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NSC 2011 Commentary: Round 30

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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 30

The gears are turning tightly in division 2. Matt Canik (Austin, TX) has to win his game against Richard Spence (Tucson, AZ) to keep in the fight for first. And two more youngsters are fighting it out at table 2: Daniel Citron (Chicago, IL) vs. Stephen Sneed (Fort Worth, TX). I find out later that Richard won the game this round and won the tournament. He admits to having incredible tiles in the game. Matt played RESENTS for 71 and Richard got down DowNSIZE for 90, TEGUmINA for 82, AJEE for 54, and REQUIN for 79. This relentless scoring led to a 488-343 win for Richard. In the last round today, Matt will have to play Daniel.

A recount is going on at division 1's table 2. RESUlTED, ESTRONE, VAUNTIE, GA?ARENE, BRAINED, CHANNELS are on the board. They are interrupted by Jesse Day (Berkeley, CA). He lost by more than 300 to Nigel Richards (Malaysia) at table 1 and he was sure it would be Nigel and Kenji at board 1 for the marbles. Kenji was sure that it wasn't him. He'd lost, if the recount held up, to Jim by 110. This made Kenji 10 points short of playing Nigel. Jim won, 447-342, if it held up.

Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) stood around joking with Nigel Richards (Malaysia) and he congratulated Richard Spence (Tucson, AZ) on his impressive win by shaking his hand and saying, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" Richard won division 4 at last year's NSC, so this is beginning to be a habit. Nigel joked, "looks like you'll be playing with us next year." Richard smiled sheepishly and nodded in agreement.

Rob Robinsky (Spring Lake Park, MN) and Kate Fukawa-Connelly (Kittery, ME) had a barn-burner of game this round. He opened with ZOUK which was just what she needed to play PODIATRY. He then got down PATTEREd from the P. Then with careful tile management skills (a Chris Cree joke), he carefully pulled HEADNOTE played to the E out of the bag. Just to prove that she was still there, Kate slapped down SIGNORAS through the N for 140. This gave her a 23-point lead. Rob then played pROTEIDE to the last E for 77 and got QIS for 50. He says he is lucky as could be, because those two plays saved him from losing because Kate bingoed out with NANNIES for 69. His win, 518-480.

Sam Kantimathi (Sacramento, CA) played Martin Weisskopf (Huntsville, AL) this round. Dictionary confusion is a big deal for Sam, and it reared its ugly head in their game. Sam played DESKNOTE#, and Martin called it off. Later on, trying to make an opening to hook a bingo onto, Sam played REN#, and off that came. Martin played an ON and Sam was luckily able to play EDURiTION to that ON. The play won him the game by a mere 3 points.

The players have had a bit more down time between rounds this morning, since the pairings could only be done when all the results were in. Lots of smiles, hugs, repacking of luggage to fit SCRABBLE goodies, etc.

Our last game starts now!

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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