Game One - ENVY!
Opponent: Betty Coleman
After a three month tournament absence, fresh from exams and no Scrabble study at all (cf. Rod "I like to go through the first ten thousand sevens and eights before every tournament" Talbot) I was a little tense going into game 1 at Chatswood. After a bit of a shaky start spending about 2 minutes trying to work out where to play UNAU and eventually playing FOUNT instead, I worked my way through EAU to SERIFED, which has one straightforward anagram [1]. A rash of nice scores ensued including a 68-point ZANTE. The windows at the Chatswood Club are cunningly designed so as to permit a suitably placed player in their immediate vicinity to actually read their opponent's rack in the internal reflection (provided they have a reasonable degree of aptitude at deciphering mirror-writing). Betty had pointed this out just before the game and I had promised to be honourable (and I was!) Nevertheless, at 338-161 my way following my second bingo of VIOLaTE, I was sensing some adversarial disenchantment with the proceedings, Betty having been thus far unable to play a word more than four letters long. (Hence the envy of my nice run of tiles by which this game is tenuously linked to an allegorical framework). Your correspondent proceeded to play an abysmally bad endgame, attempting to catch Betty with her Q despite knowing full well that she had two completely separate places to play it. Going out with the nice EARING (mega-bonus question: can anybody define this word without recourse to dictionaries?) was some minor consolation, although I don't think it consoled Betty overmuch, since she was on the receiving end of a 423-322 defeat, continuing my good run of tiles against her in tournaments.
Game Two - GLUTTONY!!
Opponent: Joan Rosenthal
Joan also having recorded a 90-odd win in the first round, we were paired on table 2 in the next round. The operation of Joan's square rotating board on the crowded Chatswood tables proved quite a challenge, necessitating the placement of all non-essential table-top items (e.g. tile bags) on adjacent chairs, etc. There were also clock hijinks, since when two sam timers are back to back it is quite easy to hit about four buttons at once unless you are REALLY CONCENTRATING. Which I, of course, was. So I can only attribute 250 of the points by which I lost to these distractions :). Later in the tournament, however, Joan managed to deprive me of an entire half-second of time when I was playing Bob by hitting our clock by mistake. Talk about adding insult to injury, belittlement, degradation and humiliation :)
Does my melodrama know no bounds? Methinks I digress from the gluttonous game in question, namely the one everybody now knows about, viz. the Game In Which The Highest Score Ever Was Recorded and I became Australia's Biggest Loser. A title for which I have arguably been contending in many spheres of life for some time, but to have it rendered official was, I felt, no more than I deserved. In all seriousness, congratulations to Joan for setting a new Australian record for an individual tournament game score. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I wallowed in self-pity afterwards (although it certainly must be said that I didn't put up large amounts of resistance AS WE SHALL SEE).
It unfolded thus: Joan opened with JIZ, which didn't leave a whole lot of options open for my rack of ABEIMRT (sevens?) [2]. Brilliantly missing ZIMB (which would have enabled Joan's next move to score even more) I plumped for BIZ. Joan promptly wrapped her FUNERAL around my B for FUNEBRAL. (Other anagrams of FUNERAL? [3]). I now held the rack AEIMRTT. It's now my least favourite rack. I could have got rid of it all in one go by playing AMARETTI, but instead I decided to ignore deep misgivings (note misleading implications that I actually saw AMARETTI) and come down off the centre I with IMITATER*. Joan said that she had a suspicion it would be good and immediately proceeded to challenge it off, since she was rather keen to play ALMONER/JO/IN/BIZE for 89, which she duly did, moving to a 194-15 lead. Not content merely to lose one turn, I then decided that I was really confident to play MATTIER* under the last four tiles of ALMONER. I must confess that the lyrics of 'Hair' were running through my head at the time, perhaps as a consequence of the friendly pre-tournament abuse hurled my way on account of my unkempt and rather lengthy locks, and in said song the word MATTY* is used as an adjective. I was so confident I tracked my tiles while the challenge was taken up. My tile tracking was not aided, therefore, when the word came off. Joan must have decided at this stage that if that idiot Chris hadn't seen AMARETTI by now then he never would, and gave me the third different place to play it - a triple word score this time - by snapping up the A8 triple with AQUA. Score 239-15. It was approximately at this point that I began to suspect that the game was perhaps unlikely to end in my favour. I also decided it was time to score a few points. All these resolutions helped me to miss INTIMATE for 39 down to the triple, which would have been nice for turnover. I did see the less-good INTERMIT for 33 but decided that it was a false word, in a continuation of my unerring inaccuracy. Ironically, the nine INTIMATER is good. I thought of it but it wouldn't have fitted on the board. In view of all this I eventually settled for a safe but bad TRIM at c5 for 26.
