CNSC 2011 Commentary: Round 12

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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, Award Ceremony, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3.

Non-Canadian Jason Keller is watching the coverage and late last night he said to me, "I was rooting for those pants all day long!" Okay, so Ben Lam (Toronto ON) is famous for those pants! Today, he is clad in a kitty cat T-shirt. Wearing a suit and tie all week long has its consequences.

Chris Lipe has shown up and is letting his freak flag fly. He is a closet colorful pen collector and about 43 of them are on the table between us. I think he is staking territory. I've gone from being the colour commentator to having my spat at the table being taken up by his colorful pens! Go figure.

John Chew started us off today with some opening announcements after Mad SHOUTED at the top of her lungs for everyone to be quiet: it worked! While the announcements were being made, I was beckoned over to the hair gel table. "Hey Sherrie!" whispered Jesse Matthews (Kelowna BC), "Can you get me a bigger one?" He was gesturing at his small rack. I looked across the table and saw that Eric Tran (Calgary AB) had a bigger one, so I tromped off in search of a bigger rack for Jesse. I found a large wooden one in a box underneath the challenge machines. So, now, Eric has a large plain wood rack and Jesse has an equally large blue wooden rack. I kid you not, they next said, "this tile bag is too small, can you get us a larger one?" And they weren't kidding! So, I asked around and finally David Wood (Thunder Bay ON) came up with a larger one with a zipper on the top. Both Jesse and Eric eyed it: was it truly big enough? Anyway.... I can't wait to see their monster plays!

Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) stood up this morning and asked the players who wanted to watch the finals to please come down early (the best of 5 starts at 9 am). She says it doesn't really get that much more interesting later on and she ends up talking mostly to me and herself about all the great plays. So, come one, come all!

Chris Lipe was a bit jealous about others wearing/using their new Zyzzyva gear, so he showed up today in his: a lovely forest green. I'm sure he'll creep into the photos soon enough to add levity to the Where's Waldo drinking game over Twitter.

Former World SCRABBLE Champions Adam Logan (Ottawa ON) and David Boys (Dorval QC) are squaring off at table 2. This means that they are in the hunt for this championship title again, one they have both held (Adam holds the title now!). Lisa Kessler and Trevor Sealy got to annotate. I so envied them their bird's-eye view of that game. I skulked around the edges, but couldn't read body language very well and god knows I couldn't read their scoresheets! I see fLIRTIER and BEZANTS and when the game ended, there was only 8 seconds left on Dave's clock. He lost, 319-456. He said, "on a scale from 1 to 10, this game was about a 7 to play, and I daresay it was only about half as exciting to watch, so I don't think the annotators were all that thrilled." They disagreed!

Ben Lam (Toronto ON) vs. Shaun Goatcher (Amherstburg ON): VICEROY is on their board.

Mark Edelson (Toronto ON) vs. Steve Ozorio (Mississauga ON). Every time I look at this board, there are more bingos on it! RURAlITE, TReNCHER were there early on as was NONMAN. Later on, Mark tried NARCOIDS* through the R and Steve called it off. Later I saw FASTENED, QUAINTER, and SARDONIC.

Tony Leah (Ajax ON) vs. Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON) at table 3. I am once again reminded that Evan plays upside down, so it is a calm game without a lot of knocked over tiles and shifting tablecloth drama. I see RELOANS, ORPINES, BRAsSICA (Evan and Adam introduce us to this type of cabbage?, I guess). Tony won, 431-348.

Max Panitch (Toronto ON) vs. Allan Simon (Calgary AB): ECLOGItE, DISTORTS, HAIrNET, AUDITED, and SEAWARE.

Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) bingoed out to win against David Jones (Ottawa ON), 446-377. Her final play was SLIPPER and she caught him with AIOOELR. I see BOLOgNAS, FLATtEST, and the fun HEARTEN. Of this last play, she said, "Five of the six Ts were out. I play WAE, and of course he has the 6th T and hooks on with HEARTENS to make TWAE!" WIDEOUT is on the board. Robin played it through the separted I and E for a rack cleaner.

