Date: 2008-09-30 11:49 Subject: Scrabble karma Security: Public Current Mood: petty

Late in a game at club last night, I'm way behind, over on clock, and I just want it to be done with, so I'm dumping tiles, and I probably lose 20-30 points by dumbly missing the front I hook to LEA, for which I was roundly chastised by one of the other players...

...who played me in the next round, and challenged SALTERN.

Date: 2008-07-14 12:04 Subject: Philly, 7/13/08, 7-0 +550 FTW Security: Public Current Mood: accomplished

Tournament wins, I'm learning, are cool. Going 7-0 doesn't suck either.

I wasn't even planning on going, until greatscott66 pointed out Saturday night that this time there'd be five divisions instead of four, and that I'd likely be pretty far down in division 4, not at the top of 5. So reillye being the accommodating sort that she is, let the lawnwork slide, and Matt, being the accommodating sort that he is, let me in when I called him at a bit after 9:00 Sunday morning.

I get there, and after the dust settles, I'm ninth seed out of 11 in division 4. It's a good place to be, because the ratings spread is only about 250--the top seeds aren't guaranteed to crush the rest of us.

Tile synergy is what did it. Not too much vowelitis, and very little of the Noah's Ark Syndrome that's been plaguing me at club lately. I drew above average on power tiles (8/14 blanks, 15/28 S, 23/35 JKQXZ), but it was made even better for me that my opponents got stuck with three esses and a blank.

My last game was won by pure luck. Late in the game I had SOAPIER on my rack, and opp closed what I thought were the two open lanes for it, and I completely missed another place it would have played. I also didn't see (V)APORISE. His final rack was AMOUY?? and he had ten minutes to search, but he (and I) didn't see ArMOUrY, AUtOnYM or MO(R)tUArY, playable outbingoes that would have given him the game. It wouldn't have cost me the tournament, because I had a 125-point spread cushion, but I still can't claim credit for that win.

I certainly don't mind taking home a check, but the real win is that my rating should jump to 1140 or so, which is the breakout from the bottom division I've been waiting for. The next step is 1200, which will get me into the top half of ranked players.

Edit: My Brawndo T-shirt is starting to make me believe in luck.

Edit 7/21/08: 1145. Neato.

Date: 2008-04-24 12:22 Subject: My BAT roto picks Security: Public Current Mood: hopeful

Decided I'd jump in this year with two teams:

P) Jere Mead, lordiceman
A) Mike Baron, crosstables, satireblank
B) kangarau, mrsscheisskopf

P) jasonkb, jigsawn
A) magratheazaphod, cheezchick, spherulitic
B) etotheipi, greatscott66

No pressure, though.

Date: 2008-04-15 12:07 Subject: Apropos of today... Security: Public Current Mood: amused

I just played ANTITAX in a Scrabulous game.

Date: 2008-04-03 20:00 Subject: Two more things about Princeton Security: Public Current Mood: forgetful

I finally got to play one of my dream words: THIOUREA. And it got challenged: "Thee-yoo-ree-uh? Never heard of that."

Also, I forgot to publicly thank greatscott66, Lynda and Dave for another exceptionally well-run tournament. Proof for the NYC crowd that great tournaments in Jersey didn't die with Margaret Bauer Williams, Princeton is well worth a ride down the Turnpike. The timeliness with which everything ran, despite some nasty technical issues and one no-call-no-show, make for quite the contrast to the recent AC fiascos.

