's good or not...and sometimes I don't even know that. Waaa.

Amazing Play

2008-11-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm playing Scrabble with a dude I hate. So, naturally, I want to win. He draws a B, I draw an L, he goes first.
"Pass."
I'm waiting for him to put down tiles and tell me how many he's trading in...instead, he just sits there. As in pass. Now, the last time he did this to me, I played something and he bingoed through my i down to the triple with painting.
Now, my rack looks like this qnolidu. Not awesome. I contemplate exchanging my tiles, screw him and his pass completely, but then I figure it's better to get my automatic double word score for my q. But I don't want to make this too easy for him so I play "quod" If he can use the u or the o for his bingo, so be it. I draw four new letters: Now my rack looks like this: bnolitg. I immediately see my bingo, but the board is not gerund play friendly. I cry. He's going to bingo and I'll have no place to put mine. No fair.
INSTEAD, he plays off a P and an R on top of the o making pro for 11 points and giving me exactly the place I need for my gerund!! YAY!!
I instantly play bolting (making qi, un and prog) and watch him die a little inside.
I love this game.

Dangnabit

2008-10-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

I went 2-2 tonight at Scrabble club. And if I just sucked a little less, I could have gone 4-0. The two games I lost were by a combined less than twenty points. I have really got to learn some five letter words. Oh and hooks for things. If I knew what went after Haen or Hame I would have been rolling in victories. Oh, crazy words I learned today: Ginep and brith. Yeah, not birth - brith. Fortunately, both were in this game against this guy who I used to beat all the time before my stupid six month hiatus and now he plays the insanest words just to get me to challenge. But I don't cause I know he wants me to. Although, he bingoed on me with renoted and I should have challenged because it's no good. I bingoed on him THREE TIMES and ended up losing by the stupid tiles on my rack. Stupid c. Arrgh. Oh, but one of my victories was against a woman I have never beaten before. Apparently she found out her aunt died during the tournament and had a bad night. Now, before you judge me, as I sat down across from her she was "oh, good! I'm playing you." And she broke into a huge grin. And then when I beat her, and by a lot, it was all "Dead aunt." My other victory was against a young woman from Korea who just didn't know how to play. She played toast using an s and a blank for ten points. Dude. So I basically played all manner of phonies and try to run up the score against her to protect against the dreaded negative spread. There's a tournament in Queens this Sunday. I may play in it...at least it'll motivate me to study for the next two days.

HAHAHA

2008-10-24T12:09:00.001-07:00

I will confess that the two times I had to play "dirty words" (cunt, titties) I counted the points up before I did it, cringed, put them down really fast, closed my eyes and drew new tiles superfast.

via petitedov

How to play the game

2008-10-23T22:58:00.001-07:00

Woody, a guy at my Scrabble club, played "assholes" on a triple/triple! He scored like a bagillion points and won the "lipstick on a pig" award for word that most reminds Joel (our club director) of Sarah Palin.
It was my first time back at the club, it's such a different place than the one I left in April. I managed my usual 2-2 record...although I beat a woman I have NEVER beaten before and got beat by a guy I always used to beat. What's that phrase about winning some and losing some? I learned a bunch of new words: kiva, odin, curr. Don't ask me what they mean, although in the case of "curr," it means you challenge and then he comes back at you with "colinear" on the triple word score, which you also challenge, only to find out that his "last girlfriend was named Caroline." Dammit.
I bingoed with gestate though, which was a cool non-blank using find. I also played salined and got away with it! (Only real bingoes in the rack are denials and snailed.) I'm gearing up for my next tournament in a couple of weeks...I need my rating to go up by twenty points, so we're back in insane practicing mode. The other thing I'm trying to do is less fishing and more five letter word playing...unfortunately I don't know that many fives, but I found prawn today with the p on the triple word square and the w on the double letter, for a boatload of points. I also played quins twice on a double word score with the q on a oduble letter...so that's progress.