David Wood (Thunder Bay ON) has the good sense to be slightly embarrassed about the whupping he just gave Bernard Gotlieb (Montréal QC). It was a 421-321 win. Bernard got the Z. So, I walk by Bernard, covered in orange peel (he's eating a healthy piece of fruit despite the plates of croissants outside!) and he pointed as his game and said "I got the Z." I just burst out laughing, because the story is the same no matter where I am in this room!

I catch Chris Bonin (Toronto ON), looking fine, in his fedora and I ask if the hat helped. He said, "no," and smiled at me. I just kept walking....

The game of the day thus far is Ron Hoekstra (Surrey BC) vs. Will Nediger (London ON). I know it is big because when the score went up on the big board outside, Adam Logan (Ottawa ON) gasped. And nothing makes Adam gasp, if you get my point. It was a 400-point LOSS for Ron Hoekstra (Surrey BC). Will Nediger (London ON) won, 680-280. Will was on fie. He played INtEGER, GREENIE, SNARFED, AIRbOATS, and then, holding SURBOAT (hoping for an F), Ron opened the triple-triple lane (claiming later that he had to since he was so behind) and Will slapped down BOATFULS for a 203-point triple-triple! Holy holy holy moly! Great job Will!

Chris writes:

First challenge of the morning — Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON) plays ZINCIER# against Geoffrey Newman (Brampton ON) and it comes off the board.

Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) against David Jones (Ottawa ON) — on their board is IRONIC BOLOgNAS, which sounds like an awesome indie band. Their sophomore album "Sandwich of Time" was really great for a sophomore effort, and... oh dear, this must be the four shots of espresso in my latte talking. Sherrie: my side hurts!!!!

In Andy Saunders (Guelph ON) game against Glenn Mosher (Toronto ON), Glenn opened with GLITZ for 50, and a couple turns later Andy extended it to the triple with GLITZILY# for 60. The Collins-only extension stayed on the board. After that point Andy hit three bingoes in five turns with RELENTS, REACHING, and OUTDREAM, the last of which drew the challenge. "I looked at all the OUT and OVER words on the way here," Andy said. "I play them all the time so I thought it would be useful to know which ones I'm playing are good and which aren't."

"DIRECTOR!" comes the cry from Glenn Dunlop (Brantford ON) in the corner during his game with Jackson Smylie (Toronto ON). Turns out the pocket SamTimer reset itself to 25:00 apiece midgame. John Chew came running over, and after conferring with the players, got a new clock which he set to 9 minutes for Glenn and 17 minutes for Jackson. As the game restarted, Jackson is laying down JILT for 57.

Sam Hollington (St. Catharines ON) and Zev Kaufman (Toronto ON) have a couple cool words on their board — someone bingoed with EULOGIST, putting the T in the triple lane. Then YTTRIA went down through the T. Also is a good Canadian word, mONARChY.

Looks like Jackson and Glenn are finishing their game. It was a tight endgame, and Jackson pulled it out 421-393. He had bunch of high-scoring power tile plays: the aforementioned JILT, a QI for 44, and an opening rack bingo jOTTING. Glenn had VISUALS and OMINoUS — two bingos with U's, but the other two U's he drew left him with several turns in the 15-20 point range from which he could not recover.

In Jason and Geoffrey's game, Jason had a late bingo ENTAILED to seal the deal 479-399. Geoffrey is poring over the endgame possibilities, wondering if blocking the bingo lane with six tiles in the bag was better than fishing for a bingo himself. The problem with the fish — playing two tiles to AIRST — was that there were only two E's unseen, and it's hard to bingo on the board without drawing one of them. The game was really close, but the blocking play S(E)RAI for 17 left one in the bag and put Geoffrey up by 12. Jason would almost surely go out in two after his bingo was blocked, though, making it a tough win for Geoffrey to pull out. As the game ends, we notice that UPTOOK# wasn't good, as UPTAKE is only a noun in the OWL.

Sherrie writes: Chris is holding back, hoping not to make me look so bad, methinks!

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