I played four games last night and won three, to take my record to 11-2:
455-343 against Dave K. I played first and opened with UNSOWEd (76) then got down STEEPING (92). Dave played JOINeRS (70). My opening rack also yielded SWOUNEd and UNSWOrE.
456-345 against Sid. I was struggling at the beginning with successive UV racks so when I got a decent set of letters I tried the dubious CRENOTE (73)* and got away with it. Sid did hold me on it. I then took the lead and never fell behind. I also played ANEStRI (79) and MELANIST (74). Sid played EARRINGS (72). My third bingo has four anagrams and I built it through an E. All the other anagrams wouldn’t fit. I found BOtHRIA on one of my racks and there was a place to play it, but I hesitated. Once again I doubt my word knowledge. I always ask myself why would a word such as that occur to me if I hadn’t seen it somewhere? Over the past weekend I played ZOYSIA (76) against Mark, and during our postmortem I told him that I had studied all the words that end in -IA. However, when it came to BOtHRIA, perhaps the slightest bit of uncertainty made me waver, especially since I had the blank. I was certain to bingo with it on a future move. I got rid of the clunky B and H and got down ANEStRI.
While I was walking around the room after round two, I saw John D. who had his rack arranged to spell OSANITY. That arrangement, as “O’ Sanity”, is a song by Yoko Ono released as tbe B-side to “Nobody Told Me” by John Lennon. I wonder what John did with that rack. I did not look at his board, but later on I checked to see that the OSANITY rack makes no 7LW but plays through a D to make DYSTONIA and an L to make LANOSITY.
For round three we suddenly found attendance odd in number when a player left without telling anyone. I was asked if I wouldn’t mind playing two games at the same time. It was awkward inasmuch as I wanted to track tiles in both games and my opponents couldn’t draw new tiles until I had seen their plays. My concentration was lacking in some situations when I didn’t want my opponents to have to wait long after I returned to our game. We played both games without the clock.
527-268 against Ramona. I played KNELLING (76), OnEROUS (68), ABIlITY (94) and TAENIAS (80). I played KNELLING through the first N. The other 8LW with the rack EGIKLLN are GLENLIKE and KVELLING. I was surprised to discover that my second bingo rack, EOORSU? yields only that single 7LW. Ramona played BLED such that the TWS row was to the left of the B. I was bemoaning my draw after OnEROUS: ABIITY? When my tiles are arranged in random order they look horrible, yet as an alphagram the bingo popped out at me. I jumped at the chance to play it on the TWS row, also making ABLED. The placement of ABIlITY was one space down from the top left TWS, so the possibility to score 36 for LABIlITY was there yet it never happened (especially since I had used up two of those L’s for KNELLING). I held the rack ACCINOT yet missed ACETONIC. I definitely knew that word. I confess to feeling rushed, and quickly played OCEANIC in the spot instead.
334-381 against John D. I played ENSUITE (71) and John played FInITES (89). I held the rack AHMNOP? and I found sHOPMAN which played in two places. I felt that I would get it down on my next turn yet John’s FInITES blocked both spots. That rack also makes PHANtOM.
The theme for this evening was the Toronto Blue Jays. I submitted the pedestrian JAYS when I played it in game two. However in my game against Dave, he made the thematically overapt overlap BO and BAT. I think that ought to win.