No brotherly love in Philly

Philadelphia 2/18/07 (Rating: 1450)

At 2-1 with a 100+ spread I'm feeling pretty good at lunch time. I just beat Jeff Jacobson (1467) 429-324. I played three consecutive bingos and outpicked him so badly, it wasn't fair. Still it feels like a good win. I'm eating my gyro happily. Eric is 1-2 in Division 1 and he's bemoaning a phoney he didn't challenge in his last game -- REUPDATE.

After lunch things unraveled on me. I lose all four games. All the breaks that went my way in Atlantic City go against me. I draw only 1 blank of the 8 across the four games. Esses are scarce and each big-point tile is seemingly played against me for 40 or 50 points. I'm constantly staring at racks like OURIEUN wondering if I should ditch OUIU or play OURIE for 10 points. I'm not good enough to answer these types of questions. What play would Quackle the Scrabble simulator tell me maximizes my chances of winning? I don't know.

My first game of the day is against David Engelhardt (1532). I'm not feeling fully functional. I went out with friends in West Chester, drank a little, and slept for about 3 hours total, most of it on a camping mat on the floor. I stink like cigarettes, because my pants and jacket were saturated in smoke at the bar last night. I'm the opposite of refreshed. But I'm off to a good start as the first letter I pull from the bag is a blank. I get RE?OUSE and can't find a bingo. I see REHOUSE but cannot imagine it's good (it is, and the other bingos are OUVRES and OVERUSE). I ditch a few letters and play FLOWERS my next turn. I keep the lead until the last two plays and David edges me 372-356. In the next game I beat Marty Fialkow (1397) 477-398. I play 3 bingoes (ONAGERS, PAINTERS, LARIATS) and have two 40+ nonbingos (WOVE, HOODED). The aforementioned game against Jeff Jacobson is next and unfortunately it's the peak of my day.

Mark Miller (1532) gives post-lunch loss number one with a 330-453 thumping. I can't get anything going all day and my best play is a phoney -- TOTEBAG. Toward the end of the game I have BTTOEA? and the only open line requires a hook of the Z and an A with the last two letters of a bingo. Given the circumstances I think TOTEBAG is a pretty nice find. Mark lets it stay and on the next play bingos himself. In my next game it's a phoney that gets me. Early in the game my opponent, Alan Kraus (1413) plays ORALIZES for 104 points and I don't even bat an eye over it. From there on out he draws the bag on me and wins 492-374. My next loss, to Dan Milton (1315), is certainly the most frustrating of the evening. I bingo early in the game, POTPIES, definitely my favorite of my plays on the day, to take the lead. I'm able to hold the lead despite pulling dredge by shutting the board down. On the draw that empties the bag I pull the Q to give me QUARNTL. He has SUIRD?E. I'm up by 20. My only spot to play the Q would allow him go out with a bingo SQUIRTED. I'm stuck and I have no good plays. I play off the T for 5 points, he plays his S for 21. I realize it's over. If I play the Q he'll be able to hit it up on a double word and I'll lose, if I keep it he'll go out and I'll lose. There is nothing I can do. I accept my fate and play QUA for 18. He plays QUIRE for 26 points. I lose 416-400. This loss is super irritating. I needed to draw almost the perfectly wrong tile combinattion at the end of the game to lose, and I did just that. My final loss of the day is only slightly less irritating. Diana Grosman (1536) draws the bag, and clobbers me 437-354. I was doing my best to hang in there, and I hit two bingos to keep it close for a while, but she had the following sequence of plays against me: INTAKING 76, COSTLIER 72, HERTZ 54, JURA 36, FEDEX 51 -- two bingos and then three triple word scores with power tiles. I just couldn't hang.

I'm not sure where I finished I think 10th or 11th of 12 in Division 2. Despite my loss to Diana Grosman I think I finished ahead of her, as she was 2-5 with a worse spread than me. Eric and I leave before the final results are computed. I am 2-5, he is 3-4. No sense sticking around. We aren't winning anything, and it's a long drive back. I hope my rating doesn't drop too much after this poor performance -- but that's in the hands of the NSA bigwigs now. All in all, despite my record, I don't think I played too poorly. Given my tiles I feel like I consistently made plays to give myself a shot at winning. That's all you can do. Things just don't work sometimes. You have to roll with it. It reminds of a story I heard a former umpire tell about Rickey Henderson: Rickey is at the plate and the first pitch blows right by him. "Alright," says Rickey "that's one. You got me with that one." Next pitch the exact same thing happens. "Alright, that's two. You got me two. Throw that shit again, though." The third pitch comes in just like the first two and again blows right past him. Rickey looks at the pitcher, struts toward the dugout and says, "you still the man Rickey, you still the man."

TOURNAMENT NOTES
*My tracking and scoring today was spot-on. It's a very minor consolation though. I like it better when I'm winning and can't track or add for shit.

*The lock-less bathrooms at the tournament venue are quite annoying. The vacant/occupied signs don't really work because people always forget to flip it, so everybody just knocks anyway. The best way to ensure privacy is to put your foot against the door.

*Also Eric was wondering why there are four toilets in a row about a foot away from each other. I think it's a good question.

*The way it's set up D1 & D2 are upstairs D3 & D4 are downstairs. I really don't want to go back downstairs for the next tournament.

*Eric and I were talking about how if people observe your game they will often say, "you missed such-and-such" where such-and-such is some word you've never heard of. It's not so much you missed it, it's that you just didn't know it.