I won one game last night at the Toronto Scrabble Club, to even my record at 13-13:
404-440 against Mark E. I played SPARiNG (68) and Mark played RELIqUES (74). I was behind by a huge spread and had to open up, so I played TUT for 6, taking my score to 254. Mark replied with CITY for 36, bringing his score to 389. My rack by then was CEEILST. I had noplace to play SECTILE. I rearranged the letters and saw that I could spell out ELECTIS and realized I was only one letter away from extending -CITY on the lower left to make the shocking 11LW ELECTRICITY. There were two R’s left in the bag and since I was so far behind I decided to go for it. On my next play I made an unusual play by “dumping” my S to make HOSE / AS for 18 and drew a T. Mark told me afterward that he wondered why I did that. Mark then played PORING for 30. Yikes: he just played one of the two remaining R’s. Still, I took a shot at it, and fished off my second T to make TAN / TIN for 6. With four tiles left in the bag I hoped for an R and I got it. I was excited but reserved, as I had to hope Mark wouldn’t see this potential 11LW. Even more likely was the chance I could make a play, not necessarily a bingo, down to -BA, however I didn’t have either an A or an O to do it. Since I didn’t have either of these important hooking vowels, perhaps Mark felt he could leave the spot open. Mark in fact had the A, as on his next turn he played WANED for 21. He emptied the bag with FMO, so from Mark’s point of view before his final draw the O could have been on my rack. Thus there was a possibility I could make a play involving OBA and from the unseen pool of ten, which was my ELECTRI + FMO, there were two 7LW that could have fit: ELECTRO and TELECOM. Mark explained to me later that he was more concerned about blocking the bottom row, and I see that out of the remaining ten unseen tiles, ECLOGITE and FILMGOER would have fit there.
I then built the word ELECTRICITY, backwards, starting with the I going up. I double-checked to see that I spelled it correctly, then announced the score (104) and neutralized the clock. Eighteen years ago, also in May at the Toronto Club, I played my first ten-letter bingo. Now I can join the ranks of NWL Club Eleven. At one time I held the rack ADFNOOR and was pleased to learn when I checked later that I had found the only 8LW–through a Z of all things–to make FORZANDO.
437-335 against Doug B. I played SYENITE (72) and lOGOUTS (72) and also got 68 for ZA. I held the rack AEISSTX and missed TAXISES. Doug played EARlIER (58). There were six L’s on our board.
344-410 against Max Panitch. Max played FlANkED (74) and RATITES (73). I drew crap at the beginning, and at one point the score was 177-34.