The Club did not meet last week because of snow conditions. I won all three last night, to take my record to 43-5:
431-387 against Valeria. I was playing first and my opening rack was AAACDIN. I arranged my rack to form ICANADA and CANADIA. That rack only plays through an R to make ACARIDAN and ARCADIAN. Valeria took an early lead with RITTErS (67) and I struggled to catch up. I eventually got down TOWNiES (90) which tied the game at 234, yet my bingo enabled her to snapback with HULKS (55). I spent a good long time with the ENOSTW? rack, not because I couldn’t find any 7LW, but because I wanted to find one that had an O in first or second position such that the second-last letter wasn’t a vowel. TOWNiES was played on the right TWS row but the E was to the right of a TLS. I feared that Valeria might make a huge play going down to a DWS, and HULKS was it. Turns out there are only two 7LW that would have fit, the other being TOWNeES. I was fortunate to find a place for BRACING (77), hooking three words, including slotting the G in front of RITTErS. One of my racks was ACDEINO and I missed CODEINA.
370-346 against Peter H. Another close one till the end. Peter played TAENIAS (65) and DOZERs (75). I needed that R to play DRIFTIER (90). Endgame strategy won it for me, and I needed every minute on the clock. One of my racks was the horrid DEKOOOO and it would have been pure flash to play KOODOO but there was no place for it. With no other viable option I exchanged all but DE. Another of my racks was CENNOOR which anagrams to NONCORE, which I did not know.
424-374 against Jean. I played TINIEST (74) and CATALOs (77). Jean played WAGeRING (72).