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NSC 2009 Commentary: Round 23

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, After the Tournament.

Round 23

I catch Evelyn Enszer (Saginaw, MI) and Diane Brown (Toronto ON) at the challenge machine. VETOS* is not acceptable.

Lauren Smith, here helping us with the event, went to dinner last night and heard these bits of news from her dining companions. Keith Hagel (Waterville, ME) told her that he opted to play OXO an dnot MIXOLOGY in one of his games. He also played OVERTIRE to the triple. Lauren's mom, Cheryl Tyler (Lubbock, TX), said that she played BITINED and PUTRIDLy (as a double-double) in consecutive plays and both words were challenged!

Sam Hollington (St. Catharines ON) got a second crack at Thomas Reinke (Middleton, WI), but wasn't able to take him down. I see OTAlGIA for Sam and DaMPENS and TINTERS for Thomas. Sam of the blue eyes and cowboy hat said, "don't miss my two triples!" I look over and he's played TOE in the upper right spot and TOEA in the middle right triple area. I think his tiles were less than optimal!

James L Jr Kille (Philadelphia, PA) is camping during the NSC and biking into play each day with about an hour's ride each way. This morning, he did so through a deluge of rain, which he thought was bad until he met up with Glenda Short (Oklahoma City, OK). We'll call her Hurricane Glenda. Her first six plays were: EXTERNS for 94, OUTBrAGS for 70, STEAMILY from the S for 67, INITIAL for 62, PReSORTS through the T for 76, and QUOLL on the triple line for 72. Jim managed to get down ANTIHERO for 62, but lost, 330-570. What a game for Glenda!

Roger Cullman (Toronto ON) tells me that he has not had a positive spread since game 1! He is 13-10 -1 now, so he is very close to some positive spread! In his last game he played sQUEALERS through the ER.

Jason Keller (Highland Park, NJ) reports that according to him, triple-triples are game-losing plays today. In game 22 against Robert Linn (Potomac, MD), Jason played STABLING and lost, 471-486. In round 23, he played Ted Rosen (Rochester, NY). Ted played REAWAKEN and lost to Jason, 441-442.

Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) has had two bad games in a row. Her opponents each played three bingos in their first four turns and the game was over each time early on. In this round, her luckbox opponent, Jerry Lerman (San Francisco, CA) played FREAKOUT, SPELAEAN, and bEHEADED through the last E. Jerry admitted that SEAPLANE would have been a better play than SPELAEAN, because the latter slotted the S into the triple lane. When you get this good at SCRABBLE, normal words like SEAPLANE just don't come to mind as easily as the esoteric ones like SPELAEAN! Robin played the lovely bICORNES from Jerry's blank B. The thing that was pretty about their board, too, was her ALIQUOT in the top left and his ALIYOT in the bottom right. Symmetry.