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Mary Rhoades held a great club director meeting in the Biltmore last night, from 8-10. She had a table full of samples from clubs that included publicity samples and director bulletins. The 50 or so attendees even included directors who weren't able to participate in the tournament, but made an effort to attend this meeting. Mary prepared a handout with 13 major topics with subdivisions that included everything from the School SCRABBLE^® Program (for which the program's director Yvonne Gillispie made a guest appearance) to issues surrounding publicity, getting new players, keeping new players, cheating, costs/feeds/club treasuries, pairings, dealing with difficult players, number of games per session, prizes, record-keeping ideas, and tournaments. There was great enthusiasm in the roo and a lot of sharing of ideas.

In the after-hours playing room at the Biltmore, round 75 people were playing SCRABBLE^® when I peeked in after the Director's Meeting. I observed speed SCRABBLE^® games, pairs games, angrams, clabbers, and lots of merriment!

Laura Klein started off today's session with the announcements and asked if everyone was ready to play. Normally she just says, "you may begin your games, good luck." However, today she was being quite playful and said, "Are you ready? On your marks, get set, (longish pause), GO!" It got quite a nice laugh!

Amit Chakrabarti is here today to help. A recent arrival on the tournament playing scene and an expert player already, Amit was unable to play for the tournament's duration this week. He is, however, offering to help me find nice boards to comment on. Here's to hoping it improves the coverage, thanks Amit!

Julia Boggle (div 3) handed me a sheet which I'm typing in, "In my game against Mike Ebanks, I was at 45 to his 193 after our 7th play. My rack contained DEEIPRV with an open D on the triple. I played DEPRIVED for 98 and at this point was still behind after his turn, 143 to 202. I stayed behind until the end of the game with the score being 288 to 330 at which time my rack was EIISTTT. There was no place to play TITTIES, but there was an open W, where I played WITTIEST for 83, putting me ahead with two plays remaining for a final score, 407-397. Game 19.

An interesting adjudication came up at table 18 in division 5 this round. Player A played a bingo, player B held, after one minute player A picked tiles, player B decided to challenge, player A's word was ruled unacceptable, now what to do? Division Leader Bryan Pepper read the ruling aloud from the rules book (which can be see elsewhere on this web site) which summed up to: player A had to show player B the tiles he/she had drawn before placing them back into the bag. Player A then picked up the not acceptable play.

In what I am told by numbers experts is a one in a million chance of happening, four division 1 players whose names start with W played at boards 23 and 24 this round! Jeff Widergren played Martin Weisskopf and David Weisberg played Ian Weinstein.

At division 1's board 1, in the battle of the Deans, Culle defeated Saldanha , 421-393. Better plays on the board: Cullen's COCINERA through the I for 63 and READOUTS for 70 and Saldanha's SEROSAE for 68. Both players made their highest plays of the game using blanks in non-bingo plays: Cullen's FEiJOA for 71 to the triple, and Saldanha's OXTERs for 86 to the triple.

At board 1 in division 1, Joe Edley had a bad game and lost to John Luebkemann, 366-241. An early Joe rack was ADGIIAU from which he played PYGIDIA through the Y for 20 and he said it only went downhill from there. He even played a blank for 32 points. As he said, "it was either that or pass."

At division 1's board 2, Randy Hersom defeated Adam Logan, 391-344. Adam was leading the entire game until Randy played SHEqALIM to the M down the triple lane for 89 points.

Division 1's Mark Pistolese had a nice out bingo himself against Jack Eichenbaum to win the game 412-359. Mark played POLDERS, which created ELL, AD, NE, AR, IS. He also earlier played MInORING. Jack points out that it was he who won the game at their last meeting earlier in this event.

Jokester Wendall Hayes (div 2) called over word judge Roy Peshkin to challenge the misspelling of his name by opponent Jeff Clark. For the most part, word judging isn't a laughing affair, so it was a welcome break for Roy.

Jim Kramer (div 1) lost a close one to Jere Mead, 375-358. Jim was leading, and he played SHEALING thorugh a H. However, Jere found COADMIRED through the separated R and final D for 66. The play, though not a terrifically high-scoring one, won Jere the game. And who knew that word!?

Pat Barrett (div 1) lost a game this round to Martin Smith, 401-449. Martin played a 10-letter word by wrapping around COVER to play DISCOVERER to the triple! I also see KLUTZIER, TRAILeRS, and FLINTIER on their board.

At nearby Chris Cree's (div 1) board, I spot the word BAWTIE to the triple. Chris played it and defined it for me, "a dog."

Daniel Stock did another great board using all 100 tiles again. Look for it in the photo section.

Bob Lundegaard (div 2) jumps into the lead, 19-3 +1346. Bob Matthews is still the div 5 leader by 2 games, 18-4 +1447. Dean Cullen (div 3) at 18-4 +1204 is now two games in the lead of Rusty Peltz. Joe Edley (div 1) is one game in the lead, 17-5 +1347, with Brian, Adam, and Sammy one game behind. Division 4's leader remains Michael Ecsedy 17-5 +1421, but he plays Charmaine Wolfe who is one game behind him next round. Last but not least, Connie Creed is, at 19-3 +1322, one game up on Andrew Ross-Greene.

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