Scrabble Adventures

Sometimes you’re too smart for your own good and last night’s second game was a great example.  I’ve been on a winning streak at the Toronto club lately.  Not sure if I’ll be able to keep going out as my schedule is starting to get full.  Oh well, I’ll take it while it lasts.

Game #1 vs. Simon T
This game started off looking like it would turn into a step-ladder.  For a change, I didn’t get frustrated and just let the game develop, even though I was stuck with vowels and vowels.  When I did get my chance, I broke the game open when Simon challenged my first bingo.
FINAL SCORE:  416 – 281 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – SERENES, wHOoPED; Simon – none

Game #2 vs. Jon F
On my second turn, I played the only bingo that was available to me, NEOnATE.  The only problem was that I wasn’t sure about one of the new formed words – BARGEE (I added the second E).  With only about a 30-40% confidence in the word, I played it anyway, remembering what Craig Rowland likes to say – "Don’t play scared, and force your opponent to decide if the word is good".  I reasoned that I was likely to bingo on my next turn even if this play gets challenged.  My opponent accepts the play and then a few turns later, tries to hook BARGEE with an S.  Since *I* wasn’t sure it was good, I decided to challenge the play.  Oops!  The play was acceptable.  I noticed that both Joseph Bowman and Fraser Simpson (who were playing on the board next to me) were surprised too.  Afterward, Joseph mentioned how he thought BARGEE was a phoney and was surprised that my original play wasn’t challenged.  Here I was thinking that I would trap my opponent with a phoney play.  Serves me right for trying to be smart.
FINAL SCORE:  391 – 346 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – NEOnATE, EnTRANT; Jon – none

Game #3 vs. Sharmaine F
I think I should have lost this game had things played out a bit differently.  The game was close with only a turn or two to go.  I had a 328 – 276 lead at the time when Sharmaine tried to play STATINE* to take the lead and empty the bag.  I challenged that play off quickly, but was a bit concerned as to what to do.  I couldn’t block her bingo lane, and knew that she had a very, very high probability of playing a bingo (TISANE stem).  Based on my tracking, AJMORU was left in the bag.  If I played off too many tiles, I would empty the bag, and potentially leave me with high value tiles.  Sharmaine was likely to bingo, so I had to score points.  I decided to make a bit of a gamble and played off a few tiles, hoping to get the J.  I did.  Sharmaine then surprised me by playing off a T, missing the obvious bingo SATINET.  After working through the various scenarios of the end game, I made my final play of JOKE for 50 points.  Sharmaine ended the game with her play of STAINER.
FINAL SCORE:  378 – 363 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – CLONERS; Sharmaine – PILFERs, STAINER

I was hoping to play some higher rated players while at the Toronto club, but I’m not going to complain.  Winning is always nice.  Unfortunately, not playing the higher rated players means I haven’t had muck practice for upcoming tournaments when I plan to play up a division.  Maybe I’ll ask Craig if I can play up at the Mississauga club.

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For all the improvement and promise I’ve shown lately, I seem to have a night that completely humbles me.  I had good tiles all night, but I played horribly for my first two games.  What can I say?

Game #1 vs. John D
Here’s a sequence that will surely cost you a game:  lose a turn for challenging VANED and then get your play of (D)ERRiDES* challenged off – completely missing (D)ERiDERS.  On top of that, for my first five turns, I only had one scoring play for 9 points.  That’s surely not a great way to start.  Nevertheless, I screwed myself this game.
FINAL SCORE:  463 – 395 (LOSS)
BINGOS:  ME – REaDERS; John – STARING, (D)IvERTER

Game #2 vs. Fraser S
I lost this game because I made a tactical error.  I had SATIREQ and opted to play Q(I) for 11 instead of Q(A)T for 32.  In retrospect, I think I was trying to bingo too much and then made silly plays like the aforementioned.  Nevertheless, I admit that Fraser is probably a better player than me – he certainly knows more words and sees them too.
FINAL SCORE:  338 – 320 (LOSS)
BINGOS:  ME – r(E)STATES; Fraser – cOWBANE

Game #3 vs. Brenda S
Sometimes I really don’t understand my opponent, especially Brenda.  She was behind in this game, and yet she didn’t even try to open up any bingo lanes even though she had great tiles at the end.  I wasn’t going to open anything up for her.
FINAL SCORE:  402 – 357 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – REU(N)ITEs, RESOLiN(G); Brenda – T(R)ENDING

I definitely need to work on improving my strategic play and reducing mental errors.  Scrabble® is challenging enough without giving points to your opponent.  Oh well, there’s always the next game…

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Not much to say about tonight.  I played well given the tiles I had.  Seems like the studying is starting to pay off as I’m beginning to see more words now.  I won all three games again and have a winning streak of six games.

