Mark and I played nine games over Christmas while staying at the home of his sister Patsy and her partner Jim. I won seven and tied one, giving us our first tie game since March 19, 2020. Here is the round-by-round colour commentary:
01 I played bYgONES (87). 408-313
02 I played TAWNIER (76) and Mark played ARRANgE (69). 391-348
03 My bingos were HEADIEr (69) and REALISED (86) and Mark played ORBItER (81). 456-359
04 I played BEGlAMOUR (69, extending GlAMOUR after BE-), SERIATE (73) and AGNATES (90). Mark opened the game with LOoNIES (64). The space just before the S in SERIATE was a DWS and I noticed the extension BISERIATE was possible. I drew a B after I played AGNATES, however not one of the remaining four I’s. I did not hold onto the B as my replacement rack after AGNATES gave me a forty-point play with BUMPY. For the record, I never drew an I for the remainder of the game, so BISERIATE would not have come down. 444-366
05 I played STUDIeD (71), RESCORE (74) and SPAROID (79) and Mark played BATTENEd (63). 487-280
06 I played WANGLERS (66) and dONATOR (74) and Mark played CONGRESs (62) to end the game. He got sixteen points from my rack to tie, with his clock reading 00:00. Had he gone one second overtime, he would have lost the game by ten. However, if he had found another bingo that fit in the same spot (with the O in second position) COREiGNS, the G would have landed on the TLS and he would have won by two. Yet any extra time to find an alternate bingo would have taken him overtime. He just had to get a bingo down before his clock ticked overtime. I don’t think either of us knew who won the game until we did the final calculations from the tiles remaining on my rack. 372-372
07 I opened the game with UNHOUsE (76), from the deceptively awful rack of EHNOUU? I placed the E on the star. My replacement rack was EFILOT? and I played LOFTIEr (63), totally missing the F- front hook to UNHOUSE, which, had I played my bingo there, would have scored 116 for getting both LOFTIEr and FUNHOUsE on the TWS. I also played MONEYING (89)*. Mark played RAVISHED (82) and ROADSIDE (62). While on the topic of front hooks to bingos, we could not have extended ROADSIDE to BROADSIDE because the R was in the left column. 474-408
08 I played HOGTIES (87) and Mark played JOTTIng (81). The game might have turned in my favour if I hadn’t chickened out of playing CURDLER, which would have given me the lead. I was behind throughout the entire game. 372-422
09 I played TROPINS (75), STRANDER (60) and ACETOmA (67)* and Mark played UNDERLIe (60). I must have been confusing my phony with ADENOMA / ATHEROMA and ACETONE. 494-357