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.