Although most of you who read this regularly have never played a Scrabble tournament (and have no plans to), I'm sure you can all figure out that it's not a good thing when the highlight of a 20-game tournament comes in game 1.
Of course, getting there was an adventure in itself; after planning on leaving work at 5 on the dot, I left at about 5:20, went home to give Mrs. Dave one last bit of weekend affection (get your mind out of the gutter), and hit the road a half-hour late. Hit some traffic on 495 and the Pike but nothing too serious, and then majorly broke some speed limits while hurtling down 84. Seriously officer, I thought 84 was the speed limit, not the route number.
Finally rolled in at 8:27. Games started at 8:30 and I was matched up against Matt G, the second seed in the top division, who I don't believe I'd ever played before. Gulp. Fortunately, CEMENTS came down on my second rack, SUNDIAL on my fifth, and after playing TWIGS for 39 and keeping ERS on my eighth rack, I've never been happier to see IQVU fall on my rack. QUIVERS for 96 put the game away though he did manage GASELIER (a gaslight chandelier) for 60. Still, I managed a 452-334 win.
And then began the Bad Things.
Scott A started things off with a 54-point JOKEY, and after I replied with HAUNT for 27, I was faced with a rack of AAAEEII. I passed seven, and held AAITTOO. Not my game - I had doubled A's, O's or I's on every single one of my first nine racks, and despite passing up ADMIXEs (to mix in) near the end to make EXAM for 52 followed by READInG for 77 and drawing within 27, I still fell 400-362 when he was able to play the Q for 35 at the end. If he can't play it, I may have a shot at winning, but 'twas not meant to be.
Sal P was my next opponent, and things went even more poorly. This time, instead of seven vowels, I had seven vowels on my first rack - DMNPRTW. He banged down ADVENTs for 69 followed by FAQIR (also spelled fakir) for 37 more and he was off to the races. I went on a tear with MURIATED (treated with muriatic acid) for 65, JIAO (a Chinese coin) for 36, FIZ for 30, DAGO for 37 and KORS (a Hebrew unit of measure) for 32, but in the meantime he was playing GRASSING for 66, a triple-word dWINDLES for 92 (when SWINDLEd would have been safer), WITHE (a flexible branch) for 49 and XI (Greek letter) for 38. End result, a 482-316 spanking, a 1-2 start and a spread of -86.
Licking my wounds, I decided to call it a night and hit the hay at around 11:30, just about as soon as the games had ended.
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