What do you call a typo when its on the board?

Playing on-line typos occur fairly frequently. When I'm playing Eric we usually challenge (assuming the play is invalid) and pass when obvious typos occur under the rationale that that doesn't happen on a board, but, as I found out at club last night, sometimes it does.

It began in my first game of evening when I tried to play UNUA to dump some vowels and block a triple word line. I realized immediately after announcing my score (so immediately after it was too late) that I had transposed the second U and the A. In that same game my opponent, Rebecca Lambert, played the invalid bingo RUSLTERS. Again, I didn't notice the mistake until just after it was too late. Then in my last game of the evening I played AEROLE (instead of AREOLE), but my opponent didn't challenge. In fact, I didn't even notice it until long after the game was over. I was at home thinking about the game and realized from how the game ended that I must have made an invalid play. Sloppy, sloppy.

Overall, however, it was a decent night. I went 2-1 with a spread close to +200. My only loss was to Rebecca, but aside from my typo and missing her typo, I played pretty well. I was double blanked and had to fight through some ridiculous vowel-heavy racks, but still managed 402 points. I would've won if at the end I had a place go out with BANDS on my rack, but I didn't and ended up losing by 8. At one point, I had five vowels on my rack and I played the aforementioned UNUA, which resulted in me retaining the same crap rack and scoring nothing. I exchanged 5 on my next play and drew 4 vowels, so I played a vowel dump on my next turn for nominal points, and then proceeded to draw all vowels which required me to exchange again my next turn. I had netted about 10 points in 4 turns. Not surprisingly I was down big, but I tried not to get frustrated, and just focus on making strong plays. To a large extent it worked as I came back with two bingos, ENTERAL and ORGEATS, the latter of which was quite nice because the only place to bingo required a front hook of both WO and OY with the last two letters of the bingo, so it pretty much had to be TS.

The other two games I won fairly handily, although one of them could have been very close if my opponent had challenged AEROLE, or if he had not played AFRO, which I challenged off the board (I guess he never saw "Word Wars") and instead played FORA for way more points. He played GNAWINGS on me, which I challenged, but much to my surprise, it's valid. The only other noteworthy thing that happened on the night is that I bingoed with three Ns in my rack, and that's barely noteworthy since it was the rather boring TANNING and I had both blanks.

I am slightly put-off by the club format. I wish that the last three games included a one-and-done tournament between the top 8 people at club that night. I think it would be fun to have a conclusive "winner" for that week and it would be a much better way to pair opponents, in my opinion, than having the director do it almost at random. It would require slightly more organization by the director however, which might be a problem considering that there seems to be a new one each week. I can't complain too much though. The directors are just volunteering, and it's not like I'm offering to do it.

You can find me at the club

I've been back at club the past two weeks. In 8 games I'm 4-4 with a spread right around 0 -- almost the definition of average, but I do generally play the better players. Yesterday I had a strange game against Brian Bailey in which there were 5 challenges. I'm going first and on my rack is ANPSTU?. I know that there are bingos in this rack, but I'm having trouble finding one. (The easiest one is PEANUTS, but also I should've seen UNSTRAP and DUSTPAN). I see both STANDUP and UPSTAND, but I don't know if they are valid (they are), as well as UNTAPES (invalid). After minutes of dithering I become slightly flustered and decided to play a safe word and save the blank and S, so I lay done UNTAP. The problem being that UNTAP is not a safe word at all. It's invalid. I didn't even think twice about it. I must have confused it with UNCAP, or something, I'm not sure. It's challenged off the board, and then Brian exchanges some tiles.

With the board still empty I'm going through the same process as before. This time I put down UNTAPES, the one invalid play out of the three I'm considering, and again it comes off the board. On his play Brian bingos ENTERON. Now, I'm ready to try STANDUP, but I notice a play I missed before, OUTSPAN(S). I try this one, because it's more points, off the O in ENTERON. For the third straight time the play is challenged (the director is getting a work out), but thankfully this time the play is valid. Five turns and we have two words on the board, both bingos. (By the way, PULSANT is the only other valid play not mentioned above in my opening rack).

A few turns later I draw DDEIST? and bingo TEDDIES (not challenged) then subsequently draw EEINSST. On the next play I hit SENSTINES for a 2x2. Unsure of this variation, Brian challenges, number four, but it stays. I was 99% sure it was valid (ENTIES = RAVI'S SLY MINX CHILD). Now, I'm up big when a few turns later Brain hits the 2x2 REAVAILS for 91 points. Convinced this is a desperation move, it sounds completely phony to me, I challenge, but shockingly, it's valid (REAVAIL and LEVARIA). Luckily, on the subsequent draw Brian gets a bunch of garbage, and continues to do so for the rest of the game, which is pretty uneventful. I win fairly handily. Overall, this was a very fun game, probably more fun for me since I won, but I complete outdrew my opponent, he did a good job just to keep it somewhat close.