kismet09

Scrabble Club met at Barnes and Noble last night, which was full of loud people. I kinda like the change of pace (we meet at B&N once a month) and I think it's good to get used to some background noise, but it was pretty distracting last night. The short version of my evening is that I played three games, scored >400 in each, and still only won once. Boo.

First game was against Harry, who used to kick my butt when I started playing a year and a half or so ago, but whom I can now beat on a fairly regular basis. I drew an early blank and found EnFOLDS for 85, and later played ZINS, with the Z on a double letter score and the S on the double word, with some overlapping points, for 52. I'm trying a new strategy wherein I try to play off more tiles at a time, thus increasing my chances of drawing high value tiles. As a result, I played 58 tiles to his 42. It's hard to tell how much that was a factor in my performance, but I won 481 to 292, having drawn, of the power tiles, the Z, Q, a blank, and the Ss. I averaged about 24 points per turn.

Game two was against Pat, who is one of my favorite people to play against, because I always learn new words. Last night, I learned DUGS, which she unfortunately mentioned casually and I was able to take advantage of (with SQUINT, 76, putting the Q on a TLS and T on a DWS). My bingo was the rather boring ONSTaGE. She had BRITTLE and REDDENS. I was up by a bit, drew the blank, and botched my endgame. I dislike losing when I draw both blanks. She won 422 to 427, but that game, I averaged 27.9 points per turn, and that made me happy.

Third game was with Barbara, who is, I think, much better than me. Again, drew both blanks, and still managed to lose. My first turn was OVER(H)AUl, her fourth was DENIALS, her sixth was DATEA(B)LE, my eighth was cOATING, and after 8 turns, it was her lead, 309-307. My cOATING left the G in front of the TWS in the middle on the right, and I held the last O. In fact, I held DIINORS, which is a pretty bingo-prone combo. There were two As left, so I fished (dumbly; fishing = bad) for an A by playing off the I (at which point I drew an I) and then trying it again (I think I drew a T or some such). So, while she was getting 16 or 25, I was getting 10. My last rack was six consonants and the O on a tight board. By the end, it was 446-400, 26.7 points per turn.

So, one easy win, two tough but really interesting games. I think I preferred the latter.