On the inside

2008-10-22T09:56:00.001-07:00

I finally got an invite to the private monthly Scrabble tournaments! I had been hearing rumors about this game for about a year. It’s held in a posh UES apartment with posh people…one woman is Colin Powell’s cousin! I was far and away the worst player there…although, now that I know that I am exactly the 132nd best Scrabble player in New York, there was one woman ranked below me. My first game was against this jerky brash dude. He likes to needle and mind game you into making bad challenges/letting phonies go. I mostly try to ignore his antics and play my own game…a strategy which was working. I bingoed on him twice early and ignored a lot of words I know he was playing just to bait me…I wish I had taken a picture, so I could remember them. It was all going swimmingly until he played doux for 52 points, with the x on some power square going two ways. Now, I had recently studied all the short x words and I just couldn’t remember ever seeing it. Never. The guy was also really quiet instead of his usual “blah blah blah blahing” when he knows he’s played a valid word, so after about a minute I challenged. It was good. But he wasn’t sure about it, which is why he was quiet. I lost my turn and the sad part is that I could have played through his x on the triple word score line with “roux.” Anyway, I came back to play your under his fur to hit the other triple word square, with the y on the double letter square going three ways, so I made back some ground. But then I hit three racks in a row with no vowels (I played Brrr…tried to play cwm…”) but nothing materialized and I lost the game by 12 points. He said that he had a rack of all vowels he ended up playing animi through the m I was looking at for my cwm. Oh, I bingoed with megatons--- that was a cool find. Anyway, one loss.
I then played a woman that crushed me and sent me home to mama during the Big Apple tournament. It was a very close game. We were playing a lot of tightly packed three and four letter words and the board was very closed down. I ended up bingoing with aidless (fast becoming my favorite Scrabble stem…the words are so crazy, that they mostly get challenged every time.) The both of us were having terrible clock management problems and as we dumped off our last tiles, she maybe had 20 seconds left with four tiles, I had like a minute. So I just kept playing off tiles as fast as I could without much attention to points, hoping to get her to go over. Sure enough, she went over by 1 second. And I managed to win the game by nine points thanks to her ten point penalty!
I also won my next game. This woman was brutal with fives and sixes. She didn’t bingo once, but she would play like “seizes with the z on a double letter and then hitting the triple word box to make me cry. I thought I was going to lose, EVEN THOUGH I BINGOED THREE TIMES, that’s how good she was, but instead, I managed a one point victory because I went out before her and got the two points for her last tile! Whew.
I also won my next game against the host. She is super competitive and it’s her house, so I tried to be on my best behavior while playing her…even though her oft-times nasty comments made that difficult at times. But whatever, I sooth my pride with the knowledge that I won.
I dropped by last two games in bad crushing fashion. I mean hundreds of points, giving up midgame, not even keeping score anymore crushing. But, I finished with a winning record, albeit a negative spread, so hopefully I’ll be invited back.

My rating went up!

2008-10-08T11:09:00.001-07:00

I'm almost at a 1000. Woot.

Not so random question (Dawn)

2008-10-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have played in four Scrabble tournaments over eight days, why do they choose the one day I have overslept and show up to the game looking like crap to take my official NSA photo?

The End

2008-10-05T19:59:00.001-07:00

First off, hahahahaha. Hi, Karol. HAHHAAHHA.

