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NSSC 2008 Commentary: Round 2

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Final Round 1.

Round 2

After a random first-round pairing, the next four rounds starting with this one will be paired Swiss, avoiding repeated pairings with "like playing like," meaning that those with similar records will face off. The final round will be paired using Chew pairing, which distills to: "Among the players contending an important final rank (such as the top two, who advance to the finals, or 3rd through 10th, who receive prizes), a small number of leaders are selected and the highest-ranked remaining unpaired team is paired with the lowest-ranked player who can catch up to them; noncontenders are paired Swiss as in preceding rounds. In most cases, the Round 6 pairings at the top end up being 1-4, 2-3, unless 1st has a huge spread advantage over 4th, in which case it can be 1-3, 2-4, or unless Gibsonization takes place."

This is a mouthful, but i think it worth mentioning how the pairing software used here, John Chew's tsh, is pairing the event. Variables can change what ends up happening, such a Gibsonization, which translates to a team or teams being so far ahead of the pack that they cannot be caught and thus are paired with those outside of prize consideration so that they can't affect the standings of other prize winners.

But this basic framework attempts to explain what the software, based only on win/lose and spread is setting out to accomplish.

At table 1 this round, South Side Middle School Team 2 (NY) played Ruth Keeler Library Team 2 (NY). See their annotated game in the annotated game section for a blow by blow of their game, a great way to see through the eyes of another team!

At table 2, I spot Evangelical Christian School Team 1 (TN) vs. Emerson Middle School Team 1 (CA). ECS has played the lovely ATOMISER through the I for 61 and undaunted, Emerson has played a bingo of their own: rINGERS for 64. I note that the ECS team has that nonchalant approach to tile on rack placement. Their tiles are lucky if they land on the rack at all and are often upside down and backward!

Table 15, Westport SCRABBLE Club (CT) vs. Eastern Greene Middle School Team 2 (IN). POLARISE is played through the S for 61 and IDEATING is a nonbingo played from the first two letters, ID, to the triple for 33. This isn't a high-scoring play, but it shows good board vision. To be able to play from or to a letter on the board is a certain skill, but to play through, from, or to two letters is amazing. As i watched, Westport held AEILNTN and they played off an N for a few points, hoping to get a more synergistic replacement tile. What did they pick? Wouldn't you know it, another N!

I see RETAINS on a board between South Side Middle School Team 1 (NY) and R.D. and Euzelle Smith Middle School Team 1 (NC).

Joel Sherman, clad in one of the committee member referee striped black & white shirts, says, "Mike Early will be proud. Texas State Champions - Trinity Bend Christian School (TX) just played AQUATONE at table 13." Mike is a Dallas-based SCRABBLE expert, who has played in sanctioned NSA tournaments (not student events) with a member of that Texas Champion team, Stephen Sneed.

The highest-scoring play of the event, so far, has just made a spectatular spash at table 19. FLEETING for 167 through the first E on the triple lane, for a triple-triple! It was so spectacular and shocking for the team that played it, they paused their clock to ensure that they were supposed to take the word score and multiply it by 9. That is indeed true! On their very next turn, Ridgefield Library Team 1 (CT) played MAZE/ZA/ER for 68. Their opponents, Eastern Greene Middle School Team 1 (IN), congratulated them on both plays (in a true sportsmanlike manner). Later on, Ridgefield played SENDOUT* for 81. Eastern Green ended up losing this one, 211-528, but they did make the fun, 33-point OX/XI/AI play!

After this game, I was told that the player who found FLEETING was presented a position during a session of his School SCRABBLE club, originally created a few weeks ago by John Chew for a duplicate SCRABBLE session held at a recent NSA tournament. The rack was AEEODRT. On the board, in the triple lane was: . V . . OPINION . . . . This student found the 15-letter word, can you? Check the bottom for what he found*. WOW!!!

A word about creaming another team or being creamed by another team. In the past, this event didn't have any provisions for teams that were so blatantly mismatched that it was possible for one team to win a game by as many as 500 points! So, this year, we instituted a spread cap. Thus, in round 1, even if a team won by more spead, they were assigned a maximum of 100 points in spead (by how much they won the game), 150 points in round 2, and for the remaining rounds, 250 per win. This system insures that no team is able to ice out another based on a mismatched game.

At table 23, Solomon Schechter Day School (Newton) Team 3 (MA) faced Hopkinton Middle School Team 1 (MA), and it was a win for the latter, 531-326. The losing team played rENOTED* for 63 and the winners got down GLANCES, SAILING, and IMARETS. I have a feeling, by the look of that last play, that the Hopkinton team is benefitting mightily from the coaching of NSA member Seth Lipkin. Seth is hailed and respected for being the cocreator, with Keith Smith, of http://cross-tables.com, the premier "stats of any kind having to do with SCRABBLE" web site. Check it out sometime!

I see that Lexington MA SCRABBLE Club No. 108 (MA) has played AERAToRS for 68 on an in-progress game.

Some communities have no School SCRABBLE programs and others have an embarrassment of riches in terms of talented, interested players. To spread out the good fortune, School SCRABBLE programs are sometimes set up at town libraries in addition to the schools. And so, this round, a team of four students, all wearing the same team shirts faced off at table 4. It was a Ruth Keeler Library Team 1 (NY) vs. Ridgefield Library Team 4 (CT) faceoff, which the Ruth Keeler team won, 351-290. At one point, in the endgame, I heard one of the eventual winners whisper, "this is the closest game I've ever had!" He was very excited! Hard to defeat friends, but enjoying the game and complimenting one's opponents in so doing is the essence of good sportsmanship.

I see a recount underway at table 3. Windham Nesmith Library (NH) vs. Clarke Middle School (MA). When I discover that the score was 477-238 in Windham's favor, I wonder why the recount was needed (normally recounts occur in games with closer end scores), but I learn to just not ask why! Windham opened with BANITER* for 74, which went unchallenged, so stayed on the board. When the game was over, Quincy Cerebino-Hess said he had a too-late anamonic realization: AEINRT is common stem that is played through with "SMUG WIFE KEEPS THE CHILDREN." This means that every letter in that non-sensical sentence can be added to AEINRT to form a bingo. Thus, he realized BANTIER* was a phoney only a moment too late. I think I'm also spying SWAfTER* for 89 on that board, played by Windham.

The result slip paperwork was a bit better this round. We look forward to the last round today being even better!

*Within one minute, he found OVEROPINIONATED, through the separated V and OPINION. This position, when it was presented, was only solved by one player in the Duplicate SCRABBLE session, the QUACKLE software co-creator and board 1 NSSC annotator, Jason Katz-Brown! Jason is one of the top 10 rated players in North America. This find by the Ridgefield team within one minute was astonishingly good!