sr_orangepants

It was an interesting weekend in Lake George. I think I played a little bit better than I have been recently. It seemed like, with the exception of maybe two games, I really had to fight through a lot. I fell into a few traps but finished strongly, and it was pretty satisfying for me in the end. I'm waiting for the official results to be submitted; I'm right around 1750 again.

( Sexy table! )

I think Essex will be my next tourney, and since it is my birthday weekend, y'all should come and celebrate. :)

There was a part of me that wanted to go Serena Williams (or perhaps cuzzakenji?) on some unfortunate soul in Philly, but I thought better of it. At least kangarau was there to bitch to, although I feel like we needed to talk more, and huggles more. She put it best when she said, "This doesn't make us [Spouse and her] want to play more Scrabble."

( Sexy table that would be sexier if I could have won another game or two... )

Just looking at a few games, I know I'm being pretty efficient. I want to correct two things that I saw: the occasional vision fail (can they just be corrected by taking more time?) and endgame play. Sometimes I can see what I should have done after the fact, and I'd like to actually have these thoughts come during the games, rather than after. Any suggestions?

So I got back from club about 15 minutes ago. I had an interesting rules issue come up. In Round 2, my opponent and I both had one second, so we drew to determine who would play first. I drew an O, and my opponent proceeded to OVERDRAW, pulling two tiles out of the bag. We redrew and I got to go first, but I'm curious if the overdraw procedure should have been applied.

Should I move to Connecticut now? :)

It's the RETURN OF THE SEXY TABLES! Now with some stats as well.

( The unsexy first half... )

( The much sexier second half... )

( Overall... )

Hmm... Am I going to re-emerge like Lu Chen? I kinda thought that more of the same was coming when I watched finds like SQuAMAE get nullified by things like REAGENTS, but I think my rage was sublimated into focus. I made some ballsy moves to take the first three games, winning two by opening lines late and then bingoing from my setups, and winning the third with a well-timed phony. Then I suddenly found myself at Table 4 (much to the surprise of dugy1001) and bagging goldfishbw. I capped off a 9-1 second half with a win over vinylchances, movin from the bottom third (perhaps?) all the way to ninth. If only redessence had tied the last game with key_lime_guy. Ah well.

I loved the dance party. It was like I was 13 again and going to a Bar/Bat Mitzvah party seemingly every weekend, except that I was not as awkward on the floor. I danced my ass off, and, if it wasn't mentioned earlier, ORANGE-PANTED PELVIC THRUSTS! I was surpised, but happy, to be doing the Time Warp and getting my groove on. cheezchick was awesome on the floor, and lordiceman was pretty good too, but I think the revelation of the night was Paul Avrin, not sighing, but bringing a lot of energy to the party. Your eyes are not deceiving you. If you missed the dance party, Paul Avrin was dancing the night away.

Other highlights:
- My opponents. I think it made a world of difference that practically everyone I played was someone who I had talked to and/or spent time with before. I didn't really feel pressed at all, and I knew that regardless of what happened, a good time was to be had.
- dianagram gives good neck and shoulder rubs.
- A photo of spherulitic and me, cuddled up in the back seat of the Ubeikas' car, was snapped and sent to ididjonassalk.
- olaugh compared WHAT to APL. Actually, wouldn't it be funny if WHAT were actually written in APL?
- Congratulations in LJ comments and via E-mail. You all rock!
- Huggles! Lots and lots of huggles!

I want to send out my congratulations to eurobikermcdog and everyone else who finished ahead of me, and to thank our hostess extraordinaire for the weekend, kangarau. It was an awesome time.

I can't sleep. Third night here. Third night this sort of thing has happened.

I'm really bummed about Arden right now. I started out fine on day 1 at 4-4, got to 5-5, and six games later, I'm still at five wins, with the worst loss in said stretch being 49 points. I blew an endgame against scrabblek8 (482-490), lost by 5 to BriCap in which I spent the last five turns with no more than one vowel in my rack (though to his credit, he found what I thought was one of many wins he had, but it might have been the only one), and got Y-stuck against Ken Kasney (and if there were any karmic justice anything else but the Y, as in, any winning tile including an unseen V, would have been the last one in the bag).

Perhaps what's most frustrating to me is that I feel that I've gotten better since BAT, and though I understand that I'm up against a tougher field, I don't feel like it's been showing. For one thing, the result is about the same as it stands right now. For another, I have made some really bad moves with obvious lines that I should have played on. (Against Marty Gabriel, for one, I had a 30-ish point play of LEDGE to a triple, and I played GELD elsewhere for 17. What was I thinking?) I spent much of the afternoon feeling like I had just... lost my light. Not fun.

The drek racks are getting me. Too many times I've been asking myself what to do with some rack like... BEOOOSV, or MORRTTV, or MNPQSTU, or VV(insert other five tiles here), and I've just not quite made the right call. It's not about emotions as much as it is picking the least sucky option. On the plus side, I've found that I do quite well with racks in which six of my tiles are AEOUU?.

Four games in a few hours. I'm hoping I can salvage some pride and ratings points, but I need some huggles.

Somewhat organized thoughts from me...

