Will's nationals roundup

I played in Division 3 this year. In 2007 at Dayton, I was in Division 5 of 5; last year in Orlando, I was in Division 4 of 6. Movin' up!

I was seeded 52 out of 128, but I had high aspirations. My rating had climbed significantly in the past year, and my two most frequent opponents, Matthew and Tyler, were both rated 1600, and I usually was competitive in those games. Plus, just before I left for Dayton, Matthew gave me a pep talk that had me thinking I could slay a bear with my hands.

Alas, it was not to be. I had a terrific start; after Game 2, I was in third place by virtue of two blowout wins. The second game was one of my tourney highlights: My opponent drew the bag on me, yet I cruised to victory.

After Day 1, I was 5-2 and in 14th place. After that, though, I went 8-16 for the rest of the tournament to finish at 13-18 and in 102nd place.

There were fun moments. I renewed acquaintances with Scrabble friends and made new ones. Steve and Tyler were terrific travel companions, and as Steve mentioned, our after-hours games of Anagrams were a hoot.

Among my tourney highlights: I played a nine, RECOALING, for the first time that I can remember. Better yet, it withstood a challenge. I played two bingoes – AERONAUT and EATERIES – from my list of five-vowel eights. My high play was ALBEDOS for 95 through a triple-word score, hooking the S to make DEMOTIONS. That play drew a challenge as well. That was the same game in which I plated EATERIES, and it was my high game of the tournament: 503 p0ints. On the low end, I had two sub-300 games. I had a total of 32 bingoes in 31 games, which tells me that either I missed quite a few bingoes or I didn't manage my rack well. Or both. My opponents played 45 bingoes. That's probably my worst ratio ever in a tournament.

Here are some other stats:

My plays challenged – good: DOMICAL, ROOTAGES, STOT, ALBEDOS, ULCERATE, SARDINED, RECOALING,

My plays challenged – no good: EMO, EDEN, OPA, (unrecorded), GREEKS, KINESIA,

Opponents’ plays challenged – good: NIDATING, SYN, KAES, TOPED, OVERSIDE,

Opponents’ plays challenged – no good: MH, SLEDLINE, SANDELS, ELUATED, DONABLE, WADINGS, SIZEY, (unrecorded), JANED, ARELATE,

My unchallenged phoney: DRAGO

Opponents’ unchallenged phoneys: EREPINES, SEMINOLES, WELTY

My bingoes:
DOMICAL, AERONAUT, ROOTAGES, LISTENER, AEROSATS, GREETERS, ENCASING, ADORERS, OUTLAST, ENSLAVED, MENACES, PENSIVE, ALBINOS, EATERIES, ALBEDOS, UNCAGES, ULCERATE, ATOMISE, DIABASE, SARDINED, ASSERTS, RECOALING, AGONIES, ANALYST, DARLING, GRIDDLE, CLOVERS, SNOWING, DARESAY, IGNEOUS, RONDELET, STANDER

Opponents’ bingoes:
STRAINED, RELIEVER, ISATINE, SLANDERS, DUMPIER, NIDATING, LOITERS, BEIGNETS, ENCASING, ADORERS, REGRADED, EREPINES*, WAISTERS, LACTONE, SENIORS, PASTIES, SQUAMAE, OVERSIDE, DEMOTION, SLEDDER, REIFIES, TAENIAS, OLEATES, ENTIRES, ENGRAVES, INOSITE, NEGATION, HURLERS, SOLATES, BRACING, FEDERATE, TRITONES, AERATING, TESTERS, ELOIGNED, SEMINOLE*, COMEDIAN, FALTERS, CONSUMES, ORIENTAL, STAMENS, TREHALA, TRAWLER, REISSUE, JAILERS

Nationals Recap

I've been meaning to do this for awhile, and finally have some time. Since this was a 5-day, 31-game marathon of a tourney, it's obviously not practical to post a game-by-game analysis (sorry to disappoint everyone :-). Instead, I thought I'd just list some random thoughts about the overall experience, what went well and what didn't, and so on...

Overall experience
First and foremost, I had an absolute blast. From the overall outstanding job on the part of the organizers and volunteers running the whole thing, to the comraderie with fellow Scrabble enthusiasts, to the games themselves, it was something I'll never forget. Will and Tyler were great company the whole time, and one of my favorite activities was trading war stories with them while playing anagrams after hours at the outside tables at McDonald's or the coffee shop down the road from the hotel.

Personal bests
I set a few personal records which I'm proud of. First, was what I believe to be my first 9-letter word (that wasn't simply a hooked 8) in a tourney game. I had AELSTU? on my rack, and OP was on the board with O on the center square and P below it, so I played cOPULATES down to the triple word score. It was only later that I realized that I could have made the blank a P. :-)

I also had my highest game ever, a 579-402 win against Stephen DeBacco in the final round. There were a total of 7 bingoes, DIVISION, PELORIAS, ACARInES, and FATTENER by me (all 8s!), and NICTATeD, SETLINE (with a 5-word parallel play), and OUTREAD by him. I believe this was also possibly the High Combined Win for division 3, but the stats on the NSC website only go through round 28 or so, so far.

Finally, I got my rating to a new peak of 1395, which is +2 over where it was after Charleston WV last year before a subsequent (and precipitous) fall.

