6-6 in Calgary Scrabble Marathon

I just played in the "Calgary Marathon", a 12 round scrabble tournament all in one day. Here are some of the highlights from my games

Results at our Calgary Scrabble Club website.

Greed Kills

With a rack of CDEIIL?, after Wayne's bingo of HINDERS, I greedily tried CHILLIED through the H, as a triple triple. He challenged it off. My regret was I had two playable bingos through the I. Can you guess what they are?

Opening Dilemma

I was holding ADEIPTU. I wasn't sure what to do, whether to play UPDATE, keeping I, for 24 pts or play PIU, leaving a much more potent ADET, for only 10 pts. Turns out taking the points was better and I made the right choice.

Missed Bingos

Holding DEEFIT?, I missed two easy bingos. Holding CCEILO?, I missed two bingos as well. These are obscure however, COELIAC, or ECBOLIC. I had just studied ECBOLIC a few days before, and would have found it for sure if I didn't have a blank. But it was too new for me to recall.

Brilliant Opponents

My friend Eric, mentioned in previous posts, (where I played out to an I with PARCHESI last time) played phenomenally. He won the tournament with 11/12, which is a nearly impossible record in scrabble. But against me he had a great move. The board was very locked up but some dangerous letters were out. I was holding ? + NG + some other good letters and the one bingo line I was eyeing was through TI. I was threatening the nine REMIT(TI)NG. He correctly blocked that line, making TIL and dashing my hopes. Any lesser player would have just scored for points, and then ended up losing after I bingoed out. I did have a nice play after though, extending CELEB to (CELEB)RATING, an eleven, which is extremely rare to see. Was worth 48 pts when I hit a triple. Lost by 17 to Eric and by 14 to Shannon, who finished 2nd.

Odd Verbs

I remembered that SQUID was a verb, to fish for squid. It came in handy when, down by 20 points in an ending, holding 6 tiles, two of which were low scoring blanks, and an opponent that would easily go out next turn. I extended SQUID to SQUIDDED, using my blanks for a pair of D's, hitting a triple word score and getting 48 pts. That sealed my win. Blanks are normally super valuable, but late in the game, if you can't bingo with them, they can sometimes keep you from scoring.

Unwinnable

Some games you just can't win. I bingoed three times with SCHEMER, MATELOT, and RETAPING, but my opponents' SP(R)AYING, triple triple scoring 203 dwarfed my whole effort. Excellent win by Wendy, 567-373.

ANSWERS

1. CDEIIIL? = FILICIDE, SILICIDE
2. DEEFIT? = FILETED, FEINTED