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2005 National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Round 17

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Go to: Anagrams Championship, 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, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3, Final Round 4, Final Round 5.

Round 17

At table 6 in division 2, Debbie Stegman (Kew Gardens, NY) and Dominick Mancine (Louisville, CO) are in the middle of a recount. Debbie is amazingly methodical about tapping each tile, saying each word aloud, and announcing each score. Despite finding herself two more points, Debbie loses, 344-350. I see Deb's CREAMIEr for 63 and Dom's RENTALS for 66. Only 8 points scorewise, but good style points go to Dom for his outplay: IGNaTIA played to the A.

Table 4 in division 4 and Gerry Smith (North Lauderdale, FL) is still beating her opponents. This time it is Steve Anstandig (Commerce Township, MI) and he loses, 344-419. She opened with RECLINES for 63 and later got down REVILES for 80. Steve played ASsISTED for 77.

Back at table RPD, where Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON) has a 6-bingo romp over Steve Oliger (Holtwood, PA), 509-318. She is so excited, I can barely keep up with her listing of the great plays: CORDITES through the I for 66, ENORMITY through the R for 71, ANGORAS for 65, DRIFTAGE to the E for 80, and DIgITIZE to the E for 68. Robin also made the lovely overlapping sENOPIA/OS/RE/AN/SO for 78. Robin credited Steve for being a good sport throughout the drubbing.

Table 2 in division 1 featured Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) vs. Lisa Odom (St. Louis Park, MN). Lisa had a monster 498-300 game. When I asked her which bingos were hers, she said, "they all were. Poor Chris, I had every good tile in the game!" I see ANGINOSE, TROPINES, DEVOTEs, and cURARES.

Before the game began at table 1, I told Panupol Sujjayakorn (Thailand) to watch out for Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR). And, I told him I predicted they would have even records coming out of their game (going in, Dave had one less win). Well, maybe there is a future in gambling for me afterall, Dave did win, 435-358. Afterwards I asked Dave about the game and he shrugged and said he had opened with a bingo, AMORETTI for 64 and then had one blank and then two. Toward the game's end, perhaps fearing the as of yet unplayed Q, Panupol played WO for 12. On his next turn, he had the opportunity to bingo down the left triple, and he did, ASTERNAL for 77. The bingo gave Dave a 51-point X play and then a place to play the Q. He thought that Panupol was doing an endgame analysis that focused on the best play not being laying down the bingo..... Interesting. You can think on this yourself as this game is annotated this round.

Frank Tangredi (West Babylon, NY) had a nervewracking game today against Dean Saldanha (Richmond BC) and he recounted the horror to me outside the playing room in the hallway. Frank admitted to playing fast, which caused his low-on-time opponent to go over on his clock by one second! This gave Dean a 10-point time penalty and Frank a 6-point win, or so they thought! After a careful recount, they found exactly 6 points in Dean's favor which brought the game to a 454-454 tie! Frank walked off still muttering.