Annotated Games - BEST Final

This was posted to the UK Scrabble list.

They have a tournament called BEST (British Elimination Scrabble Tournament). I think it is a giant knock-out competition and eventually the two finalists play a best of 21 games.

Well someone has annotated the games....all 17 of them.

http://www.centrestar.co.uk/best/2008/BESTFinalGames.html

This is a wonderful opportunity to watch top players and learn.

Campionato Italiano di Scrabble 2008 - Italian Scrabble Championships

This was posted by John Chew to the world Scrabble list.

As reported at

http://www.scrabbleitalia.com/

Campionato Italiano di Scrabble 2008 (the 2008 Italian Scrabble
Championship) took place this past weekend in Rome. 21 players
competed for the title, and the final game can be viewed at

http://www.poslfit.com/games/figs/cis/2008/2/

Note a few things that set Italian Scrabble apart from English:

1. Once per game, you are allowed to announce "cambio secco" and
trade all seven tiles before making a regular play.

2. When one player goes out, his opponent deducts the values of his
remaining tiles from his score, not doubled, and the player who
went out does not adjust his score.

3. There are 120 tiles, but no Js, Ks, Ws, Xs or Ys.

Not to mention words like CUOIAIE (played from a C, no less),
meaning women who work with or sell leather.

The risks of playing Scrabble with your family.

I have been reading this online comic for a couple of years.

At last some Scrabble content.

Warning: Marginal adult content.

http://xkcd.com/492/

Cardboxes and Zyzzyva

For the first time in a while I have actually being doing some word study. I usually spend about 2 hours each weekday travelling on the train to and from work with laptop in hand I am putting that time to good use.

I have been using Zyzzyva and the cardbox system.

After a little bit of research I found it is actually called the Leitner Cardbox system. Here is a good explaination of how it works.

Marathon Result and Bonuses Played

I love the marathon. At the end of the day I always feel full of adrenalin and feel like playing more games wondering where the day has gone. Then true reality sets in the next day when I do feel quite fatigued.

I finished 6th out of about 40 and went down 12 ratings points. There are always tales of what ifs but two of my twelve games I could have won had I used my time more at the end of the game.

Anyway here are the bonuses played both for and against.

Mine

• meteors
• teacart ( I had teacake very next turn but was unplayable)
• dugites
• beanies
• martins
• borates
• creation
• sideline
• teazling
• sipping
• annoyed
• society
• triples
• beggers
• toadies
• peroxid

Played against me

• located
• fission
• arsenal
• rustier
• learned
• reredos
• unfeared
• dreader
• sweetie
• moodier
• becrime
• roadings
• dackers
• twinges
• enamored
• eeliest

There you have it 16 bonuses for and 16 against.

Annual Spring Marathon

Off the the spring marathon this weekend. This tournament is not for the faint hearted. It is 12 games 20 minutes a side open event. According to the latest entry list I will be among the highest rated there so it may be a tough slog defending those ratings points.

On another note this may be the best value tournament in NSW per game.

12 games - Cost $25 = $2.08 approx per rated game....Great value!

Filtering Scrabble NSW Personal Stats

For some years now we have had the excellent resource set up on the Scrabble Australia site that gives detailed personal information about you performances in Australian sanctioned and rated tournaments.

http://www.scrabble.org.au/tournaments/index.html

You are in fact able to filter just for the year of choice.

In the URL below I have searched for myself and added some text to the URL that allows me to show just my 2008 stats. Using this method you can look at your year by year performances.

http://www.scrabble.org.au/tournaments/cgi-bin/stats.cgi?name1=Mark Smith&startyear=2008&endyear=2008&filter=true

Probably the easiest way is to click the link above and just change my name in the URL to your name.

NSW Scrabble AGM

Every year at the NSW champs the AGM is held. This year unlike other years was quite different.

I have attended the last 5 NSW champs in a row and have been asked before if I would stand for the committee and whilst interested I always said that I would wait until my kids were school aged and things would be a little easier at home etc.

Well guess what? This year I am ready to be on the committee and play my part in contributing to the Scrabble landscape but I was not needed. Debate at the meeting was vigourous and there were quite a few positions that were no just filled but they were contested.

New Positions are:

• Rex Shakespeare - Membership Officer
• Colleen Walker - Secretary
• La'Reine Lang - Publicity Officer
• Chris Ostrowski - Committee Member
• Ed Laginha - Committee Member
  

It is great to see so many are interested as this tells me that NSW Scrabble is in a strong place to move forward into the future.

Joan Rosenthal Shield - Part 2

As I mentioned in a previous post Michael McKenna was likely to win the shield....he did...with a massive gain of 764 points. This certainly places my 322 into perspective.

Well done Michael!

Pyramid Words

Anyone in NSW Scrabble will notice the activity that is present in the Youth Scrabble scene, largely due to Karen Richards. Karen holds youth Scrabble camps at her home most school holidays and Phillip Hamilton of the young players that plays at my house each week attends. I was asking him what kinds of activities occur and how is it structured and mentioned the phrased "Pyramid words".

I guess I knew in mind what a pyramid word is but just had not given a label to it. But they make so much sense to learn.

They are words that you can just keep adding letters to, or hooks, as us Scrabblers prefer to say.

Phillip game me on example:

• mo
• mod
• mode
• moder
• modern
• moderns

Bob Jackman, 2 time Australian champion beat me with a very sneaky Pyramid word on the weekend.

• ja
• jam
• jamb
• jambe
• jambee
• jambees ( the s was not added in our game, but it does take S)

If you have any more of there I would love to hear from you.

New South Wales (NSW) Championships

Phew!...got got up after a good nights sleep and am feeling much refreshed after just attending the NSW Championships. There is a lot I want to write about over coming days that occurred during the last three days but here are just a few facts and statistics to start with.

13.5 wins from 24 games

Rating gain of 4 points - Makes me 1626 - about 35 in the country

I played 27 bonuses in 24 games - about 1.125 average per game. This is down on my usual average of about 1.3 per game

Here are the bonuses I played:

• sealine
• taeniae
• soaring
• inertias
• blitzed
• rindiest
• student
• stinker
• jinglers
• erector
• triaged
• arsines
• lucites
• stealer
• elations
• dilates
• negates
• reloads
• alarming
• stunner
• canoeing
• against
• goosier
• slenter
• catering
• tearing
• involver

Wow just counted the bonuses against me - 37 - 10 more than I played. To me this tells me that for me to win more than half my games that my in between bonus plays are getting stronger.

Here are the opponent bonuses played:

• juiciest
• loricated
• inwards
• weakened
• meeters
• origanes
• ostiate
• retinae
• isatine
• hoarsen
• twiners
• ironweed
• tornade
• loaners
• guarder
• cistern
• anisole
• fireside
• gauntly
• meagrest
• redliner
• carageen
• snouted
• stoolie
• lanterns
• moonies
• starned
• serrati
• inciters
• blouses
• moneyed
• employs
• inserts
• sterile
• hoariest
• isleted
• juncate

That is all for now, more to come in following days.

Just one player at last night...

Just one player at last night Scrabble meeting at my house. It was a pleasant surprise to see Simone who usually only attends during the school holidays, which I should be aware of now as I now have school aged kids.

I got off to a flyer of a start with a 530 point game to win by over 280 (Sorry Simone for the gloat). The notable part was bonuses for me on moves 4, 5, 6 and 8 a nice little run.

The record should also record Simone and I played 3 games for a 2/1 result.

Racks were...

• deiilos
• aceortv....1 solution but i played onto a d
• bdiosu?
• adeinru

Photo of final board and solutions below.
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