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Division 3's Lavonne Teague defeated Eileen Gruhn, 441-329. Lavonne opened with ENTICES and later played SCANNER. Eileen managed to play this two-blank bingo: YAcHTiNG for 68.

I see a division 3 board of TC Holgate-West and Joey Payne. Joey opened with ACETONE, then played TOPLINeS, then SHEWERs. TC challenged the last play, but it was acceptable.

Ellen Leonard is 7-0 +559 in division 3. Her last game was 345-321 and she had a 541-250 game in round 1.

Division 4's Liz Ashby is quite happy. She has 4 wins in a division where she is seeded 116th out of 118 players. She says that if she only wins 4 games the whole tournament that will make her happy, too, but she hopes to win more.

In division 5, Claire Pleczynski defeated Burke Riley, 351-325. Burke played EPIZOA on a triple lane and Claire got down TILLERS.

Division 2's Thavachai Thivavarnvongs defeated Alan Helfgott, 375-354. Thavachai got down QUINCEs and Alan played RELATOR. What made their game so unusual is that the last tile in the bag, a blank, had somehow gotten stuck between the lining of the bag and the bag. Both players tried, but couldn't get it out of the bag. Mary Rhoades went over and had to work it out a hole near the top of the bag. A director's job is never done.

Marlene Milkent (div 1) is almost banging her head against the wall. She held EOUGPSY. Through an S on the board, she finds GYPSEOUS and is so proud of herself that she fails to see that she misplayed the tiles to read GPYSEOUS. Needless to say, her opponent challenged it off. She went on to lose the game and is now 2-5.

Dave Wiegand (div 1) is 6-1. In his last game, he played POTBOIL hooking the P atop LYING to make PLYING on the triple for 104 points!

Division 1's Mike Bake might need to be peeled off the ceiling. He is floating so high off the ground, he's going to make contact with the chandeliers! After his defeat of Adam last round, Mike beat David Stone, 389-376.

The always gracious Lawren Freebody (div 2) walked across the giant playing room to show me this great play her opponent had made. I get to the board to see how Pam Grazette played her bingo, iNSIDES parallel to Lawren's bingo STEALER. Thus, Pam created not only iNSIDES, but Ti, EN, AS, LI, Ed, RE! What Lawren failed to tell me is that she won the game, 443-283. Pam called herself the "I Queen." She passed 3 Is, then later on 5 Is, then 3 Is again. Lawren played TAWNIeR on the board, too. Pam is now 1-6 and Lawren is 6-1.

Division 2's Noel Livermore got his first loss and is now 6-1 due to a Paul Avrin, who is now 4-3. The score was 392-363. Whereas Paul's last rack was EUINSOA, Noel had BDKTX and he lost by those tiles he couldn't get down. Paul played TINWARES and the double-double MODERNES for 94. Noel played NONRURAL , rEALIsE, and COYING to the triple for 48. Paul had to go out in two and he did: GENIUS followed by COAL.

In division 1, Mark Di Battista lost to Bob Linn 409-421. Bob opened with TOOTING, Mark played EQUATORS through the T. Then Bob played MOUNTAIN through the the N. Three bingos: bang, bang, bang! Bob also got down fUZES to the triple, and CHEZ for 56 points. At one point Mark had a 50-point lead when he played REJOINED and he even found a late-game dump of WCK through a separated A and O: WACKO for 20 points. You can step through the entire game using our new annotated game browser.

Bob and Gail Linn end the day like true partners: they have matching 3-4 records. Sam Kantimathi eke out a win over Joel Wapnick, 411-398. Sam is now 5-2 and Joel is 4-3. Sam's better plays include GInGIVAE (or he could have played VICINAGE ) and BEAKERsl. Joel got no bingos this game, but did play ADZ two ways for 62 points!

Happiest of Birthdays to NSC Intern (with a capital I) Asterios Kokkinos. He turns 18 today! NSA staff members put tiles up the big board to wish him a happy birthday. When asked how he feels about the celebration in his honor he said, "I predict that Joe Edley will win the tournament!"

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