Energized by my encouraging showing the day before, I made my most inspired play of the tournament against Mark P - after an early ZINS 35 (zinfandels) and BAILERS put me up to a 70-point lead, Mark got back closer with a 41-point VISED, all but closing up the board. My rack, ??DOSTU, only played from the E (EDUcTOrS) but a) I didn't see it and b) it would have left the S between two triple-word scores. Instead, through AB, I managed gaDABOUTS (one who roams about). Only 62 points but it drew admiration from the neighboring board. Not much exciting the rest of the game as Mark had difficult racks the whole time, and I came out on top 385-297.
Game 19 pitted me against Jeremy F and after an ugly beginning of tossing back IIOOO on my second rack, the third was good for LATRINES and 78 points. He countered with OXIM (a chemical compound) for 30 and then hooked it to make OXIME/NEOTENY (the attainment of sexual maturity in the larval stage) for 88. Meanwhile, I was making brilliant plays like KNUB...which is not a word. 0 points. I saved some face three turns later by extending EX to EXANTHEM (a skin eruption) for 40, and then WORSE for 40 more, but his 48 for QAID gave him a lead that proved insurmountable, though not for lack of trying - the sneaky setup play of LAIR for 8 points would have given me FLAIR and FIDS (a square bar used as a support for a topmast) for 48 and the win but it was easy for him to block and win 380-353.
Dominic and I rematched for game 20 and it was tight all the way - he replied to my 36-point QUAY (a wharf) with GOOFIER for 70, which I followed up with CATPAW for 34 (a phony, though CATSPAW, a light wind, and CATCLAW, a flowering shrub, are both good). Unfortuantely, I then made the blunder of thinking that SCANDIA was the plural of SCANDIUM (an element), but it's an oxide instead, and SCANDIAS would have netted me a bingo. Instead, he took a lead with RECiTING, which I grabbed back with WENNIEST (resembling a skin tumor). Then came an interesting endgame. The tiles unseen to me were bingo-prone and included a blank and an X, but I didn't want to give him a spot to bingo or use it. Instead I carefully played off something that would give me a big spot to play the J I held. As it turns out, the X was in the bag and he had the blank, which he used to play DIGiTATE (having digits) for 62...but I was able to play JINX through it for 75 and draw within 10. Unfortunately, he was able to go out before me and squeezed out a 415-408 win to drop me to 8-12, -179 overall.
The ride home was much more interesting than the ride down - three MIT graduate students who had recently gotten into Scrabble over the past few years were looking for a ride, so I offered up the space I had. The next three hours were basically filled with game analysis, verbal volleying and basically forgetting the crappy games we'd all played. Dropped them off at a T station, rolled back home, and here I am...
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