Joan decided that K's and V's weren't going to help her break any records and made KIVA for 22. I had been blessed after TRIM with a pickup of IIUU, leaving me with the charming UIUIATE. I found myself able to do little more than wish the I's could magically metamorphose into L's. I made QUAI for 15 rather than change. Joan promptly hooked this (and I mean promptly, the move took all of about six seconds) with GRAY/QUAIR for 34, and I had my most straightforward move with XU/AX/YU for 39, making the score 295-95 after 6 turns each.
Joan's next move was OWNS, making another overlap involving the J and Z for 47, and I played OIL for 25 underneath that. She then blocked the bottom area of the board with a d14 GOV for 22. Score 364-120. At this point we encounter the moment that I emphatically did not want advertised to the scrabbling public, but readers who have made it this far will already know the word that I am about to try to play. The rack was the interesting looking but ultimately fairly anaemic AEILOTT (eights? [4]). I looked at the h1 TWS and thought that it would be a shame to let it go to waste. I wished that the h6 E were conducive to a play of ETIOLATE. Unable to exert telekinetic powers to achieve this end by moving the E down two squares, an anagram of TOILET sprang to mind instead. (As opposed to OLEATE and ETOILE, neither of which made the perilous trip to my conscious mind). I did have brief doubts about the word as I played it, since I was only able to give a very very fuzzy and completely inadequate definition of LITOTES. I was fairly sure it was Greek. This should have discouraged me but for some reason it had the opposite effect. Very bad. Thanks to Joan for being very kind in challenging it off, and to John Holgate, monitoring the game's progress from the next board, for not raising his eyebrows too far. Also thanks to everybody through the rest of the day who kindly informed me that LITOTES is an anagram of TOILETS - a dollar for each of you and I could have shouted dinner at the Lane Cove Steak House for the entire membership of ASPA NSW.
Joan decided to celebrate the free turn by playing SONERIs for 79. Pausing only to note that this was one square away from allowing me to play TOTALIsE, I played the very weak GOAT to the bottom triple. Turnover really seemed to kick in here, with Joan hitting me with the other blank and her fourth bonus of ENTWInED for 74. The score was now a remarkable 517-135, and I was managing to make addition errors on all of Joan's cumulative totals, so that we both had to say the score a lot and thereby propagate the developments to other nearby tables.
For the rest of the game I decided to prove that if I didn't know anything else I at least knew the 3 letter words. My remaining moves were KON (Joan responded with FEH), LEY, PET (Joan responded with CAB), ETH and PSI. The LEY was an effort to open row 1 for a bingo (my leave was excellent), which backfired most tragically when Joan came straight down with the 92 point STEERED to reach 631 to my 186. Joan played out in two with her last 6 tiles of ACDGIO when I had failed to spot any of about 5 different outs-in-two with my last rack of DEHIPTS. With her last play Joan had notched up 686 points and my D made the final total 688-253. For anyone wishing to tell Joan how well she played/suggest 85 better moves for me throughout the game, the final game board is below.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o ----------------------------- 1|S T E E R E D = ' P|1 2| - L E Y " C A B S|2 3| - F E H ' K O N I|3 4|' - E N T W I n E D '|4 Joan Rosenthal 688 5| T R I M V |5 Chris May (D left) 253 6| " F U N E B R A L " |6 7| ' ' I ' |7 8|A Q U A J I Z ' =|8 9| U ' A L M O N E R ' |9 10| A O W N S " " |10 11| I O I L P E T |11 12|G R A Y S O N E R I s '|12 13|O X U ' D ' E T H |13 14|A - G O V I " A G O|14 15|T ' C ' =|15Game 3 - WRATH!!!
