Yesterday we celebrated our Club’s 31st anniversary with an early start which included a full dinner buffet and some activities between the games. I was happy to see so many people in attendance. Good thing we had rented a larger room. I won all three:
492-169 against Noah. He suffered a forty-point penalty for going overtime. I played DROOLiNG (60), TROPHIES (99) and NITERIES (62).
461-206 against Jude. Jude is a new player, and I forgave his time penalty of seventy points. I opened the game with OGEE, placing the O on the star. Jude exchanged and I had drawn drek so on my second play I played OEE through the G, thus making OGEE twice. I played BrAIDER (83), QuINELAS (66) and STAIRED (69) £. My gosh, after playing this game competitively for 31 years you’d think I’d remember that from an easy SATIRE stem that STAIRED was Collins-only. STAIDER would have fit just the same. With such a lead I should have been more daring and tried CADEnZA, which I wrote on my score sheet yet chickened out of playing for 99. What would it have cost me if Jude challenged it? Merely a loss of turn, which I could have made up no problem, especially since I was holding the Z and a blank. Too bad I blew a stylish Scrabble moment. The only 7LW in that rack was indeed CADEnZA. and the only 8LW is its plural.
468-419 against Dave K. I had a bingo blast with BLEARING (63), SALTIER (68), SHARPEN (97) and ECLoGiTE (72). I deliberately played SALTIER instead of its S- starting anagrams SALTIRE and SLATIER because I knew SALTIER was also a noun and since the R ended right above the bottom TWS row, there was a chance I could capitalize on it if I drew an S. I was able to play SHARPEN four turns later, and Dave held the play for a while, then challenged SALTIERS unsuccessfully. My replacement draw was CEGLT?? which when arranged as an alphagram almost spells out the word I had no trouble finding. I played it to the E in SHARPEN, which then opened up the right TWS row for Dave, who dropped UNIFIED for 95.
Photos from our anniversary night courtesy of Jean Barinque:
The Mississauga Scrabble Club after 31 years
Troy, Noah, Dave N. and me
Peter H., me and Mark
Mark with his Scrabble magnets prize, Kaveri, Noah and Steve
Nicole, Mark, Yvonne, John D. and the right side of Shan
Jean and Valeria
Vijay, Shan and Steve
Gene, Jason and Shauna
Dave K., Troy and the back of Gene
Vijay and Vimalan with Jonathan, Vivina and Olivia in the background. How many V’s were needed to write that caption?
Rodney, Noah, Deji, Dave N., Troy, Beulah, Vijay and Yvonne