Came in late, so played the next player to show up, who wasn't one of the stronger ones...
Second turn, double-doubled OsTEOID for 90. She challenges. Fifth turn, holding what I thought was AAILTY?, I play AnALITY for 62, after considering (N)AtALITY onto a TWS. Wasn't sure enough of it. She challenges. (Thought she'd trust me by now). I play EXINE for 60. She challenges yet again!! It's now 275-59 after 6 turns. After 10 turns, 376-100. She has just played dEB for 15. I'm shocked... that's the 3rd blank. I check her blank, it's real, I check the OSTEOID blank, it's real... checking the AnALITY blank, it's actually an S!! Obviously, I didn't realize... as I point out to her. She says okay, but the game might have been different now... (yeah, maybe only 220 point lead instead of 270). I tell her that with AALISTY rack, I would have seen (N)ASALITY immediately, which would be a way better bingo than the AnALITY I played (don't know why I saw and considered NAtALITY while missing NAsALITY, anyway!! Blank blindness, I guess). She says there should be a penalty for making such a mistake, whether intentional or otherwise. Director comes over, says the onus is on the other player to confirm a blank is a real blank, no penalty.
Game ends 569-207.
2nd game... vs the ever erratic Richard C.
He goes first, exchanges as usual (however, that's his only exchange this game, which IS unusual for him... testament to the good letters he got, I suppose!). I have WETWUVV, something like that. I exchange, keeping WET (W is easy enough to make intermediate points with in the early game, and I know I won't draw the other W... and a U is going back in). I draw another U, so play out the W for 22 in answer to his 20 point opening play. I now have VAUNTE?, and a single convenient hook. He uses that hook, but provides another, I play VAUNTEd. (VAUNTER and VAUNTIE are the other available 7's). He hooks along the ED with SOONEST. Two turns later, another bingo from him for 68 (GOAtEES); another two turns, a 52 point X play that I'd risked leaving open in order to do a 31 point dump. Amazingly, only one "I" has been played so far, and I'm watching for them now (he gets most of them). He tries VERILE* for 34, I challenge off, and narrow his lead to 273-257. He now tries it as VIRILE... I'll leave that, obviously. I hold LEGIONS/LONGIES/ELOIGNS/LINGOES rack. And no S hooks anywhere. There's at best, an open D on the right hand side TWS. See nothing starting or ending with D, but settle for a cheap SIDELONG. He holds (to my surprise). And challenges, unsuccessfully. After 10 turns, I'm finally holding a slim 318-307 lead. I draw an all consonant rack, play BR(A)NCH for 32, followed by J(O)W/RAJ/WOW for 40. I think I'm fairly safe now with 390-331 lead, but he hooks BRANCH as BRANCHY with a word to the triple for 44. I'm tempted to challenge, but fortunately it rings familiar enough to leave it (BRANCHY is ok). Game ends 424-402, with him unable to play out before I do.
3rd game, against the recently returned strong player, Dave.
He goes first... prefacing it by saying, "don't get mad, I haven't seen a blank all night till now..." and plays oWlIEST (owliest) for 74. My second turn I play UNMEW to his W. He blinks at it, says nothing. In short order he plays the J, Z, X, Q. 4 turns in, I'm down 162-89. I pick off GROWLIEST for 33. Turn 6 I draw my first S and first reasonably balanced rack... CEIORRS. There's only one S hook (THEIRS), and I first see CIRROSE, but the C runs into the end of his Q word. Then I give CROSIER a try, he challenges (thinking I'm bluffing CROZIER), but it's good. I wasn't 100% certain of either CIRROSE or CROSIER. (CORRIES and ORRICES are also offered by Lexpert, but I wasn't looking for words ending in S, they'd be unplayable). After 10 turns I've managed a 317-292 lead. He hits a triple with AGENTS hooked as DA, which I miss... and he only realizes his mistake later, also (he's still used to DA, VIN etc being legal). He misplays at the end under time pressure, playing out his last D for 8, guaranteed insufficient to win (ended up 395-383 for me), when he could have tried to tack it onto FEEZE for 19 (he didn't know my tiles were only worth 6 to him...). He figured FEEZED was probably not good and that I'd automatically challenge. If he had, he'd lose only 395-394.
4th game, vs. pretty good player.
One of those games you can do little about.
After ten turns I've nickel and dimed my way to 207, he's at 262 after sTRANDs. I struggle to find plays like 25 points which are only defensively vulnerable to, say, AW combo.. boom, he has it. I try a similar play near another trip (I have no points otherwise!!). This will require the OTHER W and an E to hurt me. Boom, he has that too. At 317-351, I hold BEEILST. I cram BLEST into a weird parallel play that nets 39 points and a 356-351 lead. He plays out off a J and wins 367-356.
On the positive side... my average score over the previous 4 weeks (16 games) was 458.