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DO 2008 Commentary: Round 17

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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 17

A swinging Saturday night has come and gone! While two after-hours makeup games were taking place, players collected into groups to head out for some chow. One group went to a Brazilian steakhouse (where Keith Pries (Denver, CO) got to play hero by successfully performing the Heimlich Maneuver and saving a fellow diner!). A group of eight of us ended up at the Genghis Grill, eating personalized Mongolian stir fries. mmmmm good!

After a too-quick sit-down for the meal, John Chew and I headed off to Plano to see Mike Baron (Corrales, NM) at his book signing. He had about two dozen people there, many from the tournament, some from the store population. The highlight, of course, was watching Mike play four games at once. The store had set up for games spread out the length of two 6-foot tables. On one side sat four chairs and on the other just one, an office type chair on rollers. And Mike made that chair smoke, running between games with Stephen Sneed (Ft. Worth, TX), Joey Krafchick (Roswell, GA), Paul Hagelstein (Waco, TX), and Ryan Fischer (Charlotte, NC). Mike had bright pink and yellow sand timers at each board and he tried to approximate playing within time by using them at each game. Passersby and other touranment players continued to talk with him while he played and every so often he would share an anecdote from the Grand Canyon 1978 tournament, etc. A table was set up with the Onyx edition and Pirates of the Caribbean versions of SCRABBLE. Various SCRABBLE dictionaries and containers of cookies were there as well. Darrell Day (Richardson, TX) shared photos he'd taken with his iphone, nifty thing! Since, as John Chew says, "the web site does not update itself," we headed back to Casa Cree for a bit more work before we had to jump ahead and lose even more sleep.

This morning, I met Mike in the foyer and he told me that one player did beat him: Joey Krafchick (Roswell, GA), the 12-yeqr-old School SCRABBLE phenom. WAY TO GO JOEY! Mike buys a deluxe SCRABBLE game for anyone who beats him during these book signings (if you have never played him before). Since that Barnes & Noble did not have any deluxe games, Mike instead gave Joey the cash value of a deluxe game.

In case I failed to mention it earlier, yesterday Joey asked me to mix up his Rubik's cube. I guess I did too good a job, because it took him nearly a minute to get it back to all one color per side (in case my sarcasm is lost there, he manipulated that cube SO fast, it was a blur)!

Amit Chakrabarti (Hanover, NH) vs. John OLaughlin (Cambridge, MA). I see John with 9 minutes on his clock and I watch him counting tiles on the board, scanning back and forth. And he seems to be caught in a do/while process. He just doesn't seem to get resolution. I pat the tilebag and feel one tile left and figure he is just tryign to narrow down what it is after some mistracking. As I'm about to move away, I see Amit reach over to pause the clock and ask if he is getting 99 tiles, too. John nods and they both agree that one is missing. I astutely glance under the table. Equidistant between the two is a face down tile the color of their set. Since the boy agree that it is probably theirs, I pick it up and call over the director. The ruling there is pretty clear, but at this event, I'm only a reporter, so I let Bryan rule. They carry on and John win's the game, 546-362. Amit played DUNGAREE for 74, PIROGEN on the triple through the R for 33 (nonbingo, but I like it), and EIGhTVO for 80. John played SUPERCAR through the P for a fine 167, PAESANI for 79, and OVIDUCTS for 80.

Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA) is getting trounced this round by Chris Cree (Dallas, TX). As I walk by, Sam says, "He is killing me." As I watch, I see Sam's GARROTES to the S go down and Chris mumble something about playing better so as to not create that opening. Sam laughs and calls him a "greedy SOB." I wait until the game is over to return. Chris and Sam both explain that it has been a bit of a drought for Chris until now, Sam having won their past seven tournament games. Sam did play TIDIEST to the triple and then later put UN in front of it for another triple score. He also got down the lovely dump BOWMAN to the triple for 42. The rest of the plays were all Chris: MURIATES, DOMINOES, and EVITABLe (a 167-point triple-triple). It was a 663-365 win for the event host.

At the next table, Orry Swift (Dayton, TX) admits that he played NER* in his game with Laura Scheimberg (Littleton, CO). Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA) said, "You don't know how to spell NERD yet?" Telling me that she won that game, 451-363, Laura explains that the phoney three went down in a moment of blank confusion. If you say so, Laura!

A close game has just finished between Doug Brockmeier (Yorba Linda, CA) and Sam Dick-Onuoha (Duncanville, TX). I see from the paperwork that Doug opened with BIGGIN for 26. He later played RUnDLET for 79 on the top triple lane. Sam played SIGNIORS for 70 and VANITIES for 65. Doug's win, 391-389.

Robert Gillis (Owens X Roads, AL) vs. KC Frodyma (Silver Spring, MD). Bob played EXORDIAE for 101, FANJET for 48, RATIONAL, and PLANTED. KC played PRECIOUS and RESTORE. 548-339. His win. Thanks to Bryan Pepper for taking this info from Bob!