SJ tournaments are surely attracting lot of crowd. This was the first time I played in a group that wasn't the lowest rated group.
Game2 - Joan. I would probably reason that I lost the game fishing for a bingo, but I have to concede Joan played very well in a close-fought game. It wasn't as close as the final spread of -10 indicates. I did not control the game well enough and lost it.
Game3 - Pat. I didn't play very well but in the mid-game, I drew the bag. When I bingoed ASSIsTED, I drew another blank for the rack: ARENAT?. I could not find the bingos when I had the tiles and that probably cost me gaining an advantage in the game. The game was still pretty close with me having a slender lead when I opened up the triple and gifted her 48 points utilizing X. I lost the game in that with no chance of a comeback.
Game 4 - Kar-Mun. We have played each other a lot of times. I started with CHOREO* (I can't believe it is no good) and it duly got challenged off the board. There were lot of challenges in our game. I won some and Kar-Mun won some. Kar-Mun played a phony bingo HANGErED* when he could have bingoed NEiGHED or REHANGED. I challenged it and knew he was carrying a blank. This was pretty early in the game and it took him about 10 turns to play the bingo off -- this period was slow in scoring for him. I had one bingo (using the other blank) in the meantime, but apart from that did not have any great scores. I played some phonies, opened up triples and had to pay for it. I was drawing good tiles though. I did not take my chances with ISATINE and that cost me the game. I had a chance to tie it with my last move, but I counted tiles incorrectly and thought he was left with a Y -- instead he was left with a T. I lost the game by 2 points.
Game 5 - Jon. Jon initiated me into NSA scrabble... my first tournament game was against him. So it was nice seeing him after a long while. My first game then was fun.. or otherwise.. because I did not know my words and Jon kept challenging them off the board. So, one thing I wanted to do was not to play any words I wasn't sure of. I however was probably not thinking if I go back and look up my moves -- strategically, they were pretty dumb! I had no chance the way I was playing, and I finally lost the game 296 - 395. Even though I was fishing for a bingo, the gap was too large to close.
Game 6 - Jon. My chance to avenge the defeat in the last game. The second blank in the previous game was drawn on the last move by Jon and game was over. I could have used it for a bingo. Maybe, that was fate. I drew BIGGET? and played out BIGGEsT on my first turn in this game. Jon used his Z to play BIZES. I bingoed again with WITHERER to take the early lead and also won the challenge. I just kept going strong from then on, using up Q and K in the next two turns. Jon bingoed with the second blank to close the gap to about 50 points, but I stretched it back to 80 points when Jon played ANIMI to create an opening. I took my chances with OURALIS# and it stayed on the board increasing my lead to 130 points. Had that been challenged, it would probably have been a close game. Jon played POLEAX (not a bingo) for 87 points and I played YEAR for 46 points. I had enough lead to eke out a +99 spread win.
I won the first game (for me to be excited for the rest of the tournament) and the last game (just enough to come back for another tournament)!
I was seeded last in the group and managed 2 wins to give me a performance par with my rating. I want to do better than that, but more importantly, I think I belong here.
