CNSC 2011 Commentary: Round 14

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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.

So much is going on, it is hard to keep up with it all. We, in SCRABBLE, are used to our famous Logan, Adam Logan (Ottawa ON), but his dad, George Logan, is a famous literary scholar. And this morning, George accompanied his son to the event. In this room, it is all Adam and George said his hellos and slipped off. Wonderful to see him!

We are starting the third round of today, just after the morning coffee break. After this round is lunch: much eating going on.

Two more superstars at table 1 this round. The only two people in the room who have been World, Canadian, and National SCRABBLE champs. I find out later that Joel Wapnick (Montreal QC) won and Adam Logan (Ottawa ON) muttered something about a mistake. Highlights of the game include Joel playing VIRGINAL followed by SOLEMNER followed two turns later by SHIRTIER (one of those Rs is a T). Adam played PROBANDS for 61 and not much else went down. After lunch, he goes to table 2 and squares off against Tony Leah (Ajax ON).

The gorgeous GARDYLOO has appeared on a board. This one is worth looking up. It comes from the French "Garde de l'eau", meaning "beware the water". It is what one says when one is emptying a chamberpot into the street below. Sherrie says, "I'd love to take credit for this, but Matthew Tunnicliffe (Ottawa ON) was the one telling it to me, so I made him sit down and type it up. On the train ride from Ottawa to here with Adam Logan (Ottawa ON) and Sue Tremblay (Carlsbad Springs ON), they actually studied this word!

Lou Cornelis (Stoney Creek ON) vs. Jackson Smylie (Toronto ON) on the other half of the room. I see DARNERS, ANTICAR, and the odd aUTARKS*. Jackson played SALUtES and lost the game. After it was over, I ask Lou about the play. He said that AUTARCHS, AUTARKY, and AUTARKIC are good and he was close, but just off enough to play a phoney.

Odd news, but I share that twice so far players have come up to me and have said the same thing. Glenn Dunlop (Brantford ON) is famous for asking the score, the real score, and constantly verifying the score and into being super correct about said score at all times. Twice this touranment, he has made an error in scoring that his opponents have caught!

At table 2 this round, there are four people (two players, two annotators) and something is just odd about the table. It takes a bit to figure out what it is. Three of the four are LEFT HANDED! Annotator Lisa Kessler, Will Nediger (London ON), and Eric Tran (Calgary AB). There is a calmness about Will and he carefully counts the tiles left in the bag. Most colour commentators will tell you about the game and who played what, but you will have to check the annotated game section! Will won, I know that, because he is in 1st place for the nonce.

Jim Nanavati (Burlington ON) vs. Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON): GRODIEsT, GARRISON, and JOGGLES, and CEN?ERS (either S or T).

Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON) has ivy growing out of the chair, up his arms, and into the wall. He's been in the same chair, at the very same table (board 3) since sometime yesterday. I wonder if he slept there! He played Gabriel Gauthier-Shalom (Montreal QC) this time. I see Gabriel's RETIREES and WAStING and Evan's BRINIES and CRISPINg through the S on the triple lane. They are mirror images of each other, tracking, retracking, counting tiles. A 432-385 win for Evan.

Players were heading out of the playing room to lunch, the sounds of laughter and tinkling glasses and untensils on plates could be heard in the playing room. A few endgames had gone into screaming across the room about the game status. And there, in the middle of it, was the most intense endgame ever. It is between Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) and David Boys (Dorval QC), long held to be the CNSC finals that EVERYONE would love to see. A best of 5 between them: my toes tingle! Anyway, On the board I see ENDWISE, gRINNERS, ENDORSOR, DIgLOT (not a bingo, but fun), and sOPRANI. Each player has four tiles on his/her rack. David has 57 seconds left on his clock and L I T E is on his rack, upside down, ready to go onto the board quickly. Robin is holding FKIV. She has 13 minutes on he clock. She uses more than 12 of them, sighing, resighing, occasionally entreating others to keep it down, running her hands through her hair (it was standing on end by the game's finish), glaring, studying, sighing some more. She ends up opting to V-stick herself to win. Dave one tiles her, playing off while she passed all four turns. Throughout all this, Dave sat impassively, cross-legged, leaning back, notepad on lap. He was almost doing meditation, he was so blissed out on his personal zen. After it was over and tiles had been picked up, repositioned, picked up again, repositioned again, we finally learn that Robin won and that Dave had expected her to win 15 minutes earlier. She had 32 seconds left on her clock and he had 3. Part of his strategy was to phoney (again) with, MEREL*/LOP, she challenged it off. He said he if got away with it, his T would have been better elsewhere (or something like that). They then recounted, finding a point for each, and she had a 3-point win.

Chris writes:

You gotta feel for Yvonne Lobo (Mississauga ON). She started playing SCRABBLE in Bahrain playing only Collins, and in the years since she's come to Canada she's had to unlearn a lot of words that "used" to be good. Having just begun learning those funny #=only words, I know it's tough to keep them straight sometimes. Yvonne's just played KATI# hooking to make TEF# and Sue Tremblay (Carlsbad Springs ON) takes them both off the board. Later on I come by and see Yvonne's also played GOPIKS+ — which stayed on the board — and will be Collins in just under seven months.

Craig Rowland (Mississauga ON) and Marilyn Wilkins (Richmond BC) are up on their five-vowel eights: on their board is WEIGELIA and dAIQUIRI. They also have BLANCHES, NAPERIES, NOTARIZE, and GARDyLOO. GARDyLOO, dAIQUIRI, and WEIGELIA were Craig's to open the game, and Marilyn despaired of mounting a comeback. But NOTARIZE was 104 points, plus the other two bingoes put her safely ahead. With one in the bag, Craig had a possible bingo out of DISUNITE but Marilyn saw it and blocked the spot fo rthe win 483- 397.

Quick quiz: what are the front hooks to HEREINTO? Are you sure? Are you REALLY sure? If you're wrong, you lose, if you pass it up, you can still win, but it's one underneath a triple word and you'll pick up a good 80 spread points if you play it and are correct. Hmm... Matthew Tunnicliffe (Ottawa ON) played it safe and didn't play either the T or the W but still beat Jesse Matthews (Kelowna BC) 456-399.

Zev Kaufman (Toronto ON) just finished playing David Wood (Thunder Bay ON) — one of Zev's racks was HHNNSTT. He played NTH and pulled ILP, and bingoed next turn with PLINTHS. Zev also had HEJIRA for 72; David's RENAMINg set up Zev's ZAGS for 66, but the play of the game was David's late extension of KEYED into MONKEYED for 54. Zev's win, though, 451-371.

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