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2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Round 15

Congratulations to the first-ever two-time Canadian Champion, Adam Logan!

Go to: Registration, 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, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3, Final Round 4, After the Finals.

Round 15

I'm not sure I can say that it helped the outcome, but Jason Krueger (Calgary AB) demonstrated a new WordJudge technique. While walking over to the two machines stationed at the back of the room, Jason tickled his opponent, Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON), as they were nearing the closest laptop.

Andrew Golding (Verdun QC) tells me a series of things. In his round 14 game against Carl Madden (Brantford ON), he played a 140-point triple-triple CAREENED and still lost the game. When he went to the hallway to submit this as the high play made today, he felt a bit guilty, since Heather McCall (Toronto ON) had a 131-point triple-triple play listed, CANTERED. Wrestling the prize from her for a mere 9 points seemed almost cruel. All this changed dramatically this round. Andrew made the highest-scoring play of his SCRABBLE^® career, RELiQUES through the first E for 194 points! He has a feeling that there won't be anyone who gets a higher-scoring play today! This play helped him to his 563-310 defeat of Christopher Sykes (Cambridge ON). Also in the game, Andrew got down aZURITE for 90. Earlier today he'd played LAZURITE and was hoping to get another chance to repeat. His chance came when he could either play SQUIRREL, or QUELL/LAZURITE, or RELiQUES. We all agree that the latter was the best decision all the way around!

David Stokoe (Windsor ON) calls me over to his just completed game with Carl Madden (Brantford ON). The win this time was David's, 374-304. The game was built one defensive play after another. After about the midway point, David says he was almost wishing the blanks onto Carl since the board was so closed that no plays were going to go down, no matter what. David's favorite play of the game was OVERSEA/TINS/GOR/AWE for 92 points.

Standing by the challenge laptop has its advantages. I caught George MacAulay (Saskatoon SK) challenge Salvatore Desiato (Toronto ON) for playing OUTWIRED*. Needless to say, the word went away!

Craig Rowland (Mississauga ON) and Emanuel Chicoine (Montreal QC) had an interesting and eventful game this round. They were guffawing and making tired humor with one another when I got drawn into a dramatic recounting of the game's unfolding. Craig opened with REARM, holding ENPRRST, Emanuel prayed for an I or an A and he got the latter so slapped down PARTNERS for 64. Craig responded with AXE for 35. Craig then saw Emanuel put an S on the board, then an E, then an H, then a C, and then an A. He thought, ACHES, I can handle ACHES, but Emanuel was playing with him and kept on going, adding a CO. Craig though co-aches, meaning we both are hurting, but then realized it was COACHES as in a Toronto Blue Jays coach and let the play go. At this point, the score was 152-55 in Emanuel's favor and Craig wasn't feeling very positive about his future in the game. So, he played WORT, then OLIO, which set him up for a 38-point play of BRINY. Later in the game, Craig played mEWlING for 90 down the triple lane (that should read MEWLING) and at this point, he was 2/3 of a bingo behind Emanuel and closing fast. Sensing this, Emanuel played VIG to stop Craig from bingoing, but then Craig got JiVE for 28 and JIN for 20, and was now 1/3 a bingo behind. Late game racks for the two of them were SATINEU for Craig and OBVIGYN for Emanuel. Craig dumped a U, which created a spot for Emanuel to get down QUOTE/TUN. On his next move, he played OUZO from the triple for 39 points. Fearing a play like SANSERIF, Emanuel tried blocking as best he could. Having only some of the feared letters, Craig instead got down a 59-point "budget" bingo, ASTONIES for 59. We all laughed about how mangled this story would get when I attempted to type it in!

The tiles are picked up so quickly at table 1 that I don't get to inspect or photograph the final board. When I ask around about what unfolded, I was told that David Boys (Dorval QC) got the blanks (he mentioned to me earlier that he gets them all now!), but that Adam Logan (United Kingdom) pulled out the win.

We end the day with Adam Logan (United Kingdom) in first place with 12 wins and a monster +1649 spread. Tony Leah (Ajax ON), David Boys (Dorval QC), and Shaun Goatcher (Mississauga ON) are hot on his heals with 11 wins. And the 10-win brigade of Ron Hoekstra (Kentwood, MI), Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON), Emanuel Chicoine (Montreal QC), Maxim Panitch (Toronto ON), and Dean Saldanha (Richmond BC) cannot be ruled out as potential finalists as well!

We look forward to an exciting three games tomorrow morning followed by a best of five finals!

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