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NSC 2008 Commentary: Round 23

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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 23

Division 6 had a minor tremor this round, Bradley Robbins (Windham, NH) lost a game, 463-370, to Jamie De Jong (Ottawa ON). I see a beautiful 9-letter-play of RETAINING through the second IN for 75 by Bradley and three bingos by Jamie: PLOtTERS for 78, INsTEAD for 75, and SLAINTE for 80.

After facing off against Judy Horn (Reading, MA) last round, this round Andrew Friedrich (Aurora, CO) played Joel Horn (Reading, MA), her husband. Andrew had less luck with Joel and lost that game. He looks forward to playing Conrad Bassett-Bouchard (Moraga, CA) next round. At age 15, Andrew is doing fabulous at this NSC with a 14-9 record in a tough division!

I think there is no better way to say it than that a bit of gamesmanship was displayed at table 3 in division 2 this round. Brett Haughney (Chicago, IL) was playing Win Inthara (Orlando, FL), the latter of whom was in serious time trouble. Knowing this, and wanting to put pressure on him, Brett played the phoney ONAH*. Since time was such an issue, Win didn't even check Brett's play, but since the clock was so suddenly turned on, he reacted quickly and slapped down RAV*, which Brett challenged off. Brett then went out, sticking Win with the AV tiles and won the game, 375-367. Win was blown away by the tactics and quietly walked away from the board with his hand on his forehead. Brett admitted, as he picked up the tiles, that it was ap pretty terrible thing to do.

Herb Lewis (Cherry Hill, NJ) tells me that he had a fun word on the board in his game with Richard Savitt (Miami, FL). Herb had played ROWING and several turns later, Richard added FUR to make FURROWING! Nice!

Piengkamol Intarasuwan (Oakland Park, FL) is sitting quietly at board 1 in division 3. She just lost to Mark Rosenberg (Brooklyn, NY) by 201 points. She challenged a good word and then "everything went downhill from there."

Bryan Pepper is routinely the first director to get all his result slips into the computer staff. This has been aggravating the division 1 assistant, Susan Hoehn. Susan contends that since Bryan's table is closer to the computers, that is why he gets his slips in first. In retelling this story to me, Bryan makes a "wah" sound, as if to insinuate that she is being a baby. He says, I have 13 more games in my division than she has! That more than makes up for my proximity to the computers! That said, a line has been drawn in the sand and Sue is vowing to beat Bryan on the turning in slip contest. I'll keep you posted on what happens!

Chris Cree has moved in to the space between John Chew and me on the Internet table. It has been wonderful to have him around, telling us stories, etc. I was delighted to see a slide show about the birth of his baby daughter, Faith, etc. The funniest part? He has a slideshow on both his laptop and phone. On the phone, in addition to photos of his daughter, he has several shots of used forklifts. And as you scroll through them, he loving points out their names and key features. They are almost like his ... other children!!!