Round 22 Commentary

Another beautiful morning in Chicago. I awoke with sun gleaming down on the lake and news of another Northern California earthquake. I quickly assessed my options for survival and then realized I wasn't going to die. Chicago may not be the East Coast, but it sure isn't the West Coast, either!

The players were busily clicking tiles when I breezed into the Imperial Ballroom a bit delayed with photo identifications from yesterday. The big board greeted me with:

DAY FOUR
BE TRUE TO
YOUR WORD

I plan on taking them to heart.

In a Wednesday morning preview, brought to you via computer guru, Diane Firstman, here are some winning streaks in the top 25 players: Rosetta Donelick (1st place, 16-5, +898) has 8 in a row; Gene Tyszka (7th place, 15-6k, +539) has 5 in a row; Tammy Sancrant (19th place, 13-8, +567) has 4 in a row; and David Dinning (22nd place, 13-8, +266) has 7 in a row (after 4 strong losses). Those with high average scores are: Kevin Schutz and Mark Becker, who are averaging 388 per game, and Jason Bednarz, who is averaging 386. High win (overall) candidates are Ellen Levine, 583; Jacquelyn Fyr, 554; and Penny Baker, 537.

Division 4's Jason Bednarz (MI) just played four natural bingos in this round, three of them were 8-letter words! FRAUDING, GALOSHES, and SENORITA. His 7-letter bingo was MEANIES. He delivered David Pearl a loss, 512-264. Perfect gentlemen, Jason kept saying, "I'm sorry, but I've got to do this again." And David assured him there was no need to apologize.

Division 1's Rita Norr just played Paul Epstein. As she tells it, He played J, Q, X, both blanks, then made the play UNFAIR. She told him that she agreed, it was unfair. When I asked her if she lost the game (hey, I'm always optimistic), she laughed and said, "I should say I lost!"

Josh Silber (NY), ever full of stories, tells me that Carl Stocker thought he was stuck with the Q. There was a UT on the board and he held QIIVFT. Sure enough, he found and added QIVI to the UT, making QIVIUT. Great find!

In Jan Dixon's (DE) first game in division 1 this morning, she was playing Robert Kahn (FL). She says,

"My opening play was PA and Robert's response was JEW underneath. I had two blanks on my rack, but no playable bingo, so I played JEU. Robert played DIRTIER and PAR, connecting onto PA. My rack was ??EADSE and there were any of a number of double-double bingos. However, I decided to play alongside DIRTIER. I found a play that puts the S on the triple letter square both ways, but wanted to put the D there. So, I futzed with the rack and I came up a word that Alan Stern told me was good yesterday when he asked me what the anagram of DELEADS is. At the time, I responded that I didn't know one and he told me that is was DEADLES*. I discovered that this 'word' played with 6 overlaps (creating a total of 7 words) and played it. Robert held me and finally decided that I must know it, because I had so many other options. Ironically, he had a double-double bingo himself through the T in DIRTIER. So, I not only blocked his play, but I got away with a very unintentional phony. The moral is: DEADLES* is not acceptable and there are no anagrams for DELEADS. Alan, are you reading?"

Division 1's J. Goard just had a great game. He scored a 531 to Rose Kreiswirth's 309. David Wiegand turned in a high scoring game, too. He defeated Tim Adamson, 524-301.

Division 4's Christine Economos scored a whopping 515 against Jean Lesch, who managed to get 248. In the same division, Rosetta Donelick (17-5, +925) is in 1st place after her 9th straight win!

-- Sherrie Saint John, Internet Reporter, NSC98

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