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Monty022
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Thanks for the well wishes. I had a pretty good tournament overall. After a shaky start including phoneying with my opening play (DROPSIE, I completely missed PERIODS) and losing that match by 2 lousy points and then got thrashed in the second game after my opponent opened with SEQUOIA for 100 points. It all turned around and I won the next 5 to finish day 1 5-2 and in 7th position of 44 players.
I went 5-4 on day 2 which doesn´t sound great but at 10-6 I was in 5th position overall. The highlight of the day was beating a lady who finished 3rd in the 2015 world championships so that was pleasing even though I nearly blew it in the endgame.
Day 3 I reckoned I needed to go 5-3 to score my first top 10 finish. Alas I went 3-5 on a day where I played the players who finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd and lost them all. In the end I finished 14th at 13-11 which was still my best result in a multi day tournament (I´ve been 12-12 twice before). Had 45 bingos in 24 games which was almost 2 per game.
Picked up the prize for the highest ratings gain which was nice too.
Next biggie is the Tasmanian Championship at the end of the month. 14 games over 2 days. The field will be smaller so it could be my best shot at a top 5 or better result. Cheers and good luck with the tiles :)
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4/10 2017 22:44:30
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CharlieMortdecai
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I also wish Monty good luck, although it´s probably finished now. His beloved Tigers won the premiership for the first time in 35 years, so I´m taking that as a good omen. (I say beloved but Monty is a typical Tigers supporters so would have been expecting the wheels to fall off at every point of their remarkable season. Hope he allowed himself to enjoy the win when they had it in the bag at 3/4 time!)
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4/10 2017 13:40:36
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WLoH Int Judge
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I wish Monty022 the best of luck in his latest live scrabble tournament this weekend :)
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1/10 2017 02:16:42
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Monty022
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Thanks for the encouragement. Division 3 here is pretty darn competitive, there aren´t any easy games.
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18/06 2016 16:38:10
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Captainkos
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Enjoyed that Monty. How are you only in Division 3? Keep us updated as you climb to dizzy heights
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18/06 2016 09:26:45
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Tobov!
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Great read monty, and good going! Cheers to everyone who enjoys a game of live scrabble!
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17/06 2016 16:03:39
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WLoH Int Judge
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I´m surprised you reached 81st in such a relatively small amount of time, exciting stuff! That actually makes me feel better about usually losing against you Monty. I think you will make top 50 no sweat :)
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16/06 2016 22:28:49
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Monty022
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Thanks for the encouragement. They just updated the rankings and I´ve edged up from 97th to 81st in Australia. Eventually I will peak but for now I´m still on the rise. Hopefully I can break into the top 50 down the track. I reckon I´ll be better for the experience in next years tournament. Again, I strongly urge anyone interested to have a go at live scrabble tournaments. Test yourself, you might just surprise yourself. Best of luck if you do. Cheers :)
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16/06 2016 21:48:54
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steve^w
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Cheers for the posts Monty. Great read!
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16/06 2016 19:14:33
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tydfil
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Well done monty. Keep the reports up!...and watch those phoney words:))
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16/06 2016 19:00:33
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Monty022
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Day 3,
The equation was pretty simple, win at least 4 matches and I will end up 13-11 and I should hold my place and maybe crack into the top 10. Again the day started with a reset and I ended up playing a lady I’d beaten on days 1 and 2. She’d come over from New Zealand to play. I’d run good against her the first 2 times and the tables were definitely turned this match. She played JAPER (44) which I countered with REFITTER but that got challenged off as a phoney. She then had OX (38) and YEX (69) and then a bingo ENLISTS (70) to power away. I learnt a handy word VINEW and although I got a couple bingoes in the latter stages I couldn’t get close losing by 114. Not the ideal start.
Game 19 was a tight tussle all the way. We swapped early bingoes but I had some sub-20 scores to fall about 30 behind. I had a blank near the end but couldn’t manufacture a bingo. I picked the last tile out of the bag and it was the second blank. There was an obvious bingo land off ADZ and she blocked it by playing several rows above it. I had DMNST?? With both blanks. It took a couple minutes but there was an unlikely bingo lane hooking 3 words TAT, DA and ZO. I worked out what letters would under each word and suddenly DUSTMAN (TATT, DAM,ZOA) appeared out of the fog. The last play bingo catapulted me to the win by 38. This was the other of my best moments in the tournament.
Game 20 was pretty good. I only had 2 scores below 20 the whole game where he had 7. Each turn I was just edging further away. He bingoed with ISATINE but I countered with ALEURON and had a comfortable win by 132 points. Now at 11-9, I just reckoned I needed to win 2 of the final 4 games to reach my goals.
