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NSC 2011 Commentary: Round 24

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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 24

Stephen Sneed (Fort Worth, TX) played Richard Spence (Tucson, AZ) at board 1 in round 2. His mother explains that he gets to play Matt Canik (Austin, TX) next. Fun morning! In his current game, I see AEN?OUS, PrOLIFIC, and AROINTED. Richard ended up winning that game and is still in first place, a game up on the others.

Nigel Peltier (Seattle, WA) vs. Brian Bowman (Villa Hills, KY): GLISTEN, SLIPWARE, TERrANE, LOUVReS, and WILTERS. The game long over when I walk by later, I see that Brian won, 461-439.

An incredible game between Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL) and Kenji Matsumoto (Aiea, HI) took place at division 1's table 3. The board was WIDE open. No idea who played what but: WIMBLED, RIOtOUS, REUNION, ACARIDS, NAIVETES, POLEMISTS, EXTERNE, BROAcHES. It was so close, too! A 514-508 win for Kenji. I walked over to get a photo and the board had been moved a lot to see if Brian could have eked out a win. Kenji kindly put the tiles back so I could get a shot. They joked about how impossible it was to shut it down, it was that open.

Scott Jackson (Minneapolis, MN) vs. Jesse Day (Berkeley, CA). Both players are up and milling around. Anyone who stops by when I'm taking notes says: COINVADES*? Uh.... what is that? Well, Jesse played it on the triple and it did not get challenged. Scott points out that when he played DIPS/COINVADES* to the triple, he got one more point than Jesse did for round 1 on that phoney. Jesse played WORrITS, DRAMATIc, and SHUNTING. Scott played RUDIMENT. Jesse's win, 442-410. Of the phoney, Jesse said, "we were both experiencing some form of cognitive dissonance... "

As he plays his game, Joel Sherman (Bronx, NY) is gnawing on cold, leftover baby back ribs. On his board with Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR), I see VICINAL and TRIOSeS. A bit later, I discover that Joel won, 411-333.

Peter Armstrong (Milwaukee, WI) vs. Scott Appel (Trenton, NJ): DRAGONETS, UNBIASED, FLOORED. In progress game.

Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) vs. Rod MacNeil (Cambridge, MA): ALLURINg, RESEDAS, UNSHiFT, and ESTRONE are on the board. I watch then in the endgame and Rod wants to count the tiles in the bag. He followed the rules to a T: showed his open palm to Chris, reached in and held bag above eye sight and then when he put the bag down, he flashed his empty open palm to Chris. It was Chris' win.

Suhas Rao (Apex, NC) continues to storm through division 3, beating Bob Blyler (Clearwater, FL) this round, 488-386. Suhas played GROUPED, COVETER, WOOlERS, and UNSEALS. Bob played VAUNtER, which drew a challenge. The other challenge he drew surprised Bob. Suhas didn't know the word HAVES (haves and have nots) and when Bob played down the triple lane with ZINGS, hooking onto HAVE to make HAVES, Suhas wasted NO time challenging. A nice 62-point play plus a free turn! From the phony department, Bob played RAY down the triple and front-hooked to create AVAUNtER*. And it stayed.

Another pretty 10. Cesar Del Solar (Alhambra, CA) played DERMISES in his game with Rob Robinsky (Spring Lake Park, MN). Rob front hooked it creating the lovely and long EPIDERMISES. Other board bingos: AMBOINAs and TOTAlInG. Cesar's win, 428-402.

Morris Greenberg (Brookline, MA) played Jason Randolph (San Antonio, TX) this round and they had a good game. I see Jason's ARIDEST and Morris' OPALINE, FURTIVe, and FOLIATED. In the endgame, with OX? in the bag, Jason won the draw and got to play EXFOLIATED for a bunch. It won him the game, 452-413.

Orry Swift (Houston, TX) sits down opposite me as I'm gazing over a completed game (not his), contemplating if I could find even one of the plays. He looked dejected. I asked how it went. He said "I lost by 10 to Nigel Richards (Malaysia). I ran out of time. It was an incredible game, fascinating analysis; was crazy. I passed 7 with 8 in the bag because his play told me that he had the N but not the S because he played the J for 11. In the pass, I threw away three Is and got the S. Nigel blocked the spot. I had only 30 seconds left on my clock and I just couldn't work it out in time. If I'd had five minutes... " He went on to describe that the midgame required complex analysis and each turn took 3-4 minutes to work out. Orry did get down NIHILIST as a 90-point double-double, which put him back into the game, but Nigel came back with a blank/S bingo and he could never build a lead.

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.



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