Yesterday was the first day of the Club’s 34th season and we started with a prize ceremony to commemorate the achievements over the last year. I won $45, divided this way:
Second highest number of points earned with 237: $20
Highest winning percentage at 83% with 74 wins out of 89 games: $10
Second highest average score at 443: $10. The winner of this category was a Collins player.
Most Bonus-Bingo wins at five: $5
I started the new season off well by winning all three games:
499-290 against Steve. A sizable win, but an inauspicious start as, for the first time in 32 years of competitive play, I received an incorrect word adjudication for a word challenged against me. I had played SEVERAL (69), hooking the S onto the end of HAO. Steve took the challenge on his phone, and showed me that the word source he was using was NWL23. The play came back unacceptable. I disputed this, knowing that HAOS was one of the oddball plurals added to the new word list. Jean adjudicated the second challenge. I asked her what lexicon app she was consulting. She showed me it was NWL23. Once again, HAOS was ruled unacceptable. I was puzzled. What the heck? HAOS as well as JIAOS were two monetary units that now took -S. Was I wrong about HAOS? I did not dispute the second ruling, and made up my mind that well, yes, I am human, so I could be mistaken about HAOS after all. I always bring the print word list with me and confirmed that HAOS was acceptable. So what word source were Steve and Jean using? I asked Jean to look up another new word on her phone, VAX, to make sure it was really an updated lexicon. VAX was ruled acceptable. I concluded that both Steve and Jean must have consulted the WOW lexicon, a word source that, among other things, permits the offensive slurs yet disallows the oddball plurals. Fortunately I still won this game, and big, as Steve lost fifty points going overtime. I managed to play SEVERAL elsewhere on my next turn (after I had to take it back the first time) for 66. My earlier placement of HAOS / SEVERAL would have scored 69. I also played a triple-triple REGAINED (149). Steve played NICENESs (70) through the second E in my repositioned SEVERAL and BROwNIE (77). I used the E in BROwNIE for my triple-triple (I used it as the second E). I had fished off an O from a rack of AEGINR and then picked a D. My O-fish play gave me GRAINED or READING as my most lucrative plays, yet Steve’s play of BROwNIE gave me the triple-triple.
488-262 against Ramona. I played VEAlIER (75), CITOLES (68) and METROpIA (76)*. I thought my final bingo was acceptable and Ramona never questioned it. At the end of our game, after I checked my NWL and found out it was phony, I apologized and told her. She knew the word HYPERMETROPIA, which was indeed found in the NWL, so she considered METROPIA as a general term for the eye condition. My rack was AEMORT? and I could play a bingo if the I that was on the board was in seventh or eighth position. I see the only bingo that fit was AMORETtI. One of my racks was EILMPPT and there was a B on the bottom centre TWS, with five unseen E’s. I saw the possibility of BEPIMPLE, scoring 107. It was tempting to fish off the T in the hopes of drawing an E. I decided against it, as it was in the middle of the game and the bag was full of other letters. My chances of drawing an E would be remote, especially now, since Ramona reduced the E pool by one with her subsequent play. I chose to unclutter my high-point consonants by playing POMP for 16. I was crestfallen when the first tile I drew out of the bag was in fact an E. Ramona did not obstruct the bottom row on her next turn, so I could definitely have played BEPIMPLE for 107 if I had fished off the T. BEPIMPLE is a very low-probability bingo, ranking 28761 out of 31736. My opening rack was AFILOOR and I chose to play ALOOF (24) going first, but had I gone second I might have been able to play AEROFOIL. I did not know the only other 8LW that rack makes, FAROLITO.
389-347 against John D. I played SoUTANE (64) and FLATTERER (78). Fortunately I had two places for my FLATTER rack. I built it onto the final -ER to score more points, but there was also a Y that would have enabled FLATTERY (68) to come down. John could not play to block both spots. John played RANDIES (78) and RETAILED (60).