Prize structures. I think about the ITF under the ATP and WTA tours. Winners of challengers and futures events don't usually face highly-ranked players (although I remember a recent Zagreb challenger that served as an Apperance Fee Open for Ivan Ljubicic when he was in the top 10), and purses are much smaller than, say Masters/1000/Tier I events. But even with sponsorships, I think the costs associated with entering big tournaments are bigger. Certainly, in Scrabble if the top players are amongst themselves, it does make sense for them to get a bit more than those who aren't playing at the top, but there's only so much that can be done in terms of allocating prize money if everyone is paying an entry fee that is no different (or no more than $10 different, let's say) for any division. I also think about the work that I did to move up the rankings and would like to think that at least some of the people who win lower divisions are looking to move their way up, and so they deserve quite a bit of what they get.

Increased graduation in entry fees. I'm sure this is out there, but would top division entrants pay, say, $75 more than the bottom division to enter, if they knew the returns would be greater? Certainly that would increase the prize funds for the top division...

Pay up to play up. It increases prize funds for the top division, and seems to please participants. When I won in North Salem, the prizes were probably double what they would have been had everyone stayed in divisions corresponding to their respective ratings, but I was thinking about airlines and how we might even be able to pump a little more cash into such events. Airlines let you buy miles. Why not allow entrants to buy their way up a division at a cost of, say $10 per 50 or 100 rating points?

Opens vs. Divisional tournaments. Despite Dallas, I still like opens, but previous experience tells me that divisional tournaments are still reasonable to hold.

( Life... )

( Scrabble... )

I might post something about the social aspects of the tournament, which were by far the best for me. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see both hebdomad and lordiceman win. I feel the need to vent a bit, though. There's nothing all that great to see behind the cut, but in case you're curious...

( My Tournament... )

Twin third place finishes for me. I was a little nervous that I might drop into Division B at BAT, but once I got to four wins in the main event, I thought I was safe. Though I must have misread when I punched my worst-case scenario into the ratings calculator (missed 1700 by a game), I had nothing to worry about.

( A Personal Note )

Congratulations to that luckbox ididjonassalk for eking out the win.

Behind the following cuts, I have shamelessly adopted the awesome tables, complete with excuses in 3, seen in cheezchick's Rockville recap. I think I'm going to use them in all further tournament recaps. I prefer borders, though.

( Early Bird )

( Main Event )

Here is my game against lordiceman from this past weekend in Rockville, which should meet jigsawn's three criteria for posting annotated games. The game was played well on both sides. It was a shame that someone had to lose it.

Early in game number 3, my opponent plays OHM 3M, and my rack is AEFIIN?. I take my time and find my 167-point triple-triple. Later in the game, she plays a G at 2A, leaving another line open, and my rack becomes SATIRE?. Boom. 131-point triple-triple. I add on a hasty WISTERIA through a T when AIRWISE would have played for more, but end up winning 615-255. I think it's my first 600 in club play.

I think it's all out of my system. Thanks to everyone who endured my flying off the handle about the Scrabble that transpired. I just hadn't experienced the sorts of things over the board that had happened to me, or if I had, I had been blissfully unaware. Water under the bridge, I hope.

I wanted to spend a long time thanking and congratulating people, but a "You all rock. You know who you are" will have to suffice for now.

Courtesy of two opponents who adeptly demonstrated their Scrabble superiority to me:
IFFS*
JOS*

Karma sucks.

Like lordiceman, I, too, love opens. I'm optimistic. I haven't lost to lower-rated players in opens all that often, so I'm not worried so much about that. I'm not nervous about facing the big guns again; I want to get into a situation as it has been in the other opens that I've played, where my early performance has given me opponents rated higher than me for most of the rest of the tournament. I've joked about going 19-0 and shocking the world, but I'd just like to play well, play less neurotically, and get a share of wins that I can be proud of.

I would like some matches against fellow LJers who I haven't had a chance at over the board in tournament play, and wish everyone going the best of luck.

I can haz!

I hope at least ididjonassalk and greatscott66 get a little chuckle when they click the link. Things started to come together for me on turn six.

I would ramble a bit about today, because I was a bit disappointed to only finish 5-2, and just out of the money, but I got what I needed to off my chest, and I think the list of highlights and lowlights can be disposed of in favor of seven simple words. Bingos, on the other hand, can be listed.

( Bingo List )

Here is a situation that arose in Philly today in my last match:

I play SUK for 24 points near the end of a game. I am now behind by thirteen. My opponent has three tiles left in her rack and a few places to go out, but she holds my play, and starts talking about how that's no good, but she has places to play out. She's giving a serious thought to challenging the play. A few people around our table start arguing about whether or not SUK is good, and say that she shouldn't challenge the play.

I realize that she's probably going to make the play out, but if she does challenge, I play TA underneath UK for ten, get six points off her rack, win by three, and win the tournament. Should I have called for a ruling regarding interference? I realized it would have seemed like I stole the win, but really, couldn't everyone have just shut up like they were supposed to?

I feel like the Jennifer Robinson of Scrabble at the moment. Won the division at 6-2 with a honking spread. I hope to have a similar showing tomorrow. *crosses fingers*

( Bingo list... )

I thought my best play of the day was a non-bingo, though. What would you play from...

( This position? )

I made the best play. I was pretty happy about that.

Finally...
( Odds and ends... )