I won all three games at the first Club meeting of the new year, to take my record to 40-5. However, I did commit an error in recording the blanks, the first time I had ever done this in close to 33 years of Club and Tournament play:
468-243 against Jean. I played ALEWIFE (76), BENDIER (76) and AFREEtS (69). I was pleased to find ALEWIFE yet since the A landed on the left TWS row, hooking it with a front K wasn’t possible. KALEWIFE is the only 8LW that can be made with that rack. Before I played my third bingo my rack was AAEFRS? and I needed to find a 7LW that started with a vowel. I saw and wrote down AgRAFES but realized that was the French word for staples. Nevertheless the word did seem familiar in an English context, yet I decided against playing it. With a promising tile pool I fished off an A and got an E and played AFREEtS on my next turn. The only other 7LW with my earlier rack was cARAFES, which wouldn’t have fit.
521-332 against Sid. I track my tiles from right to left, which makes it easy by the end of the game to see what tiles are remaining. Thus the unplayed letters are in a column on the left side, versus scattered at the end of lines of differing lengths. I record the blanks as they are played from right to left as well. My score sheet has a place for both blanks on the bottom. I record the first blank that is played in the spot on the right and the second blank in the spot on the left. Counterintuitive perhaps but I have done this for years and years without incident. On the occasions when I play both blanks in the same turn, I record the blanks on the designation slip, however, from left to right. Until last night.
I attempted to play REGOsoL (81) yet recorded the first blank as an o and the second blank as an s on the designation slip (matching how it looked on my score sheet, as OS). I wasn’t sure if Sid called Hold as I did hear him say something, yet just in case I delayed drawing my replacement tiles until after fifteen seconds. During that time I realized what I had done. I got six tiles out of the bag when Sid decided to challenge. The adjudication was not necessary. I announced that I had mistakenly transposed the blanks on the slip and removed my word. I also showed Sid the six tiles I had drawn. Since Sid could do nothing to block my bingo lane he played elsewhere, in so giving me a slightly better play of GLORiEs (83). I later played MOULINS (65) and CATTIES (78).
481-192 against Jonathan. I played UnWISER (78) and ShARIAS (71). My second bingo rack was AAIRSS? and while finding 7LW was easy enough, I really wanted to hook YO- provided I found a fitting letter with the blank, and it also had to be in second or third position. There is only one such word, ASkARIS, which I did know, but was very hard to find. One of my racks was ADOORSY and wish I had an M for DAYROOMS or a W for DOORWAYS. Jonathan did not go overtime.