Game 21 was against an opponent who beat me in game 10 when i got stuck with a C. And I got off to a shaky start when my bingo TALONED got taken off as I’d hooked VINO to make VINOD which isn’t a word. I came back next turn with DELATION but I was always behind after that. She got both blanks and bingoed with CHOOFED and I couldn’t mount any kind of challenge and meekly surrendered by 127 points. The end game was a bit of a laugh, she got stuck with the Q and I got stuck with the L but that didn’t stop me trying all sorts of L words to get an out. She quoted some rule about the game ending after 6 consecutive scores of zero and I didn’t mind as it was a fruitless exercise.
Game 22 was mine to lose as the letters became scarce. Leading by 67 I tried to block the board so he couldn’t bingo. Unfortunately he had both blanks and I didn’t do a good enough job (I have replayed this in my mind and I think there was a blocking play). He had a magnificent bingo NEWSIER with the W on a TL and the whole word being DW for 105 points to take a 31 point lead. I had AEILLTU and there was a floating R at the top of the board but I couldn’t find a winning move. I lost by 17 points but ruing a poor blocking attempt. I should have studied it longer to make a better play, I had time on my clock. Now 11-11 and needing to win last 2 to achieve one of my goals.
Game 23 was against a loady ranked a fair bit below me who I had beaten in game 1 so I had good expectations going into the match. By the way, no-one is forcing you to read this so you can skip ahead at any time. I had a bingo DENIERS (69) on my second turn and everything was going to plan. A turn later I had HAUNTED on my rack but nowhere to place it. My opponent then bingoed with RAISING (80) and I saw the I, N and G working well with my H, A and U of haunted but when the board was turned back to me, the HI turned into IH and I couldn’t play down the correct side of it as it was blocked. Here’s where it all fell apart. I saw UN and started convincing myself that UNHATED was a word (after all, you can be unloved) but this got challenged off. I then compounded the error by next turn playing UNDEATH (yes, a long shot but there is DEATHIER and DEATHFUL) and that got challenged off too. I eventually played HE for 21 and finally got back to scoring. I was thankfully only 40 behind at this point so rather lucky not to be totally off the pace. She bingoed again with TINGLES (76) and I was about the hook AGAS(T) with TURD when I saw STRUDEL for 91 that put me into the lead. I followed with WHOP (44) but she had a third bingo TREMBLE (72) that closed the gap and ultimately I lost by 11 lousy points. This was probably my worst moment in the tournament and it was all self inflicted. 11-12 and my goal of winning more than I lost gone and top 10 out of reach too. Ugh.
Game 24 was against a young opponent who was from Switzerland and had played in French tournaments but was doing pretty good in the English ones too. I went first and opened with EERIEST (66). 5 plays in I was leading by 57 and had ELUATES on my rack. I wrote down its anagrams and saw that I’d score 71 for ELUATES and even laid it on the board but saw I could get 72 for SETULAE so I went for the extra point. It got challenged and SETULAE came off much to my shock (It’s SETUALE but I’d somehow confused it with SITULAE). Thankfully I had more anagrams up my sleeve so next turn I placed out SALUTEE for 72 which got challenged and came off as it was no good either. FFS!. This was looking like a repeat of game 23 with 2 phoneys in a row. My opponent didn’t score much as he was setting for a bingo himself so I still had the lead. I eventually played ELUATES for 72 and that stayed on the board and I amazingly had a 85 point lead. My opponent then bingoed 2 playes later with UNDOING (65) with both blanks. Apparently he had wanted me to play ELUATES all along as it placed the E on edge of board for a probably 9 timer play for a zillion points but through my incompetence, he was playing off small words to keep his rack in tack but when i finally played it, he had no vowels other than the blanks and couldn’t manufacture that elusive 9 timer. He never closed the gap and I eventually won by 87.
So I ended up 12-12 with a spread of +256 which was 1 win short of my target of winning more games than losing but it wasn’t too far off. I ended up in 15th place overall. Looking at those above me, 9th place had 13 wins and a spread of +306, and 10th place had a spread of +166. So I was absolutely spewing about game 23 when I had 2 consecutive phoneys and lost by 11 points. Had I won, and even without adjusting my margin, I would have been 10th place, maybe 9th if I’d won by 40.
Anyway, it was a good experience, an emotional rollercoaster, and I think fatigue started to set in towards the end as I seem to have lost concentration in the last few games. It’s definitely something I would suggest you look into in your part of the world, be they one day or longer events. All the people I’ve encountered or played against have been friendly and encouraging and every game (win or lose) has been played in a great spirit of competitiveness. Plus they put on some nibblies between rounds to snack on and coffee and tea. What’s not to like about that?