Date: 2008-04-02 10:12 Subject: Princeton 3/28-3/30 Security: Public Current Mood: frustrated

The good: 9-5 +859, 3rd place in Division 4 ($90).
The bad: I picked up four rating points in the Early Bird, and gave five back in the main event.
( The rest... )

Date: 2008-02-18 11:05 Subject: Philly, 2/17/08, 6-1 +530 FTW Security: Public Current Mood: accomplished

It took me 18 tournaments to do it, but I finally pulled off a win. (When I called reillye to tell her, she then told Himself, who said, "Yeah, but it was division 4, right?" Cheeky.) I should pick up about 27 rating points, putting me a few tournaments away from sinking back to three digits.
( Maybe it was the Brawndo... )

Date: 2008-02-11 23:34 Subject: Hey Scrabulous types! Security: Public Current Mood: kibitzy

( Club and tournament players can skip this... )

Date: 2008-02-05 11:34 Subject: Petty little whine Security: Public Current Mood: grrr

The asshat in AC who got one tie and then stomped out of the tournament gained more rating points than I did, even though I finished at my seed and met my expected wins.

Date: 2008-01-29 12:35 Subject: AC Tournament synopsis Security: Public Current Mood: slightly disappointed

I'm not going to go game by game.

31st seed out of 36 in division C. Five wins, nine losses, and a very untimely bye. Spread something like -250.

Highlights: Winning by one point on a recount. Getting away with a couple intentional drek-clearing phoneys. Finding the winning outbingo in an after-hours team game. Beating a 1500+ player. Not losing rating points. Yummy food at Carraba's.

Lowlights: Losing a game solely by mistracking. Unproductive exchanges. Unproductive use of blanks. Playing unintentional phoneys. Drawing so badly in the other after-hours team game that we played OIDIA twice in a row. The win against the 1500 player being an unrated game. Not gaining rating points. Getting a bye at a very bad time.

Must: Stop seeing OUTRISE* first in EIORSTU, and relying on opp's graces to be able to play STOURIE on the next turn.

Noted improvement: Not automatically getting creamed, and sometimes even winning, when opp draws the bag. Not getting blown out at all--worst loss was to Glenn Filzer by 109 points, who outrated me by 400 points and drew everything but SQ. Went 2-2 in the first four games despite drawing just two Ss.

( Bingos... )

Date: 2008-01-29 11:51 Subject: An open letter to the person who dropped out of AC Security: Public Current Mood: appalled

[I am not going to mention this person's name because he is not here to defend his actions. I sent this directly to him yesterday and have not received a response yet.]

Edit: No response from him as of February 5. None expected at this point.

Mr. ________:

You don't know me. I was a play-up Division C player at AC this
weekend. I am in the difficult position every novice player goes
through, working to get off the Division C/Division D cusp. I am trying
very hard to get my rating high enough to ensure that I won't end up at
the top of the bottom division in future tournaments. The only way to
do this, especially in this era of ratings deflation, unrated but highly
skilled "ringers", etc., is to play a lot of rated games, but family
obligations severely limit my ability to attend tournaments. I cannot
afford additional impediments to advancement.

Your departure from the AC tournament made our division odd, reducing
that number of games for myself and thirteen other players, all of whom
had to take byes as a result. As a tournament director yourself, I'm
very surprised that you reacted as you did without regard to the effect
you must have known it would have on the rest of the division. We
fourteen came to play Scrabble, and not to sit out rounds; in particular
this cost me an opportunity to earn a few more much-needed rating points.

Whatever disagreement you had with the directors (the particulars are
irrelevant to me), please understand that your resignation hurt your
fellow players a lot more than it hurt the directors. I urge you to keep
this in mind the next time you're considering such drastic action.

Respectfully,

-Ed Horch

Date: 2008-01-07 23:56 Subject: New club digs Security: Public Current Mood: sleepy

Tonight was our first night meeting at the diner.

The good: Plenty of space, curious onlookers, a later start, and the ability to play until we've had enough (they're open until 3:00am). Beating a 1300 player without drawing the bag.

The bad: Not knowing that if you ordered nothing or just coffee or soda, they hit you with a $2.00 "table charge". We're going to try to do something about that because a) several of us had full meals and almost everyone ordered something, and b) the main reason we moved from the JCC is so that we could return to not charging people anything[1].

The ugly: Getting the bag drawn on me by a 1600 player.

Looks like we'll do just fine here.