Game 4 - PRIDE!!!!
Opponent: Rene Chelton
At this point - having recorded two 100+ wins and still sustaining a negative 191 margin - some salvaging of dignity certainly seemed to be in order - such an eventful morning and still more than half the tourney to be played... Fortunately (for me) the tiles fell nicely against Rene, and following an opening change 7 I made the double-double of ENTRAIL, followed up with VEX and the 40 point JETONS, and then slotted in pATTIES. Rene kept in touch with some nice scores with Q and Z, so I proceeded to block up the board with several single-digit scores. The endgame was fairly interesting. With 4 tiles in the bag, I left one in there with the 5 point RUIN to go to a 362-290 leave. This left no bingo lines open. Rene played the excellent DRAT, dropping the D in front of RAT and opening for a bingo ending in A, E, I or O. Tracking told me that her final rack was EFGINU? and that if I didn't do something I was going to lose to GUNFIrE. It proved surprisingly tricky to block with ABEHLPS. I eventually plumped for BE/ED, since this forced any seven of Rene's to contain a letter that would go in front of B to make a two-letter word, i.e. A or O, the two vowels she didn't have. Rene had spotted GUNFIrE but now was bingo-less and the game finished quietly 424-318.
I felt I had acquitted myself at least passably by this stage, travelling 3/4 and -85. I was back to 9th spot. At lunchtime I considered exercising my month-old newfound legal privileges and imbibing a schooner of the Chatswood Club's best, but decided against same, deciding that the sorrow-drowning could wait until after the tournament. I did, however, need to visit the ATM to withdraw such cash as was necessary to renew my ASPA membership for the financial year. I was the immediate victim of concern that one so young should already be wasting his money on the poker machines. Just for the record, I've never played a poker machine in my life, although maybe I should have on Saturday - or maybe Joan should have, or somebody.
Game 5 - AVARICE!!!!! (on my part)
Opponent: Alison Pollard
I had been looking forward to a rematch with Alison since our City of Sydney January encounter in which I had been E-less till my last rack (and because she's a most agreeable opponent). However, I didn't expect the tiles to fall the other way on such a scale as they did here. I replied, and my first rack was AHINPRS, whose seven I didn't know [5]. I was hoping for Alison to play a G for the obvious PHRASING; then I found that I could get PIRANHAS if she played an A. I was initially disappointed when Alison opened with FIRM but eventually unravelled HAIRPINS for 64. Alison really struggled with plays like WOO, WO and TUN, as well as playing the false word UNLISTS* which I knew was wrong and challenged off, probably with a bit too much Schadenfreude after the LITOTE* incident. I refrained from mentioning INSULTS until after the game, however. Meanwhile I was going great guns with MOJO on the 3rd move for 46, LOCAtED for 77 on the fourth move, NOTICER for 81 on the sixth move (although it took me a couple of minutes to find it via COINTER and RECTION) and RIPENED for 76 on the seventh move where Alison had just tried her false word. Score 378-136. Alison told me at this point that I shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to beat Joan's record, so I refrained from scoring any triple triples, settling for RUGBY for 36 (from the colourful rack of BGKUVVY), QUAG for 28 and EXIT for 33. On my penultimate rack, however, I was faced with AEEGSV? and a T to play around. After about 6 minutes I eventually unravelled one of the two possible eights - the Shakespearean VEnTAGES. What was the other eight? [6]. It's not every tournament you get a 5-bingo game and a game with 5 bingos against you. Alison got absolutely nothing and couldn't do much about the 562-277 loss.
