Last Thursday was the first day of the Club’s 32nd season and I won forty dollars in cash prizes for various achievements during season 31:
$20 for best winning percentage, at 76.4%
$10 for a win-loss record totalling over one hundred points (139)
$5 for best points-per-game average (NWL lexicon): 424.8
$5 for most Bonus Bingos (three, tied with Shan and Yvonne)
I won two out of three on our first day of the 2023-2024 season:
440-281 against Jean. My bingos: FASHING (71) and NAgGIEST (73). Jean played ETOILeS (66).
419-328 against Yvonne. I played ERMINEs (71) and ENFLAmES (90). Yvonne played EXTERNS (73) and STARLIKE (67).
375-446 against Troy. I played ENOLASEs (71) and Troy played CRABBILY (118) and DADDIeS (73). CRABBILY was played through my opening B as a DWS-DWS. I held the play and since I was not sure of the word and also because of its high score decided to challenge. It was acceptable, and a beautiful low-probability find. CRABBILY ranks at number 28991 out of the 31523 8LW bingos. After I lost my turn Troy’s next move was OWIE, where the E was slotted on the bottom row DLS in between the lower left and centre TWS squares. I got excited as my rack was AELNOS? and I could catch up from a 132-point deficit if I played a triple-triple for 113 points. As it turns out my rack yielded no triple-triples but I did find one of the only two playable TWS bingos. (The other was ENhALOES.) Troy laid down his second bingo by building it backward: first he put down the S, then the e and I. And then the D-overload began: D D A and finally another D. Since two D’s had just been played I was anticipating he’d play an L as the initial letter (it could also have been a B, C, P or W) since proportionally there were more L’s left to pick from.