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NSC 2009 Commentary: Round 25

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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 25

Ted Rosen (Rochester, NY) is having a hard NSC. He has lost three games by 1 point! Other losses have been by 3, 7, 8, and 9 points.

Joanne Cohen (Owings Mills, MD) reports playing ABSINThE through the B for 140 points.

Jim Kramer (Roseville, MN) feel to young Phil Wertheimer (Short Hills, NJ) this round, 351-486. I see Jim's ECHINUS for 75 and Phil's mODELIST through the E for 82, DEPOSAL for 81, and STiNKER for 90. They are deep into the "what-ifs" as I move on.

Sammy Okosagah (Baltimore, MD) vs. Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR), for the second time, and again it was Dave's win, 483-421. I see QUERiED, DEMOTIC, UPRAISE, FAVORInG, ZInGY, and ATTORNEY on the board.

Rafi Stern (Seattle, WA) vs. Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) and Rafi was on fire with three bingos in a row: SCIATIcA through the first A for 86 double-double, TRINOdAL for 113, and then EXTOLLER through the second E for 66. Chris opened with NASCENT for 70, but it was Rafi's win, 501-360.

Keith Hagel (Waterville, ME) is having a "tile gods hate me" moment. In his game with Bruce Adams (Rochdale, MA) a few rounds back, Keith's first rack was JQIIIII and he tossed all seven back in. Later in the game, he again had QIIIII. He dumped again. In the end, Bruce ended up with the Q and couldn't do much with it. It was Keith's win, 360-326.

Ricky Sirois (Overland Park, KS) updates me. The last game in which he was slated to go first, he actually did! He played NINE for 8 points!

It was a quiet lunchtime here in the Dayton Convention Center. Bradley Robbins (Windham, NH) asked Nigel Richards (MYS) if he might want to play a couple after-hours games later on tonight. Nigel hemmed, explaining he had kind of a long walk back to his hotel. Bradely nodded understandably and then Nigel surprised him by saying, "but I've got about an hour now, want to play?" So, the two champions sat down to play. Both of Bradley's parents watched the game, as did a few other of the younger set. It was Nigel's win, 502-299, but I think Bradley absolutely loved that he got a crack at the champ!

Joe South (Piqua, OH) was featured in a newspaper piece at dailycall.com by Jennifer Runyon. My photo credit consisted of "provided photo," but I was happy to send Jennifer a bit of into on Joe for the piece.

Debbie Stegman (Kew Gardens, NY) is making me laugh. We are at the punch drunk part of the event. In round 20, she was playing Chris Lipe (Rome, NY) and she played a bingo, drawing the last tile from the bag. This means she had one tile on her rack and Chris has seven on his. Chris made a 4-tile play and said, "Forty-two and out." Then he neutralized the clock. Debbie said, "Uh, Chris, you aren't out." And Chris dutifully grabbed the tilebag and said, "there are no tiles left." She said, "yes, that is true, but what about the three on your rack? If you are going to cheat, at least put them in your pocket first!" They both burst out laughing, because of course he wasn't cheating, he was just having an "I've played toooo many games today" cognitive lapse. Anyway, they both had a good laugh and then carried on with Debbie playing her last tile and ending the game. I didn't think to even ask who won!