Today was the last day of the tournament and I learned a new lesson that is not often imparted to new Scrabble tournament players. Here is that lesson: You cannot win a game if you are sleeping. Literally. Game one of day three started at 9:30. I opened my eyes in my bed in Brooklyn and the clock said 9:41. Well, it actually probably said 10:02, but that’s because all my clocks are fast by some arbitrary number so I freak myself out by 1) having to do math and 2) thinking I’m late. Sadly, no amount of subtraction was going to make me not late today. I pulled on jeans, brushed my teeth and ran to my car. I then made it from Brooklyn to Manhattan is seven minutes, for some idea on how fast I was going…well…fast. Anyway, by the time I made it to the Midtown loft where the games were being held, the director told me I missed my match by 1 minute and they had to call it a forfeit. I was sad, but didn't fight, it was totally my fault. I played the beneficiary of my exhaustion in a fifteen minute game for "fun," before my next match. She seemed easily flustered and I probably could have beaten her...made all the more painful by the fact that I did beat my next three opponents, for a final record of 9-6. I think I came in seventh or eighth. My ranking should probably hold though, which was my biggest concern going into this tournament as unprepared as I was. Unfortunately, I didn't do my rating any favors...which leads me now to my latest obsession with playing the Lake George tournament at the end of October...if only I could guarantee that I would study...

4-3

2008-10-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I had a strong start...3-1 going into lunchbreak...and then sploosh. But, hey, my first game was against a little boy, he's like nine or so. I was afeard he'd be some kind of Scrabble prodigy and would crush me. But then he played cui and I challenged it off and started to relax. And then he played azo vertically under my ox on the line next to the triple word score. I had isatine on my rack, one of those was a blank, but I don't remember which...so I tried to pluralize azo (making xi, azos and isatine) he successfully challenged it off. I missed a turn, bingoed isatine next to sun for suns and isatine...he inexplicably challenged suns and I got another turn. I picked up nolmtig. Yay! Molting...hmm...where to put it...I went back to the azos spot and played molting horizontally. Bingoing down the triple line, making:

It was awesome. He kinda gave up after that.

I won my next game, by letting the guy beat himself. He had terrible clock management skills. By the third round he had like seven minutes left. When he finally bingoed, he played raiders alongside oi, making ois and raiders. I instantly challenged and he wasted another five minutes looking for a new bingo spot. So, I basically, kept throwing back any crap tiles and sending it back to him until he was minus four on the clock. He ended up negative seventy. I won by eighteen.

Then I won a super close game against a guy that bingoed on me three times...but his third bingo teeings, was a phony and I challenged. He then tried to play some other crap on me which made the word "dost" ...I challenged the whole play and it was no good, so I'm not sure what the bad word was. BUt I ended up winning by three.

I won the first game after lunch against this mamas boy that had beaten at a tournament I played last year in Queens. He challenged AIDLESS! A scrabble stem anagram that I had learned at lunch. He had smart assed me earlier in the game when I challenged wizes and it was good.
"Yeah, that's a tricky one. It can be spelled whizzes or wizes, but the weird thing is wize is not good. You really just have to study." So when he called "hold" after I played "aidless" I prayed and prayed for him to challenge...after wasting a full two minutes, he finally did. And after the computer validated it, I was all "huh, it's so weird that you would challenge a stem word...it's LADIES plus, 's.' Buuurn.

Thus endeth my good times.

My last three games were devasting exercises in girl that is good at Scrabble meeting people who are great at Scrabble. Although, one guy, a British dude I met at Scrabble club who also plays poker, I had beaten every time I ever played him. Of course, while I have been off doing lord knows what, he has been playing and studying Scrabble. I knew I was in for a baaad beating. I was doing okay, even picked up satiren and did my little "ooh, is it satine plus r or satire plus n, ooh, what do I do? where do I go with my nine bingoes," and then I opened a stupid bingo lane above the triple word line and he punished me with isolead. Plus I challenged him. Sad Dawn.
The next woman I played never scored less than 30 points on each turn, or she's exchange. It was disgusting. Got so bad I tried playing "gooseing" on her. She challenged. I lost.
My last game was against Adam, who was a member of the Scrabble crew, he is super competitive and had just lost to someone who was ranked below him. So he took it out on me. TUX with the x on the triple letter square going two ways. Lez/zin on double word scores two ways. Crushed.
Beaten.
Broken.
Hate Scrabble.
Never playing again.
Until tomorrow. I'm 6-4...need to win all four tomorrow...but hopefully, my crushing this afternoon means I'll be playing the bottom of my division. And hopefully, I can win.

