257

In game one of the Mike Wise Memorial (Toronto) Scrabble Tournament last Saturday, I scored my highest-ever single play. I had just played DeSPOIL for 82 against Jim Nanavati and chose the following replacement tiles: ACGNQU?. There was an open I for QUACkING or CAlQUING (That’s a lowercase L). Jim’s next play was just above the open I and prevented me from playing either. However, what he did play was the stuff Scrabble dreams are made of. He proceeded to play J-O-U- and since he was making a four-letter word, I knew what his fourth tile was going to be before he even laid it down. I saw my triple-triple before he had even finished making his play. Thus instead of designating my blank as a k or l, I called it an i and played QUACKiNG for 257.

Before this, my highest-ever plays were SQUISHeD for 239 against my best friend Sharon and THIAZOLs for 221 against Jim Nanavati. Both of these plays were made within a span of nine days a long time ago.

In game six against Ron Hoekstra, I turned a bingo-behind deficit into a win with a bingo-bango-bongo at the very end of the game. Successive plays of FRIEZES (100), REFUNDS (104) and gRANTOR (71), in addition to an earlier bingo of TRAVELS (82) gave me a win with 531-452. Ron bingo-ed with TALONED (76), BEAcHING (77) and IDEATION (70). I love bingo blowouts like this.

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