My 2023 win-loss record against Mark was 135 wins and 44 losses, or a 75.4% win record. Mark’s winning percentage increased from 21.6% last year.
In 2022 my record was 153 wins and 42 losses, or a 78.4% win record. In 2021 my record was 188 wins and 38 losses, or an 83.2% win record and in 2020 I stood at 201½-51½, with a 79.6% win record.
We played two games on New Year’s Eve and two on New Year’s Day and I won all of them. I am changing the way I report our games this year. Instead of compiling a chart of bingos with notes underneath, I will treat our matches the same way as I report Club and Tournament games. I will no longer compute averages as I will record every game score. Keep in mind that I don’t write a post about every game we play.
Our last two games of 2023:
465-433. My bingos: STEEPiNG (89) and SCORIAE (70). Mark played FOULEST (71) and DePRIVE (82).
433-353. My bingos: INTRUDER (70) and AIRINESS (70). Mark played eLECTION (60). He placed it such that the e was underneath the centre TWS in the top row, thus it was a race to who could pick up the first S. I did, and played SCROD / SeLECTION, scoring 60 immediately after INTRUDER.
Our first two games of 2024:
419-346. I played ELISION (85) and Mark played RETAINER (68).
456-371. I played BEGUINES (67), STRINGED (72) and the phony TRUMPERs (74)*. Mark played RATLInE (63). I believed that my word was plausible, as it could have context in bridge games. I had to try it as I would have kicked myself if I chickened out of playing it and discovered it was acceptable. I joked that a word judge could have made a ruling by saying “TRUMPERs are not acceptable.”. (They definitely aren’t.) Turns out that each of our blanks could have been designated another letter to make (in my case, a legitimate) another bingo. Mark could have made his blank a k for RATLIkE, and I could have played mine to make TRUMPERy. After each of my bingos I had horrid replacement draws: after BEGUINES I drew EOOOQSY. I exchanged on my next turn, keeping ES. After STRINGED I picked IIILOOZ, and used my next turn to exchange, keeping IZ. And lastly after TRUMPERs I picked AOOOPQR. There were enough tiles to permit an exchange but I worked through that rack, keeping the Q.