I won two out of three last night:
320-368 against Steve. I played REVEAlER (66) and Steve played UNQUIETs (88) and NESTLIKE (63). I challenged UNQUIETs unsuccessfully. My pick after REVEAlER was the awful AAAABEG, when there were seven A’s left in the bag. My final rack was full of high-scoring consonants: DHIPSTY. I was able to easily go out in two, playing DIT followed by SYPH. I did see the possibility of DIPTYCHS if there was an open C, yet there is also another 8LW in there: TYPHOIDS. I held the rack ADEGGTY and found GADGETY but unfortunately there was nowhere to play it. The only 8LW it makes is GADGETRY.
476-218 against Noah. Noah impressed me and took an early lead with DEVIATe (78) while I had to wait a few more turns to get down my first bingo, WOORALIS (82). I was able to play two more, MEANNESs (80) and GOATIEST (70). Noah went overtime by only one minute.
409-407 against Carter. Carter visited the Club for the first time last night. He is a McMaster student who has played exclusively on-line, so the in-person experience was new to him. His first game was against Shauna who beat him, yet in the second game he trounced Steve, so I was eager to play this new phenom. My first bingo was TINIEsT (71), which in order to go down at all required the blank to be made an s. My placement of TINIEsT slotted the first T in a triple-triple row, and after a short time Carter laid down LITANIES for 131. All of a sudden my lead 194-126 was a deficit 194-257. Carter exchanged tiles twice and I challenged off two of his phonies. I played a late bingo, EMULsIVE (66). I had enough time to plan the endgame as that is what secured me the narrow win. Carter was in time trouble–he had less than a minute left–so I wonder if his endgame was compromised by the risk of going overtime. Since he is an experienced on-line player he would be familiar with timed games and the overtime penalty, so I didn’t think that playing with a clock in an in-person game was anything new to him. During this game I had the awkward rack EIKPRW? and easily found the only 7LW, PaWKIER. The only 8LW is PIpEWoRK.