I'm in Southie this week visiting my girlfriend who is, unfortunately, in class during the daytime. Anyone want to meet for some games? I'm carless but have easy access to the Red Line, fwiw.

Haven't done one of these in a while. Here goes. Also, if I played you and you're out there reading this, feel free to send me your racks and I'll add them to the Quackle files, if you so desire.

( Friday night )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

( Stats )

Spring semester is over.
Pittsburgh tourney is in 1 month.
Nationals are 6 weeks after that.
It's time to start Scrabbling.

The second game in a series of 2 against chaithedog from right before Nationals '08. He mentions his opening rack of DEGPXZ? on his blog here.
The pre-endgame in this one is really intriguing and weird. I want to know what you folks would do when I played OR for 8, and when I played HAD to empty the bag.

Play along!

About a week before Nationals, I played a 2 game series against chaithedog. Here is the first of those games.

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Following Nationals was exciting, though not nearly as exciting/fun as being there! Congrats to everyone who played, regardless of your finish. Playing 28 full games of Scrabble in 4 days is a lot more than most human beings could accomplish.

Back to the ISC treasure trove for me. This one is from a couple weeks ago against orangejkel, aka sr_orangepants. And yes, I am blogging this.

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To all those Orlando-bound: I wish you happy Scrabbling and a joyous weekend. Although somehow, I think y'all will have plenty of fun without me wishing it for you :-D

A close game against fairway from 2 weeks ago.

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From about two weeks ago vs annagraham. It doesn't seem like I made any huge mistakes, but I think some small ones added up. However, he/she should have been ahead by 200 after the first 3 turns!

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Maybe it's a hole early, but after that second shot on 17, I have to say congrats to Padraig Harrington for winning his second straight British Open. I'll admit I was rooting for Greg Norman at first, but if someone else among the leaders had to win it, I'm glad it was Paddy. (Edit: he made the eagle putt! Now it's in the bag.)

OAC:

HARRINGTON* has 3 steals (all of length 5 tiles)

PADRAIG* has 3 one tile steals and 5 two tiles steals

GREGNORMAN* has 5 steals (of lengths 2, 3, 3, 4 and 5 tiles)

IANPOULTER* has 5 two tile steals

KJCHOI* has just 1 steal! (it's pretty short, too)

BIRKDALE* has 2 one tile steals and 2 two tile steals

I missed USUFRUCTS on the Daily 9s today on aerolith. I didn't know it as an 8 either, so I did some extensive research on the great inter-web to ascertain its meaning (as in, I read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry). Wouldn't you know, later this afternoon I was reading the conclusion of "Road to Los Angeles" by John Fante, and I came across this passage:

Here's another one from last August, this time against jarofclay. It was close the whole way, and I'm still confused about a couple of sim results in the pre-endgame, as noted in the comments. I'm looking for opinions! Oh yeah, I'll remember CABEZON(S) and CABEZONE(S) now, too.

Play along!

This is an old one from August 2007 against nasferatu aka key_lime_guy
Watch both of us miss 10s!

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This position came up at club tonight. I'm not entirely sure how I knew this low-prob 8 (eat your heart out, crosstables !)

Check out this game against biza0re from about a month ago. Watch me miss an 11!

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From last July, versus dugy1001.

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Saturday July 12^th, 2008

I stayed in on Friday night and watched some TV, played on ISC, and did some Zyzzyva cardboxing*. I was asleep by 11:30, which is quite early for me. This was because I needed to rouse myself at 5:30 on Saturday morning, which is VERY early for me. There were still 4 hours until the first tiles would be drawn. I showered and brewed some coffee, then scarfed down some yogurt and granola before gathering my stuff and walking to the bus stop to meet Stan and Bob. Well, Bob Haggerty was supposed to be playing (and driving), but a big real estate story broke, and he needed to spend the weekend covering it for the WSJ. So, it was just Stan and I who took off around 6:20. The ride was smooth-sailing; no traffic except for one brief slowdown for construction. Interestingly, I had never been to Ohio; uninterestingly, it seems very much like a flattened-out version Pennsylvania, at least in terms of its highway-side scenery. We arrived at the playing site at 9:00 on the dot. I said hellos to some folks, handed my entry fee to Mr. Purple and set up my board. While waiting for the first game, I did some quick cardboxing* on my laptop. At 9:30, it was game time.

( morning games )

 Lunch Break

I accompanied Stan and Tina to the New Peking Chinese/Thai restaurant for a quick bite.  A much larger group of Scrabblers planned on meeting us there, but the biggest circular table was just barely able to accompany them, so the three of us sat in an adjacent booth. I ate an order of sesame chicken with fried rice and a veggie egg roll. It was tasty, although not that exciting, but for the price and the speed of service, I couldn’t imagine anything better. At first, Stan and I talked math while Tina smiled and nodded. Later on, Tina and I swapped SNL Celebrity Jeopardy quotes while Stan smiled and nodded. Unfortunately, just a few minutes before we left to head back to the playing room, the skies opened up; and it wasn’t just a drizzle. We’re talking all-out war between these raindrops and anything in their path. After the 3 second sprint to the car, I was so wet that I wished I had brought a bathing suit. I went to the bathroom to dry off before the final four games.

( afternoon games )

4 - 3  + 258

4th place (I think, maybe 5th)

Just out of the money, needed to win the last game for 3rd, and Jeff Clark just edged me out. I did pick up high win (542) and high loss (419) though. I had some interesting games; made some fun plays and faced some tough quandaries. Fully-Quackled games and more data will appear tomorrow.

This was a high-loss to fuzzmoz, played in May of this year. I managed to trip-trip in the middle of the game and still lose!

Play along!

See, I play people other than Frank! This one is against nagekinoki, from April 15th.

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In other news, I will be playing the one-day 7-gamer in Rocky River, OH this Saturday. pbzeigler and ipecac_icecap, see you there.

I also renewed my NSA membership today, and I'm now a resident of PA. That jumps me from the 25th-highest rated player in MA to 8th in PA!