At this point my tournament was looking surprisingly good. 4 big wins had pushed my spread somehow to +200 and the 4 wins out of 5 had me travelling in fourth place. However, the big guns now lined me up in their sights.
Game 6 - SLOTH!!!!!!
Opponent: Bob Jackman
This was an appalling game. Although not unduly long in terms of moves played, it was cramped and awful. Bob started with two nice words, HAKAS for 32 and BEQUEST for 36 through the final U of the KUDU with which I had replied. I did not make the most of early opportunities when the board was uncluttered here, and the time it took me to bingo probably cost me the advantage. On move three I held AACILS? and although there are 11 sevens here, it's not that easy to find them. In fact, the only word I was reasonably sure of was SpACIAL since I remembered it - or thought I did - from something Michael Vnuk did in an ATB about common misspellings now allowed in Scrabble. But I wasn't sure and it was a very open and low scoring bingo so I elected not to try it - a mistake. It then took me three more turns to bingo, by which time Bob had got some solid scores to advance to a 58 point lead. He left a V hanging in the 5th spot of a triple triple. Unfortunately this wasn't quite right to make either RAVININg or NIRVANIc from my rack of AIINNR?. I played the mundane RAININg for 74. The game constricted, although some nice fives such as FANUM, RAZOO and TELEX subsequently appeared, and while Bob was plagued with consonants he was able to use their scoring potential more effectively than my vowels on the closed board. I played another very bad endgame, I suspect, in this game although I haven't analysed it. Despite going bingo-less Bob won 367-326.
Game 7 - umm - LECHERY!!!!!!! (but only because it's the only sin left)
Opponent: Rod Talbot
Out of contention, I was paired with Rod for the last game, as I was in my last tournament at Sutherland. Each of us had had only two starts out of six, and the computer awarded me the start in this game, so Rod finished with only two from seven. Question: how can this happen with balanced computer starts? Were there people with five out of seven starts? Would the fact that some higher rated players started the first round be significant?
The standout feature of this game was Rod's really excellent word knowledge. After a prosaic PIMP opening from me, Rod played PEALIKE instead of the better-known APELIKE for 17. I bingoed first with BANTERS and followed it up with DOWF but Rod sequentially played YATTERED and the impressive SOUTACHE (although he couldn't remember its anagram CATHOUSE which would have scored more). Pausing only for the brief LEW while I was struggling with clearing plays like AGIO and FAVA, Rod then hit me with REsIDUE to move ahead 258-175. Two turns later I spent ages trying to unravel an eight through a second-position I holding ENRSTU? to make a double double and catch up. Did I miss any/many? [7] I eventually settled for ENTRUSt for 71 down the N column, but I knew it was too open and used the wrong spot. Rod promptly availed himself of my I spot with VARIX for 52 and followed it up by taking my O column opening with HOAR for 45, such that my recovery was fleeting at best. He also cleverly set himself up for the last S with OINOMEL, which I knew there was no point challenging but challenged anyway. It must be one of the first ten thousand sevens and eights. My rack of ALINNNT wasn't terribly conducive to catching up 80 points, so I settled for the placid NINON and copped the 451-351 defeat.
Final Assessment: 4/7 and a POSITIVE MARGIN of +59! Lost 3 ratings points but a particularly interesting and eventful tournament, and the dinner afterwards was very enjoyable, if periodically interrupted by my neighbour Ric Birch receiving mysterious phone calls from a certain Second Place Winner seated further up the table. Of note at the dinner was the presence of an entree entitled Balmain Bugs, which was sampled with delight by Hanne Marks. I thought it was particularly appropriate given the record breaking efforts of Balmain's greatest stalwart club player (against another more hapless Bug) earlier in the day.
Answers below
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3. FRENULA and FLANEUR
4. DATOLITE ETIOLATE LITERATO TONALITE TOTALISE TOTALIZE VOLITATE
5. HARPINS
6. VEGETALS
7. No! Although there are 30 eights in EINRSTU?, NONE of them have an I 2nd. And to think I felt really bad about not finding that 4x!