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Amit found a great play in a game between division 1's Avi Moss and Charnwit Sukhumratanaporn. With a rack of DEIIL?? , he found a play to a C: cLEIDoIC. [OSPD: "Enclosed in a shell."] Pretty nifty stuff, huh?

Division 2's Bruce Adams just flagged me down to see his miracle win against a still stunned Cheryl Cadieux. Among her better plays, she had gotten down sWEARING through an R and ROISTER. Toward the end of a game, perhaps fearing a parallel play, she played VETO, hanging the O into the triple lane. Bruce seized the opportunity and played WOOZIEST through that O for a triple-triple worth 239 points! He then won the game, 467-416. He's now 12-13 and Cheryl is 10-15.

In another division 1 battle of former national SCRABBLE^® Champions (okay, so Brian is actually the current champ) Joe Edley (div 1) defeated Brian Cappelletto, 491-425. The game, considered by many players near and far as the best of the best, will appear in John Chew's annotated game board on this site at some point. [John: It's already up!] To whet appetities, some highlights: Joe NEgATRON, Brian BLUNGERS then NOVERCAL. Joe MARVELED then TrAIlSIDE through the disjoined R and L AND hooking the A atop an N then MATTOIDS through the D. Brian LACEwOOD from the L. Joe sHOWBIZ. SEVEN bingos!

In division 3 top table news, Rusty Peltz beats Dean Cullen, who has lost his last two games now, 394-357. Rusty played iNTERVaL through the N and ASSURING through an S. Dean played LEANEST, creating iNTERVaLS and the non-bingo FIREBOX through the B (Rusty thought this was a nice find). They've played twice now and split. Even with Dean's two losses they are both 19-6!

Jeff Clark (div 2) came up to me today to say, "I read the web color and I like it a lot. However, I need you to flesh out the STROMAE story a bit more." He claims that he knew STROMAE wasn't good and that the only acceptable word in those tiles was MAESTRO, but there wasn't an opening for it, so he played STROMAE thinking he'd either get away with it (Eileen Patterson, his opponent, wasn't going to let that happen!) or she'd challenge it off, then play and create an opening for MAESTRO. As it was, the best laid plans didn't work out. I think he was slightly afraid that his peers would think him daft for the play. Doing my best Dr. Joyce Brothers imitation, I told him, "there are no bad people, only bad plays." Seriously, Jeff is having fun and he thinks it is too bad that tomorrow is the last day. His last nationals was in '85 and he thinks he waited too long to attend another. I have to agree!

Division 1's Adam Logan defeated Sammy Okosagah this round, 407-369. Adam had the enviable (NOT) final rack of MIEEEEE. He found MELEE through an E and then played EIDE on his next move through a D. Adam claims his 70-point lead going into the endgame saved him from being toast.

In division 4 at board 1, Michael Ecsedy has had two bad games in a row. He just lost to Joseph Connelly, 319-415. Joe got down VANITIES through the first I for 62 and ENDoRSE for 78 which gave him an early lead that Michael wasn't able to overcome.

At board 2 in division 4, Rosalind Gold pulled out a win against Harvey Wilson, 424-383. She had 27 seconds left on her clock and he had 16 seconds left on his! She played a plethora of nice plays: NUTSIER, DEMOTEs, and SATIRES. He got down STAINED and got away with a phoney triple play of DEPEOpLE to the E.

As I approached division 6's table 1, Connie Creed said the game was terrible for the both of them. She won with a score of 352 to Andrea Ross-Greene's 307. So, that is that on that game. If they think it is a boring game, I can imagine how boring we might think it is!

We end the morning session with a two-game division 2 leader: David Johnson, 21-4 +1726. In division 3, as I mentioned before, the leaders are 19-6: Rusty Peltz +1362 and Dean Cullen +1138. Joe Edley leads division 1 by two games, 20-5 +1714. Both with 19-6 records, division 5's top players are Rob Matthews +1424 and Norbert Saldahna +956. Division 6 has a 3-game leader, Connie Creed, 21-4 +1459. And, in division 4, Joseph Connelly takes a one-game lead with a 19-6 +1138 record.

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