Seattle vs Vancouver
Nov 11, '06 1st Annual Border Battle Report

Mark P's Trip Report

First Annual? That's the Plan. Rebecca gets to be Director of next year's.

We met half-way in Bellingham. Tourney started half hour late due to the canucks having 1/2 hour extra delay at the border crossing. The other first-family of Scrabble, the Saldanha family showed up even later, the dad and three kids had to take a loss their first game they were so late.
Big room, double-wide tables, coffee and water and muffins, pleasant set-up. Thanks to Val Gallant and two other ladies I'm sorry I didn't meet them and I don't know their names for running a smooth tournament.

Nigel, me and Rafi carpooled up 8:15- 9:35. Rafi was ranked 5th highest of the Seattle players, division 1. Nigel was ranked third highest of the Seattle contingent, also division One.
Mark was middle of the division Three. 6 players in each of the five divisions from each city.

Seattle ended up winning the Overall in this first meeting of the clubs, 103.5 wins to 89.5. The Vancouver club director, Val Gallant had made up a nice metal trophy, a brass scepter with a hundred or so wooden scrab tiles filling the cup on the top, glued in. There's also a wooden serving tray about a foot square with "Vancouver Seattle Border Battle Champions" spelled out in wooden scrabble tiles. I can describe this hardware so well because they're sitting here on my desk. Why so? Read on. [ I'll bring them to Club Tuesday.]

In this tourney's format, the six players from each city play each of the other city's player once, then game 7 is "king-of-the-hill" by record. 5 divisions of 12 players.

Rafi went 2 wins, 4 losses and 1 bye from a Saldanha in round 1. Not real happy, lotsa bum racks to deal with, less than a bingo per game average, and he figures to have lost about 20 ratings points.

The Peltiers had quite a different day. Both Nigel & Mark started out 3-0 before the lunch break. Game 4 for Nigel was vs. the top Vancouver player and he was down over 100 near the end when Nigel came up with the bingo BRUXITE. Nigel still lost this game by 13, but he was pretty excited about the comeback & he was able to preserve his 300+ pt spread. Oh - wait- do you know that word?

Ques#1:     BRUXITE

Hold or don't bother cuz it's good? challenge or let it play cuz yer not sure - whaddya think? Call it Question#1. (By the way- you got 20 sec to decide, your clock is winding down to penalty time) Answer(s) to pop quizzes at the end.

Mark's game 4 was another Win: vs the top rated opp from BC. I'll do some more detail on my games after the main story. The +43 spread in this game was my closest game - there's the hint. OK, need a word quiz from my game 4?

Q#2:     PAIRIN_?_

? = the blank. oh sure - make it a G, well that won't play on the board. Blank needs to be an S to find a home on this board.

Games 5 & 6: Both Nigel and Mark win both games (!) Mark: 6-0 with an impressive +822 pt delta spread. Nigel is 5-1, +381.

Game 7: For Mark, the Best player on Vancouver is 4-2, same guy from game 4, their highest rated player in Div 3. I played my lowest scoring game, but still won by 49. 7-0 record, +871 !! I didn't need to win Game 7 to win the division, but I did anyways, kinda lucky: I got away with an accidental 2 ltr phoney "TE". I needed a little time and had to sing the alphabet song to find this bingo to cinch the Win:

Q#3:     ?EGIINR -

I need it to end in ER for a fine board placement. I just ran the anagrammer and there are 7 words, 7 different letters the blank could be. I only found the one I played, but 3 of them I shoulda known, so that's your assignment for Q#3.

Game 7 for Nigel is also vs that top rated player he played in game 4. This also was Nigel's lowest scoring game, but he also won. So Nigel wins division 1 (!!). Woo Woo. Both Pa & Sonny slappin the high fives like some juco B-ball playahs.

Oh yeah - The cash: $60 in an envelope. One for Nigel. One for me. Entry fee was $15. Not bad at all. Seattle players won Division 2 (Geoff Tongue 7-0) and Division 4 (Karen Powell ).

NSA Ratings:
Nigel started the day at 1661, a website calculator reads 1716 after this tourney. First time over 1700 (!!) Next Tournament is Jan 12-15 in Reno. Nigel HAS to play in that tournament's division one now!
Mark was 1139, calc says.... 1245 now (!!) first time over 1200. Safely ensconced in division 3 for Reno.

Why do we have the trophies - Rebecca said to take them and hold onto them. I think we had the most wins per household. Definitely jumped ahead of them there Saldanhas today.

Oh and Rebecca started out 1.5 wins- 1.5 losses before lunch. SHe won the remaining 4 games for a good tournament: 5.5-1.5. Division 2, in the top 3 for $$.

My game summaries: Game 1: 433 -353 over Tony Verma. I played

Q#4:     OUTBRIBE one B was a blank. Q#4: Good?

How sure are you? Hold & let it go, challenge or don't even hold. Feelin lucky, punk?
Tony challenged. Anagrammer tells me TUBEROID would have been good (?= D). Tony later bingos SEATERS and phonies an S on the end of my opening word YONDER, I let it go, I had OUTBRI?E on my mind. Tony challenged LIEN and EKES toward game end when I also made OKE on the same "chimney" play. All 3 are - G00d!