In the meantime, good luck with your letters and run good. Monty.
Ps. Apologies for the super long posts but that’s why they invented the page down button. Cheers!
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16/06 2016 15:06:31
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WLoH Int Judge
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Hi Monty, thanks for sharing, I always enjoy reading. I knew you would do well at live scrabble but I´m still seriously impressed mate.
Initiates was a great moment, well spotted!
If you are able to I hope you go to Malaysia, do it, you only live once :)
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15/06 2016 23:52:22
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Be.en
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Greetings Monty! Have been following your ´real´ Scrabble journey with great interest and very much enjoying your reports. Am in awe of the skills required to play at elite level! Thanks for sharing your experiences in this forum. I look forward to reading the next instalment, and to hearing about your future Scrabble adventures. Malaysia sounds good :)) Best wishes
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15/06 2016 16:03:28
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Monty022
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Day 2
They did a “reset” at the start of each day given the small field size so you could end up playing someone you had played on day 1 again if the draw paired you up. Game 9 my opponent bingoed first with UTENSIL but I was able to counter with TESTICLE. I bingoed again with ADVISER except I took a chance by hooking the S onto DORY to make DORYS convincing myself it could be pluralised with just the S which of course is a phoney and off that came. I successfully bingoed a few turns later with BUNDIES and that was the difference in a 69 point win.
Game 10 was both good and yet I got lucky and then unlucky but my opponent played smart too so credit where credit is due. My opponent bingoed first with AVOIDING which saw me about 100 behind. I had a good rack but couldn’t bingo but didn’t want to destroy my rack so I played off 2 letters for dismal scores of 9,10 and 9 unable to manufacture a bingo while she scored 37, 24 and 39 at the same time. Now I needed a bingo just to break even. Finally next turn DORIZED (76) and immediately after LEOTARD (62) got me within 70 as she still kept scoring well. With 2 tiles in the bag, she strategically played only 1 letter to leave one tile in the bag. I bingoed with OUTLETS (69) to take the lead by 1. Had she played a 2 letter word and emptied the bag, I reckon I would of won with the value of tiles left on her rack as it turned out she had the Q. The last tile was a C and there was only 1 place for it. As she was tile tracking, she knew what letter I had and how there was only 1 out so she blocked it. Then picked me apart with 1 and 2 letter plays while I could only “pass” and she stretched it out to a 46 point win. So winning the bingo count 3-1 didn’t count for much that time.
Game 11 was a glorious turn to good fortune. Going second, I started with GLORIOUS (65) using an O she played in her first play, followed by QURSH (42) and VARIOLES (61) and ZO (44) and a few turns later GLENOID (76) to stroll to a 179 point win. Game 12 I also ran well bingoing early with LOCATES (72) that she countered with MODULATE (72) and I later changed 7 tiles and the pick up placed IONISES (73) on my rack to give me a lead I never relinquished. I was quite pleased to then play QUIFF with Q on TL and running to a DW space for 80 that was the icing on 98 point win. Now 7-5 and feeling good about my prospects.
Game 13 was against the same lady who had beaten me in game 8. I had another brain fade and doubted myself over FAZE being a word or not (PHASE). It would have played onto a TW for 60 but instead I burned my blank and played ZARF for 75. Given the blank is worth 25, it was a suboptimal play and I could have used the flexibility of the blank afterwards but it was gone. She immediately bingoed back with RECTUMS (78) and scored well next with WAXED (55) to close out the game by 19 points. Game 14 was against the same opponent I’d beaten in game 7. I started off with a phoney WILTIER and won by 63 in a game with no bingoes but she struggled with a number of scores below 15. 8-6 and looking good.
Game 15 was against the eventual winner, Andrew Fisher. We had a little bit of friendly banter while setting up the game. I mentioned how I’d seen him as a champion on our Letters and Numbers TV program (equivalent of Countdown in UK) plus I owned a copy of his scrabble book too. He started fast with QUBIT for 52 but 2 plays later I countered with GEX for 45 and we were close until half way. He had a surge just after that with GYVE (36), DOUK (39) and BIKIE (34) where I could only manage FALAJ (35) and a 16 and 13 to fall 50 points behind. Then came my 10 seconds of glory. I bingoed with DIARISE (69) to leap to a 15 point advantage. I say 10 seconds of glory, because my lead was short lived. 10 seconds was how long it took him to lay TORTIOUS (66) onto the board to steal back a 51 point lead. And then I completely capitulated. I got confused and played a terrible phoney EETH confusing how it looked like EECH which was challenged off. After that I could only manage some paltry low scores and only scored a total of 33 points after that and he powered away with 99 over the same stretch and won by 117. One observation I will make is that in playing him, and I imagine its similar to playing a top poker professional, it felt like my tiles were face up to him and he could see in my head as to what I was thinking and what I was hoping to do or where I was intending to play. It was an interesting experience in a nerve racking way.
