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2007 Dallas Open Commentary: Round 21

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, After the Tournament.

Round 21

Lunch over, the players are all in their places, ready for the final two games. Bryan reminds them to hand in their paperwork pronto upon finishing round 21 so that John Chew can pair the koth round, our last round, round 22.

Already our last round? WAHHH!

We're all tired and bleary eyed, but I don't want it to be over!

I look over the single game first row of tables and see: Darrell Day (Richardson, TX; 1773) vs. Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR; 1961), Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL; 1974) vs. Jason Katz-Brown (Cambridge, MA; 1922), Steve Pellinen (St. Louis Park, MN; 1693) vs. Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1870), Orry Swift (Dayton, TX; 1806) vs. Geoff Thevenot (Austin, TX; 1854), and Jim Geary (Phoenix, AZ; 1854) vs. Carol Kaplan (San Diego, CA; 1630), the cream of the crop at this year's DO, battling fiercely for the top honors. Way to go!

The ever-smiling Judy Newhouse (Houston, TX; 1651) comes to turn in her result slip. She tentatively asks if I might be interested in a game she played. I tell her yes and off we go to the battlefield of her victory against Mark Milan (Laguna Niguel, CA; 1767). As Judy explained how the game proceeded, her eyes sparkled and her SCRABBLE^® tile earrings, a J and an N, swayed back and forth around her face. She was, at one point, down 100 points, but got in two late-game bingos, PRINTERS for 74 and UPrOOTED through the P for 140 (a triple-triple). Earlier in the game, Mark played nOOSING for 75 and she played VELOCITY for 70. Judy's win, 468-374.

Noah Lieberman (Charlotte, NC; 540) had a heartbreaking loss this round. The game, with Mary Ellen Weisskopf (Huntsville, AL; 1425) ended and the scores were 338-335 in his favor. But once the tiles off his rack were deducted, it was her win, 347-338.

Against Woody Chen (Flushing, NY; 1367), Carole Miller (Houston, TX; 1299) got away with what she considers an outrageous phoney. She said he didn't even blink when she tossed down KINESIUM* for 82. I think I'm in Woody's camp, it sounds plausible to me, too!

Speaking of phonies.... I see Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR; 1961) outside in the foyer and he grins a bit and asks, "So... did you hear about my... phoney?" I gasp! No, not YOU, Dave! He's going to have to do some image repair after this event, his phonies have become so legendary! I go back inside and find his game at board 1, still up. It was a Darrell Day (Richardson, TX; 1773) is going down kinda board. The annotators tell me that it was a quiet game up until Dave just exploded. For four consecutive turns, he played POLYACID* (the aforementioned phoney that was held but accepted), CARETAKE for 68, LIQUORS for 64 (double-double), and AGENTIVE through the T for 76. Dave also got down STEADIES for 60 and Darrell's best two plays were ORIENTER for 60 and UTOPIST for 69.

I'm reminded that our numbers are down even lower after lunch as Terry Kang Rau (Newington, CT; 1419), not feeling well, didn't return for games 21 and 22. Victor S Torres (Murray, UT; 1451) comes up to our table to say his flight home makes playing the last game a dangerous proposition, so he'll sit it out.

Jason Katz-Brown (Cambridge, MA; 1922) suffered a tough loss this round to Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL; 1974) at table 2, 322-528. Jason's best two plays as gleaned by me: SPIRACLE and NEXT/NU/EL/ZI/TA for 60. Brian, however, on fire as usual, got down AbROSIaS, HOARIEST, ZOEA for 60 and then ZYME for 54.

Steve Pellinen (St. Louis Park, MN; 1693) fell to Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1870) this round, 363-378. Chris made tow pretty plays: LEnGTHEN for 89 and LEAVIeST for 60.

Round 21: Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR; 1961) and Darrell Day (Richardson, TX; 1773) are playing the annotated game at Board 1 this round. Dave must win to stay in contention, and Darrell will clinch if he wins. They each play a three-letter word, then Darrell bingoes UTOPIST and Dave replies with POLYACID# (held but eventually accepted), presumably because he had GAUZE (51), but Dave fired back with CARETAKE (68) from the C he just played, then after Darrell hooked CARETAKE-N to play DONUT, Dave increased his lead to 110 points with separated double-double LIQUORS through I and R (68) and bingo AGEn-T-IVE (76).