A lot of excitement this round. First off: Linda Gomes finally won a game and she is beaming! In her game with Leah Katz, 439-361, she got down BLOOPErS, GALlERIA, and FLUSTER. Leah played TANGIER.

Ian Bell is victorious over Wendy McGrath, 360-287. They each got down one bingo: Ian played DIScARDS and Wendy played OUTSAIlS (if that doesn't read right, the blank is an L).

Jakob Teitelbaum greeted me outside of the playing area by telling me that this game was perverse. He just lost a game to Don Malcolm, 486-386 (or so). He got down COCKEREL for 94 early on and then ending up trying, in desperation, to play BOOTHGOER. I happened to be around when that challenge came in and we all very nearly fell off our chairs. Robin Pollock Daniel now has her favorite phoney attempt! Jakob says he wanted to play EGGTOOTH, but he thought BOOTHGOER was more plausible. I think we are all getting a wee bit tired.

At Table 2, Joel Wapnick was playing Glenn Mosher. Glenn won 425-372.

Table 1 had an exciting game where Jim Nanavati pulled out a win over the before-now undefeated Albert Hahn, 354-314. They each had one bingo: DEvOTION for Albert and DeNTILS for Jim. Other interesting plays were BINIT and TEPEFY. Albert was exactly two minutes off his clock, which made their game seem less close than it actually was. They are both 7-1 now, but Jim says that Albert has a greater cume.

However, perhaps the most interesting game of this round occurred between Lisa Deift and David Boys. She won, 438-372. When I walked over to check out their finished board, her eyes were as big as saucers. I asked her what was wrong and David explained for her, "She beat me by nearly 100 points with a beautiful triple-triple." She was basically speechless. Her gorgeous play was PRONaTES through an open E on the board from David's bingo of ALIUNDE. That scored her 140 and put her up by a whole lot, but also shook her enough to make her overdraw 8 tiles. David, reasoning that anyone who plays a triple-triple deserves to get the second blank. He was right, she got it. But when he took three tiles off her rack, he missed it! She then tried the phoney FIBRAIC, which he challenged off the board. Unable to get a bingo down, Lisa opted for adding zED to QUIZ, which she had already played earlier. This extension meant the game.