Not so random thought (Dawn)

2008-10-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

When I'm a famous poker player, I'm going to play Norman Chad in Scrabble while he asks me five questions in that episode of the Nuts.

Coming home to Scrabble

2008-10-03T21:06:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I have certainly played more Scrabble than I’ve posted about…but that’s more a function of my having posted nothing. After Saratoga I immediately signed up for every Scrabble tournament in the New York area. I was determined to get the taste of my “so close, yet so far” bubble finish out of my mouth. Instead (Satine plus d, bitches!) Life got the taste of Scrabble altogether out of my mouth. All my Scrabble nemeses refused to play me anymore, Hasbro killed Scrabulous and I just couldn’t go back to the Manhattan Scrabble club, so it seemed I was all done with Scrabble. Except for the three day October tournament in NYC. Unlike all the other tournaments I signed up for, I actually paid cash monies upfront for this one. So, I was going to play. And I would eventually get back into the swing of things. Or so I told myself in April, and then May, and then June and July, definitely for sure by August, I mean, I was recovering from emergency surgery what else could I possibly do!? Turns out lots. By September, I was in real trouble. I hadn’t learned anything new AND I had forgotten everything I did know. Luckily, okay, I already know this is the wrong word, you are about to find out why. Luckily, an old woman from the club had surgery and it left her homebound. One of my old Scrabble crew friends called me to see if I could play some games with the woman at her house. I figured this was a good way to both get back into the game and pay forward all the people who came by my place to play Scrabble with me when I was all post op. Janey – the old woman—is an excellent player. She has crushed me pretty much every time I ever played her at the club or in informal matchups. I would say every time, but I think I beat her once…or I only lost by double digits to her, which I also count as a win…
Anyway, her operation was on her hands, so I had to count all the points and do all the clock hitting, but otherwise she functioned ably.
I was super rusty, so I didn’t expect very much from the game. Lo and behold I won. It was definitely very close and I must say it was more a function of great tiles than any strategery on my part.
I then won the second game, by a bigger margin this time, but again I think I drew lucky at key times AND Janey underestimates me a great deal, so she left some spots open that I don’t think she would normally leave and I capitalized.
She was super cranky after that and so we only played one more game…which we never finished because she was getting tired. I was ahead though. Grin.
I went back to her place every afternoon for the next few weeks and actually won the majority of games. This did not in anyway motivate me to study though, so today, the day before the Big Apple tournament began, I was on my phone with my completely unhelpful friend Karol, trying to relearn satine, satire, toners and ladies. Not to mention my fracking threes, which still elude me!
“Did you know mim is good? And MIB?”
“I don’t care,” she would callously reply.
I found some secret words that I figured I should learn…this is always how I get an edge on people who have been playing longer than I have, I learn new words and hope to draw challenges.
So, ready or not, there I went.
My first game was supposed to be a bye. I am ranked fourth in my division and my fourth from the bottom counterpart didn’t show. But there were 23 participants in the tournament, so one bye was already built in. Instead, we both had to play each other. I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect from my opponent. I played very conservatively, building three and four letter words. She played the same way and very quickly we had an ugly closed off blockish board. But then she did a strange thing. She played heads for 17 points!!! An ess for 17? I mean sure she got the h on a triple letter, but dude! So, I started to loosen my tile playing requirements an bingoed on my next turn with what I thought was a phony three, but valid bingo: I played bog/ginnies. Turns out bog is good (I guess it’s like ‘boggle,’ but ginnies is not.) She DIDN’T CHALLENGE EITHER!! Woo hoo!
Of course, whenever I underestimate someone, I start playing like a total fish, single digit turns until I get a bingo rack. Unfortunately, while I sat around with my line in the bag, she managed to bingo with outside using a blank. Ouchy. I had the other blank, but also every stupid r in the bag. I idiotically kept playing off one or two ars until she had a forty point lead on me and tiles were running out. In (what turned out to be) the second to last round in the game I had farit*d. I only had a bingo lane under tav, so I needed a word with an ess…I didn’t see anything, there were two tiles left in the bag, which based on my tracking weren’t any horrid tiles like q or j or y…there were a bunch of vowels and friendlier letters out…so I gambled. I played fa directly over the triple. I was hoping she take the bait on the triple and play down opening up two new lanes for me to bingo. Oh, and hoping the last two letters weren’t dupes. I played fa, and picked up me. My final rack was rited*m. I immediately saw remited… but wasn’t sure if that needed two tt (it does) but when she surprised me and played ideal under fa – instead playing fade all the way down to the triple like I wanted. I needed a bingo that, at a minimum, fit under her ide. So I had to end with ted. Again, I almost went with remitted, when I finally saw merited and quickly bingoed out on the triple to end up with by like 30 points. I felt amazing!!
My next opponent was a woman from Texas, who seemed to be in a bad mood after losing her first match.
“I can’t seem to beat you New Yorkers,” she said. Seems she had played at the Scrabble club the night before and had gotten bruised.
I smiled. I declined the invitation to say “I hope that remains the case,” or something equally snarky.
Instead, I wished her luck and drew.
Damn. I wished I had wished me luck: nynypbi.
Dude, WTF.
I ended up playing piny because I went first.
It was a close game until she foolishly played a word down to the triple line ending in d. I bingoed on the triple with sprained using my blank as an i. (basically I had the infamous ‘panters’ rack.) I went on to win by a comfortable forty points.
My last matchup of the night was with Nancy, one of the core members of the defunct Scrabble gang. She’s got wicked word knowledge and I couldn’t beat her on my best of days at the height of my Scrabble playing. I did not have high hopes for this game. Which was good.
She picked up both blanks, the j,z,x,s …bingoed twice, I think…ugh…it was brutal. And yes, while I did pick up three esses, I got them all at the same time. She challenged two of my plays off the board “unis” and “smatted” and that was all she wrote. I was blown out by 145 points and finished the night 2-1 with a -60 spread. I’m hoping that puts me at the middle/bottom of the division, so I’ll get matched up with weaker players tomorrow – instead of my commanding opening at Saratoga, which doomed me to a day two of the dominating best which I couldn’t overcome.
Anyway, here’s to tomorrow!