Game 16 was against a solid player who bingoed first with SOREDIA (79) and was edging away until I bingoed back with LACUNOSE (61) to cut the lead to 40. There was an “I” and a W as potential bingo lanes but she was going to play FET but changed it to TEF for the extra points and blocked those floaters. I had AEIINST for ISATINE but nowhere to place it. The only floaters were IT and WE but there was only one space above the WE and 6 spaces to the bottom of the board. The IT looked like the most likely so I spent a good 6 minutes of my remaining 10 minutes looking for a 9 letter bingo.....and then it appeared out of nowhere IN(IT)IATES for the final play bingo 31 point win. That was probably one of my two best moments in the tournament. I was physically trembling afterwards as it was very unexpected as I don’t know my 9’s at all but thankfully it’s a fairly common word, but with the pressure of time and the outcome of the game riding on it, I was rather chuffed to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat instead of vice-versa.
Game 17 was against Esther Perrins. Firstly, she is a lovely person and a fierce competitor, very much the “smiling assassin”. We had had some chats during the breaks in the days play and she was telling me about this huge tournament in Malaysia (The Causeway Challenge) and she was saying I should consider going. She’s planted the seed, maybe I will. I’ve never travelled overseas, maybe it’s about time I broke that duck. I didn’t think I’d be drawn to play her as she was either number 1 or 2 in the tournament at that point, but it happened. She started innocuously enough with EUGE for 10 points. I looked at my rack of AAAAERS and probably should have changed AAA but I played AREA for 12 and then....ouch....she hooked AREA(S) to play HOSEYED through both DW squares (4x) for 103. I then fought back with YAGA to dump more A’s only for it to be challenged off as a phoney. Esther plays BANK (37) and the score is now 150 to 12 against the player who was 3rd at the world championships and my rack is AAAGLSY. (Expletive deleted). I thankfully did get a bingo not to long afterwards RELUMES (68) to eat into her lead a little. I then got a little more hope with URBANISE (80) to cut her lead to about 40, but that’s where it ended. She managed a 26 and a 36 and I couldn’t match it. My final rack was CDIILMO which I couldn’t do anything with. Well, I couldn’t see it but she did as she knew I had DOMICIL on my rack. That’s how good the elite players are, they see your rack for all its possibilities during the endgame. However she also knew there was nowhere for DOMICIL to place so she didn’t need to block it especially. I managed to scramble out first which brought the final margin to 77 and my record to a respectable 9-8 for 11th place at the end of day 2. My goal of winning more than I lost and finishing in the top 10 still very much alive. Final instalment tomorrow.
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15/06 2016 14:55:49
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WLoH Moderator
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Monty022 - thank you for your post re scrabble tournament. It was both enjoyable and informative. I´m eagerly awaiting the next installment.
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14/06 2016 17:54:42
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Monty022
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Day 1
As promised, here’s my write up about the Victorian State Championship (Australia – Yes your Monty is a bloody Aussie!!) which finished yesterday and was the first 3-day scrabble tournament I’ve entered. The field was much smaller than I expected with only 36 players (I think they had 50 the year before) but there still were some high quality players from all over Australia and a few from overseas and some elite players too. Given it was a small field, it also meant there was nowhere to hide and eventually you would get paired up to play a top rated player. I had no idea what to expect going in so I just set myself a simple goal to win more games than I lost and to shoot for a top 10 finish. There are no sub-divisions. It’s an Open event and we are all thrown into the one “league”. After the first match, who you played was then based on how you were doing. So after the first match, all those with 1 win played each other based on spread so player 1 with highest spread played player 2 with next highest spread. Then after round 2 it was resorted again and players with 2 wins played each other etc (without playing the same player twice). The better you did, the tougher your opponent was next round, but if you lost you moved down the rankings and in theory had a less tougher opponent next match.
