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USSO 2006 Commentary: Round 1

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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, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3.

round 1

Well, the first spill of the tournament belongs to Sue Hoehn, Mary Rhoade's division 2 assistant! Her coffee was knocked over on the head table about 1.5 minutes into round 1. The hotel staff was on it in about another minute, replacing the cloth and the table skirt quickly. We almost didn't notice it even happened!

As the round got underway, a hotel AV employee, Brian, brought me up to the inner workings of this beautiful facility and slid open a magic door so I could peer down on the players. Wowsa, we are a large group! When the dust settled, we started with 624 players today, a bit more than we thought when we did pairings last night. One more player came forward to even out division 1 and a few more came into division 6. This influx of players at the 11th hour delayed our start time a bit, but it was amazing how quickly they computer staff integrated them into the pairings and proceeded with the day's games.

Players milled into the room excitedly and found their tables easily. Once again, we are an absolutely massive ballroom, one where if you shouted from one end, you couldn't be heard at the other. Rows of neat, cream tablecloth draped tables go from one end of the room to the other with a row of oyster tables down the length of the middle. At each tall oyster table sits a Zzyzzva-equipped laptop for adjudication. Michael Thelen (West Jordan, UT) had his program selected to be this year's offical "look up" software. So far, it has all been going swimmingly.

Daniel Stock (Rocky River, OH) is once again doing his 100 tile stories and he both wrote one down in my notepad for me and created one atop a new Hasbro board. So clever!

Okay, so the player of the day for me is Nadine Jacobson (Minneapolis, MN) in division 4. She is the first completely blind player I've seen in tournament play. She came equipped with her own braille equipment: a machine for typing in game scores, tiles with braille dots atop, and a special board with braille dots on the squares. She plays in the same 25-minute time as sighted players. The only concession a player makes in playing Nadine is announcing all words created, including parallel plays, and permitting her to slide her fingers over the board on her time. Since she sees with her fingertips, she doesn't get the advantage that the rest of us get in studying the board on our opponents' time. She has to wait until her turn to "see" the board.

Thinking it might be a hard day for her, I asked her to have her division leader drop a winning scoresheet by my table sometime today when she won a game. Imagine my surprise when her division leader padded over about 40 minutes later with her winning scoresheet! Not only did she win the first game, she bingoed out!

Wendell Smith, the division 4 leader boasted that at one point in the game, she had RAISING on her rack but no opening, so she searched out a B and got down BRAISING. She bingoed out with CRISPED to win the game! Way to go, Nadine! Wow!

Evan Berofsky (Thornhill ON) had a late-game bingo that sewed up a victory against Mark Kenas (Madison, WI) this round. Through a disconnected N and I, he played FaNTASIES for 92 points. Ouch. Evan also got down ELUATES and Mark played EUCAINES, DINKIER, and COUPLERS through the U. Evan's win, 445-411.

I see Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA) and Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thailand) bent over a board. It looks like a 3-point win for Pakorn, but they were amidst a recount. Pakorn pointed out his favorite play of the game: Sam's great play of RaDIALIA to the last A.

The first challenge that Darrell Day (Richardson, TX) heard in division 1 came during his game with Mark Pistolese (Pahoa, HI). Mark challenged Darrell's VIPEROUS, which was a good play. Darrell, not caring that I was busy and distracted demanded I tell him the two anagrams of VIPEROUS. I did that, "you have got to be kidding me" look and he wasn't relenting, so I concentrated. And I found PERVIOUS, which is a recently added bingo to our word list. The sad part? I couldn't find PREVIOUS, guess it was too obvious. Note to self: avoid Darrell's games as he expects me to think too much!

This event is remarkalbe for many reasons: the setting, the smaller staffing, the desert heat, and most importantly, we are managing it WITHOUT John Chew on site for the first several days. Maestro Chew, from the comfort of his air conditioned Toronto home office, is pulling the strings to help us accomplish the online aspects of the event. This includes the annotated games, the standings, the pairings, and the helping me get up the color/photos. I know I speak for us all when I wish John and Kristen a good next several days as they await the birth of their second child!

Panupol Sujjayakorn (Thailand) and Jean Carol (Cincinnati, OH) are playing each other at Board 1 in Division 1. Steve Pellinen and Scott Smith are posting the game live.