We interrupt this reminiscence of the distant past to bring you a reminiscence of the more recent past.
Been a while since my last Scrabble entry, and about as long since I had studied, or even played. Unfortunately, it showed by my performance. This was my third National Scrabble Championship - I finished 12-19 in Providence in 2000, 13-18 in San Diego in 2002, so I was aiming for at least a 14-win showing this time around. This NSC's slate called for 30 games instead of the usual 31, so it was in an 8-7-8-7 format over four days, with the aforementioned best-of-five finale coming on the fifth day.
Day 1 did not start off well. Game 1 was actually against a player from the local club - I got away with CASTILLO (LOCALIST was both good and playable) but not much else as he ran away with a 160-point win. Game 2 I managed 405 points but still lost by 72, and game 3 was tight but also unsatisfying as I stumbled to an 0-3 record with a 34-point loss, lining up a game against the top-ranked player in my initial group of 8 (the first 7 games are a round-robin in a group of 8 players selected to make them more or less evenly distributed ratings-wise). He, of course, thrashed me by 201 to drop me to 170th out of 176 before our first lunch break.
Next up after lunch is a player by the name of Charnwit Sukhumrattanaporn. Yes, Charnwit Sukhumrattanaporn. Over the last four or five years, there's been a contingent of players from Thailand, many of whom barely speak English, but can certainly wipe the floor with you across a Scrabble board. They know enough for typical game play - announcing scores, figuring out who's going first, etc. - but extended conversations are mostly nonexistent, unless it's with their compatriots, which grow more numerous every tournament. I'm amazed at their ability to play at such a high level in a language so foreign to their own. I somehow manage to draw well this game and bingo with HOOTIER at the very end of the game to win by 40 and nab my first win of the day. Unfortunately, it was also my last. I did manage to get my opponent some money in our next game - a $25 prize was awarded in each division to the person winning with the lowest score. I held him to a 294...but he held me to a 274. Bleh. Tight game all around, very tough board to play. The next game was not so tight, as I suffered a 184-point whipping at the hands of one of Canada's top players to fall to 1-6, and then Mark Przybyszewski and I battled another close game, which I dropped by 39 to finish a wholly unsatisfying day at 1-7.
Day 2 treated me a bit better, though not before playing the 39th-ranked player in the country, who beat me up to the tune of 496 points. I think that woke me up, as I went on a mini 3-game winning streak, 402-330, 414-295 and 373-313. This shot me all the way to 4-8 and 150th place...which would prove to be my high-water mark of the tournament. Two middling losses followed (98 and 81 points) though I did finish the day with a win and a 5-10 record.
Day 3, someone had apparently put a "KICK ME" sign on my back, as I reverted to my ways of Day 1, with a 1-7 record. With the exception of a 166-point loss, though, most of the losses were just close enough to be frustrating, including one against a Thai player that really hurt. He ended up with a blank on his last rack that enabled him to make an unblockable outplay with the Q that gave him a come-from-behind win by 13. My one victory came against someone who unfortunately had a worse record than me, which is the bad part about playing so poorly - everyone you're facing has had a hard time of it as well, so wins don't end up as satisfying as you might want them to be, due to the sympathy factor.
Day 4 was the day I'd been waiting for all tournament - despite starting the day with a 6-17 record and having the unsavory prospect of 20 losses staring me in the face, I managed to pull out a 5-2 final day, including a last-game exclamation point of 495, my high game of the tournament (for comparison, probably 80% of the players in my division had at least one game over 500, and five even broke 600, with a high of 622). Started off with two wins in the morning, and then after two losses to the same person (odd pairings at the bottom of the division), I went undefeated in the three afternoon games to finish at 11-19 overall, "good" for 157th place out of 173 (well, 172 - one unfortunate player went 0-8 on day 1 and dropped out).
More studying next time!
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled pre-dated show reviews.
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