First game, new guy... turned out to be relatively solid player, better than garden variety recreational player anyway. I called him on two phony 3's (WAH* and something else). My 8th turn I held POINTES, with nowhere to put it, played SAPONITE. 13th turn I exchanged (appropriate I suppose), having not picked up any juicy other than that S in saponite. Two turns later, with AELNOSU rack and few tiles left, I play MELANOUS. This time he did challenge (he was "chicken" to go after SAPONITE and some non-bingo oddities). He'd passed his previous turn (no doubt holding a bingo with the two blanks that he hoped I'd supply a hook for), and since MELANOUS is good, waited another turn. His out play used both blanks and scored 2 points. Not a misprint. Won 438-293.
Second game... against the guy that has recently tried such phonies on me as UNEDITS*, UNFISTED*, SUBADER*, BAUDERS* etc etc... I had both blanks and 3 esses. Opened with YOD, next turn played GONIONS off it. Soon drew a blank, but board was becoming difficult to hook anything to, other than hooking the front of a word to the end of TANG. With AEEORT? I laid down O?ERATE (having seen OPERATE immediately), opponent muttered "OVERATE" as I placed it. Figured that was the obvious defensive choice, so went with the V instead =). I picked up EIISUV?, played UVEITIS the following turn. After 9 turns, I was up 318-168, eventually won 483-286.
Third game...strong player. I go first, with ADGMPPR. For some reason GRAMP makes me nervous, though in hindsight it's probably the best opening. I play DAMP, and start picking up CVWetc + one or two vowels. I risk CLOVE for 30 in the bottom right, easy hook to the triple. He doesn't take it yet, though at this point he holds 2 S's. He does a 17 point dump, picks up the other 2 S's... so he has SSSSYUP. I have no way to make use of that CLOVE hook, or to block it without making a total mess of my rack and my score. I'm surprised to watch @#!*@ show up for 18 points... I figure now's a good time to block CLOVE... but the best I can do is OW/OE for 7 or 8, which would result in a horrible leave (besides just being a nothing score). So I made a rack balancing play for 20, and held my breath. He plays FISH/CLOVES for 53 (at least not a bingo). FISH offered a lot of front extensions to the middle right triple (LUNGFISH, UNSELFISH, etc etc etc), but neither of us found one during the course of the game. The @#!*@ that he played on the opposite side would allow a parallel play of XI or XU on the triple; with 4 E's, I played SEE off @#!*@ for 4 points (dump/TWS block). He hooks AZURES with AY on @#!*@, hits bottom left TWS for another 53 pt play. Now I hold EINORU?. There's one easy but very cheap hook for a 7 which would accept DOURINE, ROUTINE etc but hang the E in triple lane. So I look for an 8 off the AZURES S to hit the bottom middle TWS. I find SOURDINE (Lexpert says there were also SOUVENIR and SNOUTIER). SOUVENIR would have turned out better because the "I" gave him 52 point X turn. After 7 turns I'm down 194-231. After 10, 259-274. He hangs out a new hook, TRIO. With ALMNOT? I give TOOLMAN a go, hooking TRIOL. He challenges both words (TOOLMAN* doesn't cut it). Instead of blocking this one hook, he dumps BO somewhere because he has RETINA type rack shaping up. I give TOLLMAN a try this time (there are 3 other legit 7's... LOMENTA and OMENTAL... which I saw but wouldn't fit... and TELAMON, which I didn't see). He challenges TOLLMAN and TRIOL, but these are ok. This opens KAIL for 39 (he challenges this one too). Win 418-316
4th game... another strong player. He goes first, exchanges. I hold CIOORST, and play OCTROI. I DIDN'T KNOW IT TOOK THE S!!! THOLOI, KOI, LOGOI etc are all plural.. I thought OCTROI was also a plural! Fortunately for me, so did opponent, who didn't attempt the S hook on it. Instead, he tries FUMERIES* ( I challenge it off). 8th turn he tried SKIRTAGE, I challenge that off too. 10th turn, he tries RESTAKES. This would give me WINZES on the trip for 57; I'm 80% sure "restakes" is nonsense, but I let it go. Two turns later, he does PILEATE.. not enough to catch up tho. Win 435-327
Your own personal scrabble timer must bring good luck. I've won 8 of 8 since bringing it to the club.
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