[1] When one of our members was also a JCC member, we got the room for free. When her membership lapsed, we had no "sponsor" and had to start paying something like $500/year. That's very reasonable for what we got, but we still had to come up with it somehow, and it's always been a goal of the club to not have to charge dues or fees.

Date: 2007-12-30 13:49 Subject: Even better that I'm not at Albany Security: Public Current Mood: grateful

OK, so not only so I have this stinking cold (which is stinking less since the meds started working, but still), I took me until noon today to get rid of the killer, bowl-hugging, no-just-God-would-allow-this migraine that I woke up with at 4:30 this morning. This would have made me forfeit the first couple games this morning--not something one wants to do when one only attends one or two weekend tournaments a year.

Date: 2007-12-29 10:20 Subject: I should be jealous Security: Public Current Mood: on the mend Current Music: ringing ears

Right around this date I'm usually pretty jealous of all the Scrabble Cool People® who are partying hard in Albany. But seeing as how I've been down with this miserable cold since last Sunday, I doubt I'd be partying much, and I'd definitely be playing lousy Scrabble--witness my performance at AC last year when I was being overtaken by the flu (and 700-something blue-hairs). I also gave back about 60 ratings points on ISC yesterday, just in case I was unclear on the concept.

I'm feeling better today but a quick run on Zyzzyva confirms "know cold ⊃ no cold", but not so much otherwise.

Have fun y'all!

Date: 2007-12-10 10:00 Subject: Find the 8 Security: Public Current Mood: amused

Scrabulous insists on displaying my rack in random order, even though I prefer alphagram order. But sometimes you get something interesting, like:
( Are you sure this is really random? )

Date: 2007-09-18 17:06 Subject: Ski rabble? Security: Public Current Mood: curious

So the cooler weather got me to thinking: I haven't been skiing in a really long time, and nobody else in my close circle of family and friends skis, but I bet a few of you northeast-US Scrabblers do. So what say you to the idea of meeting at some centrally-located ski area some weekend this winter, for skiing during the day then apres-ski Scrabble?

Date: 2007-08-18 14:53 Subject: Hnutington Beach club #34 Security: Public Current Mood: content Current Music: Scooba

Had fun playing four rounds at the extremely friendly club 34 in Huntington Beach, CA this past Tuesday. I went 1-3 -60something, which I thought was a little weak, but I checked afterwards, and my lowest-rated opponent was 1269 and my expected wins were only 0.3. Ironically it was against my highest rated opponent (1504) that I was handed the game won, drawing everything but an S, a blank and the K, while she drew drek and exchanged three times.

I was reminded again of challenging plays, not words, when my brain spasmed and I thought WEAN was a misspelling of WEEN and I challenged the play, which came off the board because of the E being hooked to FID to make FIDE*. The funniest play was when opp played JISM/SHIT to the triple for 68.

One of their members, who lives in Irvine, told me that she lives within 11 miles of five clubs. *jealous*

We could have played more, but the IHOP where they meet closes at 10:00pm (and in other news, there's an IHOP that closes). I'll definitely try to get back to that club whenever I go out there on business.

Date: 2007-07-03 16:00 Subject: A haiku after going 1-2 in club last night Security: Public Current Mood: exanimate

Date: 2007-05-29 11:42 Subject: For your consideration re: Baltimore tournament 9/28-9/30 Security: Public Current Mood: concerned

From the announcement posted to CGP:

Make checks payable to
Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns
Proceeds to benefit establishing Baltimore School Scrabble 410-243-6699

http://www.gbcpc.org/
http://www.seamless-garment.org/plmd.shtml

Just sayin'.

Date: 2007-05-16 11:21 Subject: NY Times Letters Security: Public Current Mood: bored Current Music: Slow-moving scut work

In response to Nora Ephron's pice in the times about Scrabble, they printed three letters from readers, none of whom are tournament players. Makes me wonder how many zillions of online players there are who could be potential club and tournament players.

Oh, and they thankfully didn't print the letter they had to have received from Hasbro whinging that the writers called it "Scrabble" and not "The SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game".