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2004 National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Round 20

[ Congratulations to the new National Champion, Trey Wright, who defeated David Gibson in three straight games, 365-328, 355-344 and 429-328. Please tune in to ESPN to watch the final games at 1 P.M. ET on Sunday, October 3rd, 2004. We welcome your e-mailed corrections to our web site. ]

Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3.

This round's Division 1 Board 2 game between Sammy Okosagah (Baltimore, MD) and Robert Ellickson (New Haven, CT) appears in our playable games section.

Round 20

Amit Chakrabarti (Hanover, NH) tells me about his favorite play today in division 1, a 194-point triple-triple, in a game versus Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR). Holding IODGHL?, he played through an R. Can you find it?* Other bingos on their board: ACRASIN for 73, PLaNTAIN through the second A for 68, SNORTER for 68, and KAURIES for 77. Amit's win, 572-384.

At table 46 in division 1, John Hart (Portland, OR) lost his game versus Paul Sidorsky (Calgary AB), 359-453. For all the bingos played in the game--REGISTER through the S for 60, OUTLINE for 86, ENTWInES from the first E for 83, HORNIER to the second R for 74, and COILErS for 74--the winning play, I'm told, was Paul's play of KA inm the endgame for 6 points. John had played ZOA on the bottom line to open a bingo lane, but Paul effectively shut it down.

In a division 3 game, Scott Kitchen (Bridgewater, NJ) defeated Donna McDonough (Clackamas, OR), 529-287. Scott played ARENETIC* to the C for 77, NIGHTLY for 83, and SEGETAL for 93. Donna's better plays were SWeETIE for 66 and JUROR for 56.

Charnwit Sukhumrattanaporn (Thailand) beat Trey Wright (Los Angeles, CA) this round, 435-405, and with 20 games down, this is only Trey's second loss!

After his earlier GUMTREE game, Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA) tells me that in round 16, his opponent also had GUMTREE! An odd word to see twice in one event!

Jason Katz-Brown (Richmond, CA) defeated Chuck Armstrong (Saline, MI) this round, 429-307.

Divison 1's Ron Hoekstra (Kentwood, MI) says that after seeing only one blank this morning, he's dropped down to what should be a weaker pool of opponents. At board 17, he faces reigning WSC champ Panupol Sujjayakorn (Thailand).

A piece of paper has been slipped onto the Internet table and it is in the barely distinguishable handwriting of Albert Hahn (Calgary AB), he who observes all. As usual, he's got nothing to say about himself! He noticed two words on a game between 17-year-old Jason Katz-Brown (Richmond, CA) vs. Peter Armstrong (Baltimore, MD): BOTHrIUM through the O played by Peter and PASHALIK played through the first A by Jason. It was a 10-point win for the young phenom and he is now 13-6.

Another note from a pad of paper with the NSA's Andrew Rubenstein's name on it: There are 16 players from the Tampa Bay Club at the event!

Andrea Carla Michaels (San Francisco, CA) has a story from yesterday. In a game she lost, she got to interlace VOODOO through the first O, D, and last O! The best part? She hooked onto BE, making OBE, which is defined in The Official SCRABBLE^® Players Dictionary, III as "a form of sorcery of African origin." So she played VOODOO VOODOO in New Orleans!

*Amit played GIRLHOoD through an R!