Favorite Plays
Highest scoring play was GLOATeRS, a 3x3 for 131, but that was a relatively easy find. Perhaps my favorite play was playing HQRSU through a U to make QURUSH, for a DWS with the Q on TLS, for 76 points.

Worst Play
Against Mark Garrod, playing HINGY* for a TWS, with the Y on DLS, and hooking the Y onto NOOK for NOOKY. This would have been a 64-point play and put me in the driver's seat to victory. Unfortunately it was challenged off. Even more unfortunately, I could have played HYING with the Y in the same spot, to the other TWS square, for the same score, and probably still drawn the challenge (Mark told me after the game he was equally unsure about NOOKY and HINGY*). Further, HYING was a better play since it closed the board down more effectively than HINGY*. Most unfortunate of all, though, HYING, a word that I was certain was good, was going through my head, even as I made the weaker (and invalid) play. I still don't understand why I did that, and probably never will.

Phonies and Challenges
I felt that this was one of my more prominent success areas during the tourney. I both won more challenges, and got away with more phonies, than my opponents by a significant margin:

Phonies by me that were allowed: PONTINES, SYRI, YOGIE, SNUGGLY (my favorite), CORIAL

Phonies by me that were challenged off: SEIGNOUR, HINGY

Opponents' phonies, allowed: SEALINGS, OVERKNOT, OVERKNOTS, LEASEES, GOLDY, IODONES, LEGWISE

Opponents' phonies, challenged off: COGNATER, PHEWS, CULTIS, HAWN, KETTLING, VINS, FOMATING, EMERATAS, SWIN, PARTRIGES, EP, BANIS

Good words, challenged by me: CARBINOL, SHOTTED, DICKY, BARNEYS, OUTPLACE, AEDINE

Good words, challenged by opponents: FATTENER, VIS, DEMOTING, NOMS, ACNED, LIVRE, FORMEE, WITHY, VERATRIN, SNOOLED

Again, overall I had a wonderful time. Of course I felt like I could have done better, as I have a tendency to overly dwell on my mistakes, but in the grand scheme of things a 19-12 performance is nothing to complain about. If nothing else, it's further motivation for the next time, whenever and wherever that might be.

Congratulations to Tyler and Steve!

At the end of Nationals, there was an awards ceremony where prizewinners from all five divisions were called to the front of the convention center main hall to be recognized for their accomplishments and receive the applause of their fellow players. Our small club had two such individuals, whose pictures from the NASPA collection of tourney photos are given below.

2009 NSC Division 2 8th-place winner

TYLER HANNAN

19-12, +1725

with Division 2 Director John Robertson

2009 NSC Division 3 12th-place winner

STEVE BUSH

19-12, +1290

with Division 3 Director Wendell Smith

Club Players at 2009 NSC, Dayton

The 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship at Dayton ended today around noon, with thirty-one rounds having been played over the course of four and a half days. Results for the four players from our club are given below; players' names are linked to each person's results page on the 2009 NSC webpages.

CONGRATULATIONS to Tyler Hannan for finishing eighth in Division 2, winning a prize of $300 dollars, and to Steve Bush for finishing twelfth in Division 3, winning a copy of the DVD of "Scrabylon." John Spangler won a set of double-injected ProTiles, one of the prizes in a raffle of Scrabble equipment donated to support NASPA.

It was announced Monday night that the 2010 and 2011 National Scrabble Championships will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

Here are final results for this year for our club players at NSC:

DIVISION 2
Tyler Hannan (seeded 15th with 17.9 expected wins)

pre-tourney rating, 1603; post-tourney, 1652, gaining 49 points

-- at the end of Day 5: 19-12, +1725, finishing 8th of 90

-- at the end of Day 4: 17-11, +1453, 10th of 90
-- at the end of Day 3: 12-9, +1084, 16th of 90

-- at the end of Day 2: 9-5, +980, 7th of 90
-- at the end of Day 1: 3-4, +415, 45th of 90

DIVISION 3
Will Scott (seeded 52nd with 16.6 expected wins)
pre-tourney rating, 1328; post-tourney, 1272, losing 56 points
-- at the end of Day 5: 13-18, +296, finishing 101st of 128
-- at the end of Day 4: 13-15, +500, 76th of 128
-- at the end of Day 3: 11-10, +611, 45th of 128
-- at the end of Day 2: 8-6, +480, 30th of 128
-- at the end of Day 1: 5-2, +272, 14th of 128
Steve Bush (seeded 55th with 16.4 expected wins)
pre-tourney rating, 1320; post-tourney, 1395, gaining 75 points
-- at the end of Day 5: 19-12, +1290, finishing 12th of 128
-- at the end of Day 4: 17-11, +1053, 18th of 128
-- at the end of Day 3: 12-9, +425, 29th of 128
-- at the end of Day 2: 8-6, +253, 36th of 128
-- at the end of Day 1: 4-3, +73, 50th of 128

DIVISION 4
John Spangler (seeded 94th with 9.6 expected wins)
pre-tourney rating, 838; post-tourney, 859, gaining 21 rating points
-- at the end of Day 5: 13-18, -1277, finishing 84th of 93
-- at the end of Day 4: 12-16, -1161, 79th of 93
-- at the end of Day 3: 9-12, -788, 80th of 93
-- at the end of Day 2: 5-9, -325, 77th of 93
-- at the end of Day 1: 2-5, -362, 82nd of 93