Scrabble on facebook sucks

2008-08-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

I can't get over the fact that Hasbro has killed facebook Scrabble. Somebody call Alanis, this is irony, folks. The software is so slow and crappy and ugh. And I'm not just pissed that some glitch in the game resulted in my last turn being taken off the board (even though Scrabble doesn't have a challenge mode) and my lovely bingo rack being turned into shite.
Grr.

Non-Scrabble News

2008-08-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine Yaron Koren has a new site up. It's called Referata. It's a semantic wiki hosting site...which means...um...I don't know, but I bet Referata is the best darn wiki hosting site out there!

Dreamworld

2008-08-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

I was recently hospitalized and had my gall bladder removed. It was all pretty painful and uncomfortable, but there were a lot of good drugs involved. Which is the only way to possibly explain the following dream that I had. I think it's one of those things that started out as a dream, but I woke up halfway through, but was still amused, so I just imagined the rest of it.

So there I am talking to Ugarles' son about his progress through the threes and I say something like...you've got to get better, so someone in that house can give me a good game without using an anagrammer. He laughs and puts his father on the phone and Ugarles says are you going to put this much pressure on your kid? And I say "of course," if you think that child isn't going to hear the phrase "look it's your life and if you want Sidney to be a better Scrabble player than you are, well, I guess that'll just be your choice now won't it." And then I add, though I guess I'll use the name of a child closer to her age...you know, like little Moishe Hooper. Yeah. I'll be all I bet Moise Hooper isn't complaining about learning his Satire rack, no, he's just grateful for a break in the depressing music and the triple draw exercises.