First a little about the field. It was open to anyone so there were a range of players in terms of skills covering the full spectrum from lowly ranked, to fairly good, to advanced, masters and elite players. I was ranked 16th overall based on player ratings. In terms of the elite players, there was Andrew Fisher who was runner up in the World Scrabble Championship (2011) and Australian Scrabble Champion (2006,2009 & 2012), Esther Perrins who was 3rd in the World Scrabble Championship (2015) and Ayorinde Saidu from Nigeria who was 3rd in the 2016 Australian Scrabble championship (Andrew Fisher was 2nd). I got to play 2 of the 3 during the tournament which was quite daunting which I will comment on later. There were also plenty of strong and well accomplished players from interstate with hundreds, if not thousands, of tournament and international games experience under their belt.
I’m not going to dissect each game too much, but I will expand on some of the conundrums, poor plays, great plays, learning experiences and any special “moments” that I recall.
Game 1 was a scramble but a 48 point win. Game 2 was against a player ranked well above me. I got off to an absolute flyer with GUMLINE and UNTHREAD my first 2 racks for a quick 100 point lead. She fought back with EROTISED and going into the endgame I was 36 points up on a fairly locked board. With no tiles in the bag and only an X and a P as potential bingo lands (and the word would have to end with a P so really the X was the only bingo lane), and I had tile tracked correctly and knew she had AEILOSS. I figured I was safe so I just played my best scoring move for 15 points which put me 51 up. She then used the X to make OXALISES to leapfrog for the win.....I could have blocked that easily with NIX for 10 points, but I stupidly eked out an extra 5 lousy points. The lesson I hope I’ve learned is block EVERY bingo lane to definitely secure the win. Side note: The lady was most concerned because I had pronounced her word as OXALISE-S so the next day she tracked me down to explain it was OXALIS-ES as she didn’t want me to one day play OXALISE and have it challenged off. It was OXALIS and the plural is OXALISES. See how caring and sharing live scrabble can be.
Game 3 I scored too many plays under 20 and my opponent was scoring 20-30+. I could have stolen it with a final bingo but my letters were fruitless (DELORSU) and I couldn’t make an 8 either so a 38 point loss ensued. Game 4 was against a player who won the Masters division at the last 1 day tournament I was at. I was surprised to be teamed up against him but he had been on an early losing streak like me too. He got an early bingo LAIRISE to go 86 points up and I had that sinking feeling. However I had ZIGGED (60), KEX (59) and HISTONES (76) to take a 46 point lead. He had solid 30+ plays thereafter but changed tiles once and I was fortunate to bingo with UNCLASP to jump out to a 58 point lead, eventually hanging on for a 32 point win and went to lunch 2-2 with a hop in my step.
Game 5 was another learning experience. I was leading by 60 points midway and had a chance to use a TW space and place my X on the DL square by playing PLEX for over 60 points, but the L hooked an OY to make LOY. Now, do you think I could recall if LOY is a valid word or not? I didn’t want to phoney so I wimped it and played TEX/TOY 24 which was 40 points fewer and ultimately I lost the match by 11 lousy points. The lesson here I think is when the payoff is 60+ points, it’s worth the risk on a word that is quite plausibly a word even though I wasn’t sure at the time. For the record, LOY is good. So now I am 2 wins, 3 losses but ruing 2 that got away. I texted my wife and she told me to “go for it” and stop being a wimp lol.
So game 6, I went for it. DIVIDERS and ALKANET in the first 3 plays and won with a good 48 point margin to get me back to 3-3. Game 7 I got virtually everything and bingoed with the opening rack and won by 103 with 3 bingos (ROASTER, DOTTING, PASTRIES). Even had a phoney playing ROTTING but hooking AY for AYR which isn’t good (I confused with ARY). Game 8 was against a good opponent and I went down without a whimper scoring no bingos to her 2 and lost by 68 points. End of day one 4-4 with a +83 spread for 16th place but ruing missed opportunities.
Day 2 and 3 instalments later
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14/06 2016 17:00:08
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tydfil
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Hi Monty I enjoyed your post. Being ranked 97th out of 697 is quite an achievement. Congrats:)
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31/05 2016 18:15:38
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WLoH Moderator
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Monty022 - thank you for your entertaining post. I laughed (and cringed) when reading about the A´s... I think we all have experienced that, though I seem to have a magnet for I´s.
I wish you luck in the forthcoming tournament and await in anticipation for your report. I hope that you will be celebrating
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30/05 2016 20:32:29
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Monty022
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Hi folks, Monty022 back with the 3rd instalment of my live scrabble saga. This time, about 70 players with ~20 in the Advanced group. So how did I do? Well if you step back you would say I did very good, I came second, but I just can’t help be a bit disappointed, especially as I shot myself in the foot as you will see.
