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NSC 2008 Commentary: Round 18

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Go to: 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, Award Ceremony.

Round 18

Joey Krafchick (Roswell, GA) is on a total high: he's won all his games so far today!

Matthew Ridout (Lexington, KY), the newlywed, made a great play this round: GREATNESS through the R and first S! What a find! He lost the game, however, to Alan Stern (Shadow Hills, CA) 350-388.

James Henderson (Somes Bar, CA) vs. Terry Kang Rau (New Britain, CT). Terry played SEICENTO through the C for 62 and James played RETREATER through the second RE for 86 and GAUSSED* for 83. He admits that only DEGAUSS is good. He won this game, 439-351.

Victim #15 to Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL) at table 1 in division 1 is Jerry Lerman (Foster City, CA), 422-483.

John Stardom (Ottawa ON) is smiling broadly. He's won all four games this morning. He thinks he may even be in second place!

One of the last games to finish this round is division 4's Terry Aitken (Stratford ON) vs. Waheed Thompson (Houston, TX). As they make their last few plays, I sit across from Bruce Shuman (Wilmington, NC), whose equipment the players are using. Bruce wants to talk, or maybe I do, but the players need to focus, so we start writing notes back and forth to each other while we wait for the final few plays. At one point, Bruce mentions me adopting him since he's "had all his shots and is housebroken." I wonder how we went from "internet coverage" to adoption, but I assume he is being sarcastic. Then the game wraps ups. Waheed opened this late-finishing game with EDiFIES and Terry later got down NATIOnS. Waheed ends up this game's victor, 355-319. A late Q play by Waheed seemed to vex Terry a lot.

Worth mentioning is that Bradley Robbins (Windham, NH) defeated Brian Farello (West Hills, NY), 428-295. This quiet 11-year-old is 16-2 in division 6. He has been sitting at table 1 for a good, long time now...

Lunch time now and then three games this afternoon.