I think this is where I start to wake up because I remember laughing that I've named the as-yet-born Hooper child "Moishe" and I know that no matter what this child ends up actually being named, I will always call him/her Moishe. Just ask Karol about her friend first born child Ephram.

Sometimes change is not good

2008-07-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes change is not good

I’m back to playing tons of Scrabble. Although after my four-five month absence, I find myself wholly out-classed these days. However, it isn’t the losing that has irritated me the most, it’s that Hasbro has changed the game. Not the rules or anything, but the color scheme. Triple word scores, which used to be easily identified as red are now orange. Double word scores, once pretty in pink are now some form of putrid red. Even the board itself is no longer a gentle beige, but an absurd blueish thing. It was so horrifyingly distracting.
And now Hasbro has started its own version of Scrabulous on facebook. I was invited by the company to Beta test it because of my blogs, but I have to say I haven’t found anyone willing to complete a game with me on it because, well, it sucks.
First off, you cannot play in the challenge mode, which is the only way honest, God-fearing, red blooded Americans play Scrabble. Second, the graphics and animation are terrible. I believe Ugarles’ comment when we first started our game was “does Hasbro think we’re retarded.” Indeed, the bells and whistles are so overpowering they make it difficult to play your word or see clever hooks. It also makes it impossible to load at work – and dude, what’s the point of having a game on facebook if you can’t play at work.
So I don’t know what the outcome of this lawsuit will be, but I hope they come to some agreement whereby EA just agrees to buy Scrabulous - or take it by fiat, and we get the same Scrabulous interface without the copyright infringement guilt. Oh, but I am having a wicked awesome game against the poor Flying Pink Unicorn, who is explaining his current three hundred point deficit by saying that he’s taking it easy on me. He then promised to kick my arse at 80s Mets trivia…to which I responded with a hearty…bring it.

Not So Random Thought

2008-07-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

Is there anything worse than picking up satine plus a J! Grr.

Baby's first Scrabble game

2008-04-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Funny things Joel Says

2008-04-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

I have yet to come up with a feature for my humble not read Scrabble blog. I correct that oversight now!
The Director of the New York Scrabble club is a dude by the name of Joel Sherman. I'd say he's in his late fifties. He is most surly. And I mean, whatever you think of when I say surly...surlier. Anyway, I've actually come to like him a lot. There's no chitchat with him, he matter of factly says either you suck or you don't. He is slow to compliment and quick to mock. There's no bullshit whatsoever with him and it's a trait I've come to appreciate.

Now, when you deal with lots of different people and you, essentially hate them all, you tend to say things that would make the ordinary person cringe. Like when I told him I played in my first tournament last June, he looked at me and said "that was a stupid way to waste money."

And when my friend told him I won a tournament in Australia he said "I don't doubt it, they have horrible players there."

And now for tonight's gem:

An orthodox woman who plays at the club regularly was doing her usual complaining that all the big tournaments inevitably involve Saturday games which she can't play in because she can't count points or hit the clock or something like that. So, I told her there were monthly Sunday tournaments out in Queens. So, she asks Joel for the contact information. He gives it to her and tells her the next game is Sunday. She again starts to whine because evidently Sunday is Passover. Joel sighs heavily and says "Well, too bad for you. Anyone that keeps the Sabbath is an idiot that is wasting half the weekend for no reason." And then he walked away. I covered my face, but then peeked through my fingers to see her standing there speechless. I wonder if she'll come back.

Victory!!

2008-04-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Not only did I beat Paul last night, I beat him three times!!
This was the first victory:

He challenged Gritters...mostly because when I played it I had that "uh...umm...whatever, I'm behind might as well give it a shot," face on. Turned out it was good. Then I drew both blanks and bingoed with strains...Ah good times. 40 point win for Dawn. Plus I had some nice three/four letter word plays HexFax, Jew/Yaw. Good game by me. He won the first and third, I won the second and fourth. When we were two and two I got all cocky...and then got smooshed in back to back games, but then I won the last game and went home in triumph.