I won’t go through the gory details of all 7 games as I did previously but let’s just say I came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders. 1 or more bingo’s in all of the first 5 games, running great with the letters, including one game getting everything J,X,Q, Z and both blanks and a 180 point win to find myself 5-0 leading the group and a spread of roughly 580. Second place was 4-1 at that stage and then a bunch of people on 3-2. So the equation was pretty simple – I just had to win one of the last 2 matches to close out the tournament win.
Game 6 was a total disaster versus the player currently in second place. I thought I had my A game going but I needed my AAA game. I think I got every A in the bag and no matter how many I played off, I seemed to get more back. At one point, I played a word leaving AI on my rack and the 5 letters I picked up left me with AAAAIII (Even when I swapped I picked up an A and then next rack had 3 A’s again). My opponent bingoed twice and I never got anything going suffering a 122 point loss, my largest to date. So now 5-1 tied with the same wins as player in second but with a 300 point advantage in spread. The equation was simple, all I needed to do was win game 7 and the tournament win was mine.
Final game started fairly evenly and the scores were almost virtually even when I saw what I thought was the moment of truth. With a rack of DFIJOR? and a floating G on the board, I saw the word FJORDING for a ton of points. I had a few moments of doubt but then rationalised that FORDING was crossing a body of shallow water and a FJORD was a body of water, therefore FJORDING was probably good. So I played it........and it was challenged.....and.....it’s a phoney. I don’t know how they cross FJORD’s in Norway, I guess they swim or take the ferry. Scoring 0 hurt and then 2 turns later my opponent bingoed and they got the break on me that I thought I would have on them. I compounded my situation later on in the game making ENYE to turn SOIL into SOILY only to have it challenged and find ENYE is a phoney (it’s EYNE and EYEN but I needed the Y in the third place). In hindsight, NYE was the play but.....I saw ENYE as the first E hooked another word improving the scoring and I needed the score at that stage. Consequently I never caught up and finally lost by 60 points to the player who was eventually third overall.
I finished 5-2 and second place. A good result but given that victory was so close, it does feel like I let a great opportunity slip. I also got the high game for the group with a score of 514 so there was a nice consolation prize. Sitting back, second place is a very good result so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. The players who beat me ended up first and third so they were quality opponents too.
So the wash-up is, my player rating jumped from 1332 to 1402 which should put me in the Masters group next time around. I’m now ranked in the top 100 in Australia (97th) and 28th in my state. Next tournament is the state championship which is played over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June. That’s 24 matches in 3 days against the best in our state, interstate and there may even be some overseas players too. I’m expecting to be “found wanting” on many occasions there but it’s all good fun and a learning experience. I’ll probably write a wash up of that as well and I think that will be enough of these scrabble diatribes from me for a while.
In the meantime, run good. Cheers, Monty022
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30/05 2016 15:42:23
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nofatjack
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Monty, thanks for the recap of the tourney, very fun.
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6/05 2016 00:17:56
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steve^w
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Good read! Thanks for posting Monty. I don´t feel quite so bad about losing in those recent friendlies now either :-)
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27/04 2016 21:14:47
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WLoH Int Judge
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Congratulations Monty, I consider that a brilliant performance considering this was only your 2nd competitive live tournament, also you were a little unlucky in a couple of games. Well written, I enjoyed reading that, felt like I was there.
Your memory for legitimate words is far better than mine, impressive stuff! Looking forward to the next installment but not so much to the next hiding you usually inflict in our ´scrabble rules´ wordfeud games lol. I will invite you soon when I complete some projects which are currently keeping me extremely busy :)
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27/04 2016 20:02:53
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tydfil
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Hi monty. I found your report very interesting and congratulations on a very credible performance. Hope you continue keeping us informed :)
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27/04 2016 16:03:21
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Monty022
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Hi Folks,
I, your beloved Monty022, attended my second live scrabble tournament on the weekend and I guess you could say I did okay overall without setting the world on fire. This time I was in the Advanced group with 21 combatants (74 players in the tournament overall) and the competition was much more challenging. The way the tournament works (as I understand it) is initially players are ranked within their sections and the player ranked 1 plays 11, 2 plays 12, etc and 11 plays 20, so there is roughly equal difference between quality of opponent. After that first match, each subsequent round they re-rank you based just on wins and spread and the top 2 play each other, then 3 v 4 and 5 v 6 etc. You don’t normally play the same player twice, and that way you don’t get to the end of the tournament with 3 players 7-0 who never played each other.
