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NSC 2012 Commentary: Round 9

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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, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, After the Tournament.

Round 9

Kate says: Evans Clinchy (Boston, MA) vs Eric Goldstein (Scarsdale, NY). Eric opens with ARUG?LA. The blank can be two possible letters — he chose O. Eric also had the stylish VICuGNAS, but Evans gets ODONATES from the O, ROADLESS from the R and LEVERING to a G and wins 472-414.

MELL is floating temptingly, right between two triple word scores in Marty Gabriel (Charleston, IL) vs Bob Lipton (Vero Beach, FL). There are five OWL 8s that would triple triple by surrounding MELL. One of them is CA(MELL)IA — can you get the rest? Since it's a CSW game, you should also know that there is one # word: JU(MELL)ES#. there are also three OWL 11s, including LA(MELL)ICORN, and two more CSWs. By the time I looked this up and walked back around, the spot had been blocked. Oh well.

On Stefan Huber (Tampa, FL) vs Bruce D Ambrosio (Los Angeles, CA), Bruce gets the first bingo-bango with UNRAVELS and DoGFISH, but then Stefan bingo bangos with ZITTERNS and POLArIZE. Bruce gets SOFTENER, Stefan gets LEARNING, and it ends up going to Stefan 493-450.

Sam Kantimathi (Sacramento, CA) has a SamTimer sweatshirt draped like a flag on his table, plus a SamTimer water tumbler, hat, and, imagine that, a SamTimer. Maybe next he'll personalize the pillowcase on the cushion he's always sitting on.

WOOTZ# on board 1 CSW, Matthew Bernardina (Durham, NC) vs. Emanuel Chicoine (Montreal QC). More fun with octothorps.

Two bingos in ?DEILRY — the prettier of the two, LYREbIRD, is on a Susan Gordon (Australia) vs Eric Kinderman (Burlington, VT) board in CSW.

Back to Sherrie: Ever playful, I approach Conrad Bassett-Bouchard (Piedmont, CA) and Dave Wiegand (Portland, OR) and Conrad says, "I'm embarrassed to admit, it took me more than four minutes to find my out bingo." FALTERS, hooking EL to make ELF and PE to make PEA. Dave describes his game experience by pointing to BANZaI for 78 from the triple. Conrad played LEPROSY and Dave got down NEAtENED and ARIETTA. Dave's win, 465-404.

Cecilia Le (Cambridge, MA) vs Nigel Richards (Malaysia): a pretty board. A 461-441 win for Nigel, I watched Nigel play EPITOMEs for 78. Other words: ALLOTYPe, TARTIER, ZINGIER, FINALISED, and CARITAS. Three of those were bingo bang bongo for Cecilia, but Nigel still brought it home.

I corner a twin. He says, "We are having so much fun — we started at the Phoenix NSC in the bottom division with Matt Canik (Austin, TX) and now all three of us are in the top tables in division 1!" He admits that both he and his brother, and their parents, are very excited with their performance.

Matt Canik (Austin, TX) vs Charles Reinke (Middleton, WI), a 451-358 win for the twin. Charles played FULMARS as a nonbingo, but good, and Matt said that his opponent's word knowledge was really very good. He not only knows a lot of bingos, he knows other obscure short word, which makes him hard to play. Other words on the board: INVITEE, FOOTLERS, and SPlURGERS, played from the S, which Matt challenged. Both of the twins were 6-1 at the end of yesterday, and both are 7-2 now.

David Gibson (Spartanburg, SC) vs Kenji Matsumoto (Berkeley, CA), a 470-403 win for the master. Kenji made a beautiful 48-point play of QANAT, and then David played DISTANT/QANATS down the triple lane for 85. I see MOISTeR, CHARGES, ODORIZE, and the gorgeous BECALM, which was Kenji's opening play.

Jackson Smylie (Toronto ON) tells me that he bingoed out with MAUNDIEST* in his game with Paul Izikoff (Miami, FL). The kicker, he stuck Paul with ADJLQX, getting 60 points off the rack.

Brian Bowman (Villa Hills, KY) vs Sam Rosin (Bernardsville, NJ): a 515-511 win for Sam, who played EBONITE, FATIGUE, TORULINS#, and APHELIAN. Brian played DEADPANS, STRAYING, and ALDOXIME#. Sam liked Brian's extension of WEAK to WEAKNESS as well.

Dan Stock tells me that a (poo list) word was played in division three last round. It was a seven letter, double-double, nonbingo. And, it drew a challenge.

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, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, After the Tournament.