Game #1 vs Mark H
Mark started off well with severl 30+ point plays like ZIT (30), FRISK (49), DOGE (35), and THREW (35).  Unfortunately, that’s when I started to get good tiles to catch-up and then over-take him.  For some strange reason, we both made several addition errors this game.
FINAL SCORE:  429 – 320 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – ROSiNED, CSArINA*; Mark – none

Game #2 vs. Elizabeth S
I’ve played Elizabeth before.  She made a comment that she didn’t know me very well, so she couldn’t tell whether to challenge plays or not.  The story of this game was that I kept making dumb plays to give this game away – like playing JUMON* (what was I thinking?).  I learned a new word today – FORESTER.  Too bad it cost me a challenge to do it.  Fortunately for me, Elizabeth didn’t shut the board down and allowed me to make a final play bingo to win the game.
FINAL SCORE:  414 – 390 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – SAU(C)IESt, SANTERA; Elizabeth – FORE(S)tER

Game #3 vs. Stephen S
Not much to say about this game as I had good tiles throughout.  Stephen is fairly new to the club, so my goal was to keep the board open an try to play as many exotic words as I could – for practice.  I think I need to develop more of a "killing instinct" to put opponents away.
FINAL SCORE:  426 – 342 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – TRAINER, RESTAGE; Stephen – RELEaSE(R)

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Had a tough night at the club as the tiles weren’t really cooperating with me. Nevertheless, there’s plenty ‘a learning to be done.

Game #1 vs. Allan B
Learned a new word by challenging a play and losing – LANGUORS. Given the tiles I had, I should have lost this game. My only saving grace was that Allan kept fishing for a bingo by either trading one tile or playing a tile off on several turns, allowing me to stick around until I was able to play one bingo. Of course, 40 point time penalty also helps.
FINAL SCORE: 403 – 351 (WIN)
BINGOS: ME – rEPUTEd; Allan – LANGUORS, DEARIES, TEENIER

Game #2 – BYE
My turn to sit out and so I had a chance to kibitz a game between Vijay and Craig. I was encouraged because I what I would have played was exactly what Craig ended up playing – well, except for his last play. I gave up on these tiles, but Craig was able to find a bingo and finish the game for the win. His tiles were EILMOO?. The play was OInOMEL – what a great find!

Game #3 vs. Gene T
Not much to say about this one as I got spanked. Just one of those games. I have to admit, however, that I *hate* losing to Gene. Next time…
FINAL SCORE: 507 – 320 (LOSS)
BINGOS: ME – NATTERS; Gene – OvERFIT, UNRATED, InMATES

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Decided at the last minute to attend the Toronto club.  I wanted to test out how successful my studying has been.  Just the basics tonight.

Game #1 vs. Sharmaine F
I lose this game if Sharmaine makes a better play at the end.
FINAL SCORE:  393 – 376 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – REMAINS, LARGEST; Sharmaine – SEXTAIN, ISOTOpE

Game #2 vs. Stan J
Knowing that Stan likes to play short words, this game was a struggle to keep the board open.
FINAL SCORE:  415 – 323 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – aIRIEST, (R)ESTRINg; Stan – none

Game #3 vs. Barry M
After pulling way ahead, I managed to fight my way back.  Game turned on my second bingo, which ended up being phoney – I thought it was 50/50.
FINAL SCORE:  458 – 320
BINGOS:  ME – HANDSET, INGrA(V)ED*, NEWTOnS; Barry – none

Hopefully my string of good play continues at the Mississauga club as well as at tournaments.  I’m getting the feeling that my game is slowly becoming more solid.  Now it’s just a matter of learning more words…

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I’m not sure how to characterize this past night of Scrabble®. On the one hand, I played fairly well and made some interesting plays. Yet at the same time, I allowed some blatantly obvious phony plays to go unchallenged.