I stumbled out of the blocks with a 10 point loss in game 1 where I led by 30 going into the endgame only to be flooded with R’s and 1 point tiles scoring a paltry 10 points from my 2 words as time almost expired whilst my opponent overtook me to win by 10. A respectable loss but a loss nonetheless. I got back on track in game 2 with a couple early bingos (ENGULFS, FEDORAS) to break away and had a healthy 140 point victory. I came agonising close to stealing game 3 but was thwarted at the very end. On a closed/tight board with no bingo lanes and my opponent leading by 35, he unexpectedly played NAIL up to the top middle TW space for only 12 points (a tactical mistake in my opinion). In doing so, he opened up bingo lanes and provided 3 handy floaters. I had CEILRRT and 6 minutes on my clock. I eventually found CLARTIER with about 2 minutes left but the final R was obstructed so it wouldn’t place ending my challenge. So close and yet.....a 44 point loss.
At the lunch break, I had an uninspiring 1-2 record with the only silver lining being a positive spread for my morning toil and the prospects of a kebab to cheer me up. I trotted off to lunch in search of my kebab consolation. And even that was a disaster! No kebab, or even a souvlaki, to be found......could this day get any worse!
Game 4 was going fairly well for me. Again I got an early bingo (SEDATION) but my opponent fought back when I got vowel trouble. I got both blanks at once and bingoed (TOASTED) to break away again. He fell too far off the pace for his eventual bingo to bring him back. He first tried to play ENGUISED which I challenged and was a phoney and that ended the match as a contest. I had a 130 point lead going into the endgame when he bingoed at the end with TREEINGS to cut the margin to 51. I have since checked and TREEING is good, but not TREEINGS. I could have improved my spread had I challenged that one off too. Live and learn. Game 5 started well with a second play bingo (TONELESS) and my opponent fell a bit off the pace after that. Another bingo (CORDIAL) gave me a 100 point lead. After that she had a series of 10-15 point plays while I had 20-30 point plays to go further ahead and lead by 150. Her eventual bingo DETAINEES was impressive given it was a 9 letter play, and it brought the final margin to 96. Game 6 was close all the way until I got a bingo near the end (ORDINAL) which proved the difference in a 58 point win . By this stage, I was 4-2 and had worked my way up into 3rd spot and some prize money. All I had to do was win game 7 and I would secure 3rd, potentially 2nd place overall.
Final match was against the undefeated leader of the Advanced group. I have since found out she used to be in the Masters group but took a year off and that had seen her rating drop. She played first and drew HATCHER out of the bag for an 88 point opening play bingo. Ugh, how deep a hole do I have to climb out of? I had a Z and a U and managed FUTZ/THATCHER for a 43 point reply, not too shabby. I managed a 50 with KEX to get within 12 points. Then my moment of truth arrived. Facing a rack of AGLLOOS and floating R, I went for it with ROGALLOS. It was challenged and I was so relieved when it got the tick of approval from the verification program. I had come across ROGALLO but unsure if it took an S. I got lucky and immediately followed it up a bingo for MILLINER and suddenly I had a 62 point lead. I should have started obstructing bingo lanes but played IDIOT (which probably was apt as it turned out) in amongst the cluster of words to offload some doubles and my opponent played REASSERT 2 plays later with her final full rack to take a 21 point lead. Unfortunately I had a poor set of letters and couldn’t muster much (EEFIIOS). There was a floating R next to a TW space and I was tempted to try ORIFIES (it’s a phoney), but even that would have left me stuck with an E and I couldn’t get enough points to win. She finished next turn (3 tiles incl blank) and trapped me with three 1 point tiles and I lost by 17 points. Again close but no cigar although we both agreed it was a cracking match, which it was.
That final loss saw me drop from 3rd to 5th overall and a 4-3 record on the day. So like I said at the outset, okay without setting the world on fire. The calibre of opponents was certainly better. In my first tournament against Recreational players, the bingo count was 11 to 1 in my favour from 6 matches. This time around it was 11-7 bingos in 7 matches. Whilst bingos aren’t the defining statistic, I find them useful in assessing general strength of opponents.
Unlike WLoH, the next tournament is a full month away. And in June there is our State Championship (24 matches over 3 days) that I have signed up for which will be a huge challenge. I will post again but don’t expect a blow by blow of 24 matches lol. Until next time, run good. Cheers.
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27/04 2016 14:45:48
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Patron-86
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Thanks for the clarification Monty. I wish you every success in your future scrabble encounters. I continue to look for live tournaments in my vicinity.
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15/03 2016 09:47:01
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Monty022
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Patron-86, at the tournament there were 4 laptops positioned around the room that had some kind of word verification program on it. You basically went up to the laptop with your opponent, typed in the number of words to be challenged (normally 1 but one guy challenged the two words I made when I played LAIC and hooked the L onto ODA making ODAL). You then type in the word(s) being challenged and press enter and the laptop simply verifies as "Correct" and a green tick, or "Incorrect" and a red cross and then you get back to scoring the word or removing the tiles depending on the outcome.. The meaning of the word is not required by the player or given by the program.
