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2005 National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Round 26

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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 26

Bonnie Rudolph tells me about a play that caught her eye on table 21 in her division. Paul Sidorsky (Calgary AB) opened with MIAOU under which Ira Cohen (Los Angeles, CA) played ADAPTOr for 81 points. What made the play so nifty was the overlapping plays of MA/ID/AA/OP/UT. Ira went on to win their matchup, 423-305.

Peter Manzolillo (Bellmore, NY) lost a tough game to Shah Ali (Herndon, VA) at table 35 in division 3 this round, 252-530. I see Shah's bingos of GAUNTER, REPRIVES from the R and BITTERLY through the second T.

Nigel Richards (New Zealand) had a big game against Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL) this round, winning, 452-301. Today has been an all or nothing day for Brian and it seems like he's had some pretty tough nothing games! On their board, Nigel played RATTAIL, IODIDEs, and AmYLENE. Though it wasn't a bingo, I liked Brian's WACKIER.

For the second time in the tournament, Doug Brockmeier (Yorba Linda, CA) has handed Michael Early (Fort Worth, TX) a loss, this time it was 435-288. Doug opened this game with JUTTED for 44 and also played KEESTER for 73. He points out Mike's 71-point SOiLAGE and insists there was nothing more going on.

Joe Edley (Coram, NY) played his good friend Jerry Lerman (Foster City, CA) this game and before going into the game said he was unhappy that one of them might be potentially pushing the other out. As it worked out, Joe won their game.

Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) got his chance at Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR) at board 1 in division 1 this round. The annotator told me that by play 2, Chris was already not very happy with his tiles. As it turned out, the game didn't improve at all and Chris lost, 281-400. Dave played ZONuLAS for 89 and Chris dumped tiles twice. Check it out in the annotated game section. I think if the tile gods wanted to slide ol' Chris a blank this afternoon, he woudn't refuse it!