Saturday, July 19, 2008

Scrabble Nationals 2008 (Day One)

This year's Nationals is once again held at Toa Payoh West CC. I went earlier in the hope of catching the masters players in action and saw Jiang Pern doing a post game analysis with his opponent as he just narrowly lost by 1 point. Had lunch and played a friendly game with Ruby before division B officially started.

Game 1: vs Winston Gwee
Our scores were neck in neck until the last few moves. I got away with STERILED* when I back hooked ZED to an existing STERILE on the board. Think I had mixed it up with STERILISED. Anyway, I made a silly mistake on my last move. I played GIN for 19 points, forgetting that Winston also had an "A" on his rack and he managed to bingo out with ERASION to win!

New words learnt: AWNER
My Bingos: TRIPLET(79) Opp Bingos: STERILE(73), ERASION(76)
My Phoneys: STERILED* Opp Phoneys: JUTED*
My High Moves: PRY(32), ZED(42), AWNER(43) Opp High Moves: BOX(61), TAJ(30), QI(31), WOK(39)
L 406-474, -68. 0W 1L (Accum spread -68).

Game 2: vs Lester Phong
He pulled ahead after his ROSEATE bingo. Mistakenly thought that HOE had no front hook but Lester promptly put EAGLES down the triple lane on his turn. I managed to narrow the gap with JET(36) and XI(38) but lost the game effectively after he scored heavily with DWEEBS(40) down the triple lane. For my last move, I could have saved 15 spread points if I had played CWM instead of BEAGLES.

New words learnt: ROSEATE, INTIL, DWEEBS
My Bingos: - Opp Bingos: ROSEATE(72)
My Phoneys: DICY* Opp Phoneys: -
My High Moves: ZAS(38), JET(36), XI(38) Opp High Moves: NOMAD(30), QI(33), DWEEBS(40)
L 302-378, -76. 0W 2L (Accum spread -144).

Game 3: vs zzBye
Played a friendly game with Lester's girlfriend during my bye. She was lucky with several bingos like CATFISH and TRAIPSED. Tried PERTInG* when I had a ?EGIPRT rack but was challenged off!

W 150-100, +50. 1W 2L (Accum spread -94).

Game 4: vs Ganapathy
Mistakenly thought that RAINING(79) had no front hook when I was deciding how to back hook the "N" of my bingo to an existing PROVE on the board. In fact, there were four possible front hooks! Ganapathy scored very well despite having no bingo but I maanged to pull ahead with my second bingo TOILETS(70) when he opened up with CENTS(15).

New words learnt: GRAINING, FANNY
My Bingos: RAINING(79), TOILETS(70) Opp Bingos: -
My Phoneys: GOF* Opp Phoneys: NES*, JUDE*, JUDES*
My High Moves: - Opp High Moves: PIE(37), AGON(33), BREWS(48), FANNY(53)
W 427-380, +47. 2W 2L (Accum spread -47).

Finished day 1 with 2 wins and 2 losses.

No comments: