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Back to 2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Live Coverage

2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Round 18

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 18

Adam Logan (United Kingdom) is spending his bye taking a nap the built-in bar located behind and to the right of us at the directors' tables. Shaun Goatcher (Mississauga ON) and Tony Leah (Ajax ON) are playing at table 1. Shaun advances to the finals if he wins this game. If Tony wins, then David Boys (Dorval QC) still has an outside chance at qualifying if he defeats his opponent, Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON), by at least 224 more points than Tony's winning spread.

John Chew ran to the stage to remind the players before this last round began that the game winner got to keep the board upon which they were playing. Then he admitted that there may be enough extra games for almost everyone to have a set. The players heard him, but were clearly focused on their last games.

Knowing that I haven't reported much on Arthur Carvalho (Dollard-des-Ormeaux QC), I walk by to see how his game is going and I catch him playing a phoney that his opponent pulled up. He tried AUGERS, which is good, but he hooked it onto OVA, making OVAS* that is not good, so the play came up.

David Boys (Dorval QC), who knew the job was going to be tough when he took it on, spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to win the game, so he literally stopped to parse all the opportunities. At the point, the scores were 398-351 in Evan's favor. His rack was IIDSOEG. As it turns out, he could have had an hour, it just wasn't going to happen. Evan won, 427-397. Early in the game, David played the phoney STOVETOP*, which Evan accepted. Later on, Evan played NUTRIAS, which is a good word, but the S hooked on to make STOVETOPS*. David did not like the hooked word and held Evan a good long time, but eventually he took the play. After the game was over, Dave said, "Now tell me Sherrie, why did I let him put an S on a phoney?" Other game highlights were Evan's TARDiEST for 69 and Dave's HAFtARAS for 84.

Fern Lindzon (Toronto ON) was full of congratulations for her opponent this round, Jeremy Hildebrand (Ottawa ON), who won their game, 467-379. Fern played two bingos, the double-double, AEROLItE for 78 and USEABLE. The latter bingo was a costly one as it caused her to empty the bag and pick up WWVIIRS, some of which she ended up doubling and giving to Jeremy for his spread. Jeremy played ANTLERs and AERATES.

The room was full of excitement, with major energy focused on the result of board 1, especially since David Boys lost his game. Tony Leah (Ajax ON) and Shaun Goatcher (Mississauga ON) had a close game that went Tony's way. And so, our finalists this year are Adam Logan (United Kingdom) and Tony Leah (Ajax ON).

Time for lunch and then a quick set-up of the playing room, which will be separated from the viewing room, where we'll be cheering with gusto!

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