Monday, February 23, 2004

 

The organizer of the scrabble tournament I played in a few weeks ago has kind of befriended me and taken me under his wing, since. He's a really nice guy. So anyway, he invited me over to his house in Lexington, yesterday, for an afternoon of scrabble with him and a couple friends. All turned out to be really nice - and really smart. I was shocked (and proud) to actually be competetive with them in the three games I played - two losses, one win. Here was my best game:

Miles		Opponent
MINI	12	BODE	18
BRUNT	14	change 3	0
BOLT	20	TEA	14
JAR	26	HEADY	55
TUX	32	change 4	0
FIVE	17	FRYER	22
KEY	20	PACK	24
REP	15	OAR	3
ADZ	23	MA	16
FALSELY	68	AG	17
ROUTINE	67	ALINERS	83
IODISES	68	SPAWN	39
AW	28	TOUCHE	49
GOON	7	RIG	8
(overtime)	-10	(rack QVIN)	32
Total	408	Total	380

You can see it started off slow, but really heated up towards the end.

And yes, that's right, I bingoed three times in a row.

"Bingo, Bango, Bongo!" is apparently the "technical" term for it. I've never done it before, and I have no idea if I'll ever do it again. But I'll tell ya', damn was it exhilerating. :-)

As you can also see, there really aren't that many uncommon words on the board (well, there may have been cross plays that would have been odd, I'm not sure.) ALINERS, TOUCHE, AG if you're not a scrabble player.

Here are the other two games:

Miles		Opponent
LUTZ	26	JAIL	22
AJAR	11	LAP	14
ZOO	12	CENSURE	95
WOO	29	DAH	31
MA	10	ROTATED	69
NADIR	18	COOLY	24
KLUTZ	42	WEEST	42
PEEVE	28	VINO	26
change 7	0	FAQIR	40
LOG	23	YENTA	27
SAUCE	7	AGONE	20
MUSHY	26	BIAS	10
FIT	24	GIE	9
BRIDE	16
(rack)	6
Total	279	Total	429

Miles		Opponent
RELOSES*	62	MOURNING	60
ZIG	31	PEAKS	22
ETH	14	ODEA	15
(FOLLIENT*)	0	HOARD	31
FILLET	26	SWINE	57
GOY	29	FLEW	30
NOVAE	16	change 5	0
QUAD	16	MEAGER	42
REFACTOR*	92	REFACTORS*	42
BOP	32	JINGLED	34
TAJ	30	GUV	21
OY	19	RAX	26
TIDIER	12	CURTAIN	20
BAN	15	BI	7
		(rack)	6
Total	394	Total	413

More unusual words in these two games, obviously. In the latter, there were a bunch of phonies played (denoted *) - including both of my bingos. The first was just kinda' dumb; right after I put it down, I figured out it could have been RESOLES, which is good; also, the R was actually a blank, so (we figured out later, examining the board) it could have been TOELESS, too. I think there were one or two other obscure words in that rack, too. I was really surprised about REFACTOR* being a phony; Ben thought about challenging it, but decided against.


All in all: just an exceptionally fun afternoon.

posted by Miles 9:17 AM