When I play with the club on a Tuesday night, we have a CSW2015 book that lists all words and that is used to resolve challenges. There is also a couple dictionaries they have on hand when an interesting word crops up to see what it means. But it´s never a requirement of the player to know the meaning of any word played.
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14/03 2016 21:43:21
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Patron-86
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Hi Monty022. Sounds like great fun and a real intellectual challenge. I have a question. When you play a word and it´s challenged by your opponent, do you have to provide a definition or is there a judge who can verify the validity of the word? We all play words that we know are accepted, without having the foggiest idea of their meaning.
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14/03 2016 08:39:20
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WLoH Int Judge
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Thanks for sharing Monty, it has inspired me to investigate the whereabouts of my nearest scrabble meetings and tournaments.
Does anyone else participate in organised live scrabble? If so feel free to tell us about it here, would be good to keep track of how our members are doing and cheer them on!
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13/03 2016 23:27:33
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Monty022
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Thanks Judge. Much appreciated. For anyone interested.....
I recently joined a local scrabble club playing old school face to face scrabble with actual tiles and boards and they play every Tuesday night. Last weekend I played in my very first live scrabble tournament. Even though in the last 3 years I have played over 10,000 games of wordfeud/WWF and played in more than 100 WLoH tournaments, as far as Scrabble Australia was concerned, I was a “’novice” playing my “first” tournament. As I had no player rating, I basically had to start at the bottom in the “Recreational” group (Div D) which is the lowest ranked group/division with the other groups being intermediate, advanced and masters.
The players in general were mostly older than me (I’m just on the wrong side of 50 myself) with a couple of 30-somethings and 40-somethings. I think WLoH is a much younger demographic given people play on phones and tablets which makes it more easily accessible to the younger generations. That said, the people were extremely friendly and the tournament was played in a good atmosphere. I’m looking forward to the next tournament in April. There’s only about 10-12 tournaments a year in Victoria.
The tournament format was you played 6 timed matches with 25 minutes for each player to make all moves (we had clocks like they do in chess). So matches were all over within 45-50 minutes but often sooner. It was very manual compared to the wordfeud app and will take some time to get into a proper routine. All scoring and adding up was done manually, picking replacement tiles out of a bag by hand to put on your rack, writing scores in the scorebook (and words – optional), deciding whether or not to challenge validity of words played etc as there is no safety net like wordfeud has because it is possible to play “phoneys” and potentially get away with it if not challenged, remembering to hit the timer when your turn was complete, tile counting to work out opponents rack for the endgame, etc.
The best part of live scrabble I’ve found is it really tests you to know your words. Phoneys get challenged off and you lose your turn scoring 0. Another thing I like is you know it’s pure word play between you and your opponent and no-one is getting assistance from any app or search engine. If they pull out a weird word, and it survives being challenged, then they actually knew the word and all credit to them. And tile tracking is harder than it should be. In 6 matches, I never got to the end of the game with the right number of tiles left so never knew what my opponent had.
So given I was starting at the bottom, I had a very good tournament winning all my matches comfortably with only 1 close match where I won by 30 points, the largest margin 312 points. I wouldn’t say I was tested in any of the games except the 30 point one and that was my own doing as I played 2 phoneys (OUTYEARN and SHON) during that match which kept my opponent in touch on the scoreboard. I ended up winning the recreational/Div D group, also won the high game 553 and high word play JANGLES 100.
I now have a provisional player rating and the next tournament I will be playing opponents in the advanced group (Div B) so that will be a tougher challenge and I’ll be better able to gauge where I sit in the larger scheme of things. I’m very much looking forward to the next tournament and it has reinvigorated my enjoyment of word games. I’ll post an update of the next tournament but I’m not expecting to have it all go my way like my “first” tournament went.
Cheers and good luck with your word play.
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13/03 2016 16:06:42
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WLoH Int Judge
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I just want to congratulate Monty on winning the entry division on his first attempt at a regional scrabble tournament. I noticed Monty was annoyingly good at playing by real scrabble rules and so was interested when he gave live scrabble a go. Sounds like lots of fun. Looking forward to hearing how Monty does next time in a more advanced group. I´m tipping he will more than hold his own ;)
Apparently the kingdom of Bingolia declared a national holiday after the historic win. Enjoy the celebrations Monty! :)
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13/03 2016 02:19:04
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