Mark and I had three good games this past weekend and I won two, with interesting bingos by each of us. I averaged 423 and Mark 394. Here is the bingo breakdown:
| Craig | Mark |
| INCaNTS (73) | CANNERS (78) |
| ZESTING (94) | DIcTATE (69) |
| BURNOuTS (68) | QUASHeD (118) |
| DEpLETER (77) | UNTANNED (68) |
| VARIATED (64) | |
| GIRASOL (86) |
I lost the first game, 338-358.
ZESTING placed the Z on a TLS. I bemoaned the abundance of U’s only to end up making my blank a u in BURNOuTS.
Mark took an early lead in the third game with QUASHeD, placing the Q on the DLS and the whole word doubled. I had to seriously contemplate every play and keep the board open to score. I was able to play DEpLETER to a TWS, wisely forgoing the phony (and, as it turned out, the less optimal even if it was good) DELETERs. I kept a -D open thinking that I might be able to play a bingo to it, and did so with VARIATED. Mark’s bingo UNTANNED slotted the U directly under a DWS. My draw immediately after VARIATED was AGILORS and the only way to take advantage of that DWS in a seven-letter bingo was if I had an S in fifth position, and GIRASOL fit perfectly. I managed to win, 487-452. It’s not a bad game even if you lose with a high score like that. That was a speedy game for both of us, since when you score so high you usually don’t spend a lot of time agonizing over awful racks. Mark spent a good five minutes on his endgame yet by the time the bag was empty he still had over ten minutes on his clock, and I had over sixteen.