The Club did not have a formal meeting last night. We played outside at the Mississauga Valley Community Centre for the first game and then moved inside for a further three games. No statistics were kept so I will not add them to my progressive win-loss record. Mark and I arrived late for the first game and so played each other, and then because our match was off-schedule had to play each other for round two. I won all four games:
446-365 against Mark. Our alfresco game saw me bingo with SINUATE (85) and the lovely WEBCAST (98). Mark played CrEAMIER (74). I was disappointed to miss NARDINE with the rack ADEINNR. It’s a word I had played many times before and the board layout would have permitted it.
The wind picked up and we moved inside for the remainder of the evening. We had to hold the tile bag down as it became lighter and lighter with each subsequent draw, and at times blew over the board. Fortunately it didn’t spill out any of the tiles.
449-320 against Mark. I played ISOdOSE (73) and ROmANCER (80). My first bingo rack was EIOOSS? which makes only the one 7LW. I would later have much duplication in my next game.
455-425 against Jean. I was going second and had to trade an abundance of vowels as my first play. It didn’t help things much, as soon after I had consecutive plays of AALII (9) and BOOTEE (20). Jean took a sizable lead and at one time the score was 205-86 in her favour. The game turned around after my first bingo, VITAMINE (78). However I still struggled with some horrible duplication and triplication. Here are some of my racks: AAAEILT, DEIIIR?, AAEEPTT and AEEOOTT. With that second rack I did see the possibility of IRItIDEs. The only other 8LW with that rack is vIRIcIDE. The shortest steal for my final rack of triple duplication is hETErOATOm. With JIAO playing down to the bottom TWS row, I laid down JIAOs / sQUIRED for 112. Jean challenged, not knowing that in the latest edition of the lexicon JIAO now takes the -S. The word was placed such that the space to the immediate left of the s was another TWS square. All I had to do was drop an E there to make EsQUIRED and score an easy 51. With only three E’s left I hoped to pick one, and as I drew all my tiles from the bag one by one, I pulled a precious E out as my seventh tile. I played again as Jean had lost her turn with her unsuccessful challenge, and dropped WYE down to the centre TWS to score 89. The board thus looked like this:
| J | |||||||
| I | |||||||
| W | A | E | |||||
| Y | O | ||||||
| E | s | Q | U | I | R | E | D |
I set up a spot to pluralize a word, provided the S was slotted in first, second or third position. I was thus disappointed to find PRUSSIC on my rack yet be unable to play it. Jean played BENDING (66), BATHERS (69) and scored 68 for ZEe.
407-347 against Trevor. I played DEFIERS (78) and CUrIOUs (63), which is the only 7LW in CIOUU?? The space just above the C in CUrIOUs was a DWS and I wondered if the queerish BICURIOUS was acceptable. The B’s were already in play so it was not possible to play it, yet I see that the front extensions of -CURIOUS are indeed BI-, IN-, and UN-.