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DO 2008 Commentary: Round 14

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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, After the Tournament.

Round 14

Conrad Bassett-Bouchard (Moraga, CA) finds me by the challenge computer and says, "So, I almost pulled out your initials in power tiles two games in a row!" I want to congratulate him, but then I think about it a bit and realize that he was kinda robbed in the tile department. SASJ: my initials. He tells me he wasn't factoring in the A, so this means he had an SJ two games in a row and no other power tiles? Now that's just not fair!

Scott Hawkins (Champaign, IL) had a monster win this game, 525-299, vs. Erica Moore (Chicago, IL). I see AVaRICE on the board and am about to ask some more questions when 12-year-old Joey Krafchick (Roswell, GA) comes over, glances at the board and shakes his head. Scott looks up at him, "what?" he asks. Joey points at VOXES* and says "No good. The plural of VOX is VOCES." Joey sounds so learned and authoritative. Other plays on the Scott/Erica board: REACTION for 64, REKINDLE for 89, and SLANTER for 65.

Sheri Justice (Kansas City, MO) tells me that she has had two 500+ games today. Round 13, she was 516-242, and in round 14, she was 515-405. Some plays she made in this round: MANTIDS, RELINES, and INULASE. Plays her opponent made: OUTLEAPED and OUTWAGERED*.

Joey Krafchick (Roswell, GA) played Pat Sanchez (Dallas, TX) this round. He tells me that his first rack was EEIIYR and he played EYRIE. She bingoed with TENACITY through the E, and he was down 112 points after 5 plays. He managed to come back with plays like RATIONAL and GISTING*, and won, 387-363.

Samantha Southard (Albany, NY) tells me about a game where she had SSSSJQXZ. However, she lost to Mark Gooley (Hawthorne, FL), 265-488. When I ask why she explains, "Well, I had 12 vowels all game, five of which were on my first rack. The last two tiles I picked out of the bag were J and Z."

Okay, a complicated one. Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA) was in an tense endgame situation with Doug Riblet (Austin, TX). Doug, down by 78 with an empty bag, holds DECRIES. Sam holds IGITELM. Sam had to see that Doug's tiles played in two places. First, down the board as DECRIES, hooking onto SADI for SADIS and more dangerously, on the triple lane backhooking EX for EXERCISED. With only 6 seconds left on his clock, Sam played ITEM from the I down, blocking the triple play. Doug still got his bingo down, DECRIES/SADIS, but it wasn't enough to win him the game. Some of us, me included, would have only looked for that bingo and blocked it. Takes a bit more to see all the possiblities.