Game 2: 400-346 over Judy Smith. She opens with a Bingo FRILLED- I hold.... you like it? No quiz - I let it go which was the correct play. The F is on the Dbl Ltr spot.
Find my best play of my tournament from my rack: word #2, my first play of the game: (? = blank) Hint: ? = A ( or O works also, for the same score)

Q#5     EIMOTZ? [ can use a letter from the board: FRILLED ]

So at this point, I really started to feel the juju. Kinda like gimmie any 7 letters, and also my opponents seemed to be following my script - they didn't have bingo tiles for key openings and their desperation at having to catch up 32 pts after 3 words ea., 55 after 6 and an average of 100 after 9 words (full tourney stat avgs).
No more bingos nor big plays in game 2.

Now Game 3. vs. Val Gallant. Val's had some back surgery and this is her first tourney in a while. She trades in after I start, then her 2nd play she bingos INGRESS. I like the G that's exposed and, with J on Dbl Ltr, and making my blank an E, I splash across JIGGLERS for 100. Q#6:     Any reason to doubt JIGGLERS?

For the rest of the game, Val trades in 4 MORE times, finds one more bingo EARNEST for 69, but nothing else over 21. Her total score 245. I did better.

After 3 words: 131
After 6: 193
After 9: 277 you like the word BARTOP?
After 12: 352. Val's 12th word was EARNEST, she's at 191.
My 12th word was ROUX , alongside the Right outside lane. My next word: along ROUX is: TUCKING, bingo with a blank = G. T to make UT and U to make XU. K on dbl ltr. G (blank) on the Trpl Word lower right corner. = 112 pts. Nice.
Val trades in 5. the E from EARNEST is at C1 near top left. I draw a CHZ for CHEZ for 84. I finish up with word 17 OAR for 3 to hit 600, collect her two single pointers for 4 more = 604. I think this is my first 600 pt game. Like Ever. Pretty sure. 604- 245.
Spread =359 pts. Oh yeah. 604 was high score in my division, worth $5 prize. And, it was the high score for all 192 games played Saturday. Which was worth $0 additional. - bragging rights only.

Game 4 vs Joe Barton. Joe's good. He opens ZOEAS for 48, I opened/bingoed with LEAFING for 70. If I hadn't found the bingo from Quiz Q#2 late in this close game, I might've lost it. Joe played a nice GOTH near game end for 60, but had to spend his blank. Mark Wins, 405-362. Took this win and fled.

Game 5 was against John Aitken. He & I go WAY back - a very good rivalry of 6 tourney games. This time it was 30 pts per word avg for me , in a 13 word game. I had two bingos CRITICAL and INTERNS, John had none. 399-310. good one.

Game 6 was against Evan Kramer, his teammates says he's been playing tourneys and at club for only a year or so. Smart guy, but not used to losing, I could tell. I open it with HOOPS 28, Evan- HOKEY for 30. I find IDEALIZE (blank=L) for 84, and he doesn't like it. ! ? Challenge! It's good, and he's WAY behind. He plays BRUIN +

(Q#7:)   IDEALIZER. Is it good?

I challenge it. My next play JUTES for 82. J at D1 , S on H1, middle top Trpl Word. J doubled then tripled, then doubled again for JO. Schweet. Evan makes DIVES + IDEALIZERS for 60. Ooops there's the Q#7 answer. Still, it's word #7 of the game and he's down by 74. The S from my opening play HOOPS is still sitting open all the way Left to the trpl word. Help me out here. And GOOD LUCK. I bet maybe ONE other person of the 60 at the tourney today could find this word. It's my Best Find of the Tourney.

Q#8:     EINPTTYS must end in S

Evan later plays a desperate "VERSAGE" which I challenge off, and I cream him 513- 316.

Game 7: Nigel says to wrap up this report. OK, the One Bingo in this game is in Q#3. I learn ROTL and RENVOI from Opponent Joe as I win 334-285.

7-0. Yay. My average: 441 pts. Opps: 317 Me with 11 bingos, opps only 4 (!) Nigel average 431 pts, Opps 374 Nigel 17 bingos first quick count.

Thanx for reading.

~MARK P.

What, you want ANSWERS? cheater.


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ANSWERS:

Q#1: phoney as hell. BRUX is a new 4. Opp let it go as clock was nearly out and opp still had a lead he was able to protect.

Q#2 ?=S for ASPIRIN

Q#3 ? = D,L,M,W, Z + INGIER; also ?= T for IGNITER and ? =N for GINNIER

Q#4 OUTBRIBE is g00d! I was about 50/50 on it, took me a few minutes to play it

Q#5 AMORTIZE and MOTORIZE thru the R, Dbl Dbl word for 122 pts.

Q#6 JIGGLERS is a phoney (!), opp didn't hold, nor would anyone else I asked. I'll take the 100 pts.

Q#7 IDEALIZER is g00d! I lost my turn to find out.

Q#8 TINTYPES - I must've learnt it when I learned photography in high school. It's not really a compound word you'd even try. Opp challenged, lost, he had to. Woo.