CNSC 2011 Commentary: Round 9

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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.

Mark Edelson (Toronto ON) vs. Jim Nanavati (Burlington ON): LaSERING, OUTRIDE, and a bit later RAVInED goes down for Mark.

Board 1 is pretty much barracaded off from us. And, since it is being annotated, I haven't gone up there much. But I do peek in. And during one of these well-timed peeks, Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON) bingoed with sULTANA/VERGERs for 74 in his game with Ron Hoekstra (Surrey BC).

Jackson Smylie (Toronto ON) vs. Sam Hollington (St. Catharines ON): RESITED, UNEASE?, and MINSTREL.

Jesse Matthews (Kelowna BC) vs. Steve Ozorio (Mississauga ON): JAYGEES, TROPINE, AETHERS, and then Steve holding WHEN??E. He puts down WHENs/sTAGS for 33, keeping the E?. I wonder if it worked out for him....

David Boys (Dorval QC) vs. Juraj Pivovarov (Calgary AB): ASTEROID, TRAJECTS, YONDERS, TUNNIeS, and BATLIKE are on their board. David wins, 494-317.

A fun game between Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON) and Shan Abbasi (Mississauga ON). A win for Shan, 502-382, due in part to plays like hUSBAND, later extended to hUSBANDLY, IMAReTS, and SNAILED. Both players had fun triple overlaps. Jason played SQUEAL/QI/UT from the S for 75 and Shan got down ZOEAE/EWE/AID/EN for 88!

It is around this point in the tournament when the top players start resonating. Their games are beautiful, the plays just plop down perfectly, one after another. One such game was annotated at table 2 this round between Max Panitch (Toronto ON) and Gabriel Gauthier-Shalom (Montreal QC). I'll just highlight some words: DYNASTIC, PAROTIC, PROLATE, fLASHED, TOGGLED, FEASING, SIFTERs. Incredible. It is already up, check it out in the annotated game section.

Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) vs. Lou Cornelis (Stoney Creek ON). I hear her say, "I guessed wrong and then you guess wrong, Lou," as she bingoed out with GENERATE through the A on the top triple line. She caught Lou with AZAPW on his rack. I see ESTRIOLS, REFIRINg, UNSTAgED* (a 122-point triple-triple that she's horrified to learn is a phoney when the game is over), AGAMEtE, SWINDLE, SYLI. Her win, 459-413. I'm not sure what she missed, but he was hoping she'd pulled a tile out of the bag that she didn't, making her bingo less playable!

David Wood (Thunder Bay ON) vs. George MacAulay (Saskatoon SK). Early on, after George played SINLESS, he was up by about 100. Then David kicked in, playing a total of three bingo: PLANTeRS and the bingo/bongo CLARINET and GLORIEs. In the endgame, after QUART for 45 went down for George, getting him up by 62, David found UNITAGES from the U for 72, catching George with FYMCZOA on his rack (52 points!). David then gave me a lesson on where Thunder Bay is: FAR AWAY!

Shaun Goatcher (Amherstburg ON) vs. Deen Hergott (Ottawa ON): CREAtIVE, STEREOS/SIXTEeNS for Deen and SIXTEeN for Shaul. Deen tried OVERGOT# and it was called off. At one point, Deen played EIDOLA and drew four Is from the bag. Deen is working off some serious bad karma, I think. Shaun's win, 401-362.

Chris writes:

A quick tour of the room at the start of round nine shows a bunch of cool words hitting the board.

Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON) has played hUSBAND against Shan Abbasi (Mississauga ON), and the next turn extended it to the double word with HUSBANDLY.

Jesse Matthews (Kelowna BC) against Steve Ozorio (Mississauga ON) — JAYGEES is on the board. Looks like it happened in parts; the A is on the star so I'd assume JAY was first and then the extension.

Jeremy Hildebrand (Ottawa ON) and Andrew Golding (Verdun QC) have DIGERATI on the board. Andrew has just played SPLEnIAL, and Jeremy holds.

Ross Brown (Ottawa ON) and Tony Leah (Ajax ON) have UnSIGhTS on the board — confusing-looking with those blanks!

... and Matthew Tunnicliffe (Ottawa ON) is done with his game with Sue Tremblay (Carlsbad Springs ON). "That's 86 and out," I hear Matthew say as he hits the clock. "You get 24 from me — I think you're going to hit 600!" says Sue. Sure enough, the final score is 608-290. Matthew had BIFORATE for 76, a nine UNATTUNED from UN for 68, SATANIC for 85, and CLASSED, the outbingo for 86, as well as QWERTY for 42. Hmm, QWERTY sure is easy to type using a qwerty.

Will Nediger (London ON) is also done. His opponent is gone but I recognize the wheeled rack of Randall Thomas (Calgary AB). Will won 553-326 and bingoed with PANDERS, RINGLET, and REMORSE.

So early in the game, Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) played UNSTAGED* for 134 against Lou Cornelis (Stoney Creek ON) and, to anyone who didn't know cold, that would be a perfectly cromulent word. It stayed on the board and ended up Robin's win 459-413. Early on Lou played RUNIFORM* giving Robin the M she needed for ANGIOMAS, but there's always that decision — do I take the bingo, or the free turn where I can't bingo? Robin elected to take the free turn.

Eric Tran (Calgary AB) just finished with Zev Kaufman (Toronto ON) — Zev is flipping madly through his scorekeeping book trying to figure out the score. He bingoed out on Eric with GASTRAEa, but the bingo and the tile on Eric's rack just wasn't enough. Eric's win 360-348.

Joel Wapnick (Montreal QC) breezes by me on his way to the coffee break and mentions, "My opponent missed a 185 point triple-triple." I find Ben Lam (Toronto ON) sitting over the board where he had missed SHEENFUL natural through the F. That miss is certainly not "Winning!"

I find a scoresheet — it looks like Jim Nanavati (Burlington ON) hit a 3x3 against Mark Edelson (Toronto ON) — LASERING* stayed on the board for 131. It didn't cost Mark the game, though, as he won 410-406.

Andy Saunders (Guelph ON) sure had a lot of blanks against Craig Rowland (Mississauga ON) — he had a blank on 11 consecutive racks, in fact, in his 401-363 win. A happy change of page for Andy who's had a rough patch this afternoon.

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