Thursday Clubbing

Thursday nights are my serious Scrabble nights, when I go at to play at the club in midtown.

Last week was indubitably my best week, beating two experts - Diane Firstman and Jeremy Hall - on my way to a 3-1 record with a big margin and enough to come in first place for the intermediates. Notably, my win over Diane include an 158 point triple-triple (a word that touches two triple word scores), FONDLERS.

This week again I started out quite well. In my first couple games my opponents were struggling with their tiles and I beat two better players, Marc Carnegie and Adam Townsend by 100 and 146 respectively. In my third game, I lost to Ellen who is at a pretty similar level to me but she drew both blanks and three of the four S's. In the last game, I was thrown to the dogs when I played Debbie Stegman. I hung with her most of the way, and was actually ahead in the endgame, until she played MUREX down to a triple word score to go out. She also drew both blanks, but had I not missed QUOIT earlier in the game I should have beaten her - tough to blame on the tiles. Still, I bingoed thrice against her. Honestly, just staying in the game the entire way against her - a 1700+ player - was a thrill.

Overall, I had seven bingoes:

• CALLERS (anagrams to RECALLS, CELLARS and SCLERAL) vs. Mark
  
• CRINGES vs. Mark
  
• SPORTING vs. Adam
  
• BERATING vs. Adam
  
• SERINES vs. Debbie
  
• GRATINE vs. Debbie
  
• ROTATED vs. Debbie

In the end, I consider the day a success because even though I was only 2-2, I still had a very positive margin +175 or so, and three of the four players I played are significantly better than I am.