GAME #1 VS CRAIG ROWLAND (view full game)
This game was very interesting and fun.  Looking back, Craig should have won this game. Fortunately for me, he missed the winning play on turn #11 – he didn’t block and allowed me to play P(R)OJET for 69 points and take the lead.   If he played B(R)ISK, then I have no chance of catching him.  When everything was said and done, we ended up in a tie-game. That’s my second tie against Craig! What is up with that? Anyway, kudos to Craig as he made some great plays to keep scoring in the 20s/30s even when he didn’t have the best of tiles. In all fairness, I was very fortunate with the timing of my tiles that I was able to score big points with the consonants.  Apparently I missed one bingo – PICARAS on turn #10.  Looking at this game on Quackle is a bit frustrating because I can see all of the plays when I could have scored more.
FINAL SCORE: 381 – 381 (TIE)
BINGOS: ME – NANnIES; Craig – ODORiZE(S), SONI(C)ATE

GAME #2 VS DAVE KROOK
I had the better share of the tiles and pulled away. This game should not have been close, except that I allowed two phony plays to go unchallenged: KNUTE* and UNFRAY*. What was I thinking???? I did, however, challenge off CAMERADE*.
FINAL SCORE: 432 – 340 (WIN)
BINGO: ME – InTAKES, DO(S)SIERS; Dave – LAzIEST

GAME #3 VS SHAUNA PETRIE
This game was almost like the previous one as I had great tiles early. After pulling ahead with a big lead (>150 points), I started to close off bingo lanes. Shauna knew this, and yet she didn’t try to open the board up – very strange. Stupid me, I allowed JAP* to stay on the board – another boneheaded play. What was I thinking?
FINAL SCORE: 467 – 334 (WIN)
BINGOS: ME – vEILING, sEASON(E)D, EASTERN

**********

Well, I can’t really complain about tonight’s games. I beat who I’m expected to beat. I still haven’t been able to beat an expert like Craig, but hopefully with a bit of study, I’ll be able to pull out a win.

Good luck to all the participants at this weekend’s Kingston Cup tournament.

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I decided to visit the Toronto Scrabble® Club last night to play a few games and also to hand in my registration to Evan Berofsky for the Waterford, MI tournament on March 1-2, 2008.  Overall, the room seemed packed and full of energy and I was able to see quite a few familiar faces.  Well, onto the games…

GAME #1 VS. LARRY GREENSPAN
Larry was a new player to the club, but he’s pretty good.  He had problems playing with the clock, but otherwise seemed to fit in.  I think he’ll be a regular if he’s not hooked already.  Larry gave me a good scare at the beginning when he played a bingo to take a big lead.  I wondered if he was one of the "closet" expert-level Scrabble players who play online, but don’t have a rating or "real-world" experience.  Fortunately for me, he isn’t.  He got a bit frazzled by the clock and wasn’t able to score big points with the good tiles he had.
FINAL SCORE:  436 – 361 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – DARTING, (P)RaLINES, TORULAE; Larry – YAMmERS

GAME #2 VS. ELIZABETH SPIVAK
For some reason, I forgot the anagrams to TISANE+P as I was only able to remember PANTIES and SPINATE.  I compounded that by forgetting that SPINATE does not take the S when I played INFARES.
FINAL SCORE:  362 – 315 (WIN)
BINGOS:  ME – SPINATe, SHOwIES(T); Elizabeth – none

GAME #3 VS. TIM PRESSEY
Tim opened with a bingo and I thought that was a bad omen as I looked at my tiles.  Tim played a very good game and ground out a win as I wasn’t able to score much as I kept working to balance my rack.  I seemed to be one or two tiles away from a bingo the entire.  In retrospect, maybe I should have been more aggresive in trading tiles more – I traded twice in this game.  A final bingo by me made the score somewhat respectable.
FINAL SCORE:  435 – 333 (LOSS)
BINGOS:  ME – PINIEST; Tim – SLApPED, ROTTInG

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