How I Learned to Love the C

We had another half-foot of snow here last night... I dug my way out of the snow, but most of my co-workers didn't (Cincy is clearly "snow wimp" territory).  Instead of the usual NPR Morning Edition on the drive to work, I opted for this, which is on my short list for "best winter album."  It's gorgeous and more than a little unsettling, and the whole album has marvelous texture, with metallic clanging and grinding as well as more organic sounds always lingering just below, but not overpowering the sweet harmonies.

One of my favorite corny things to do is to take a walk during a snowfall with just the right kind of music on the headphones... but I hope this shitty winter is over soon.

Here's a word list inspired by the fabulous lists of tolarjev.  Most of these words are pretty low-prob, but I found this interesting nevertheless.

( Plurals of nouns ending in -FUL... )

And here's a classic from the "I love this, but most people think it's noise or pretentious trash" file:



I was rocking this on my trip to Chicago for Arden Cup '07... a solo trip, naturally

So, here's my plan for 2009, with the no-brainers in bold:

January:
February: Charlotte, Warren
March: Elyria
April: Fenton or Richfield
May: Charleston, Arden Cup
June: Michigan Madness
July: MvO II
August: Dayton
September: Labor Day?
October: NYC, Elyria
November:
December: Cleveland

It's a lot like last year's schedule, but why mess with success?  This seems like a good mix of tournaments that are kind of a big deal and low-key, fun tourneys.  There are a couple of good Nationals warmups, and just one really expensive tourney (huzzah for Dayton Nationals!).  Charlotte has its drawbacks (it's pretty far to drive, and the Warren tourney is just a week later), but has huge upside.   There should be something good in the region on Labor Day, whether that's a three-day like Pontiac last year, or a well-attended Fenton 2-day.  And finally, if there is a SOWPODS tourney in the Midwest at some point after Nationals, I would be very interested in giving it a shot.

The directors in this corner of the drama-free Midwest have done a great job of packing the calendar full of fun, varied events.  Great job guys!

You know, I'm already starting to miss hearing Wham!'s "Last Christmas" five times a week.

Instead, I played in the Lexington Ironman tournament this weekend, and while it wasn't an out-and-out disaster, it was probably the least fun I've had over the entire course of a tournament thus far in my career.

The good:
-The weather was fantastic.  In fact, bgscrabble and I played our first two games on day two on the tournament venue's back porch (the tourney was held in the clubhouse of a golf course), and despite the goobers the next table over yattering about their golf swings, it worked out very well (of course, it should be noted that these were the two games of the tourney where I definitely got the best of the bag).
-My opponents were good folks, except for that prick who called me "Brian Blowme" in his blog last week.
- The tournament produced some interesting stories, so long as your definition of interesting is broad enough to include things that would properly be called "creepy."
-There was a Chick-fil-A and a good burger joint down the street.
-I got to play a few fun words (though I miss the days when fun words drew challenges instead of obligatory holds and incredulous laughter).

The bad:
-The absence of my clubmates Jean Carol, who has been battling a mysterious illness for a while, and Steve Krieger, who is one of my favorite opponents and who I was expecting to show.
-My friends struggled/were feeling under the weather/suffered day two disappointments/had to play the aforementioned prick a zillion times in a row.
-The tournament was won by the aforementioned prick.
-The lucky streak that I had been on since Michigan Madness is officially over.
- I seemed to get burned badly for all my blunders, serious or trivial.  Early on, I had three games with dramatic turning points: Against Winter, I played EXORDIAS* when I had OXIDASE elsewhere (degree of difficulty: 2/10).  It was challenged off, he took momentum and won the race to the second blank, game over.  Then against ipecac_icecap , I missed the only bingo in ABDHIOR?, the only playable bingo on the board (I saw it, and chickened out: 7/10).  Instead, I played off BAH for 31, keeping the blank... but giving George a juicy place to play the otherwise orphaned HONKERS for big points.  Then against Paxson, I missed a winning out bingo, REVE(L)lER (that's an L).  Instead I tried REREVEa(L)*, and then pREREVE(AL)* (It was a tough fit, and I haven't studied it yet, so it gets a 9/10).  So I had my chances.   
- And the tournament just had a toxic vibe.  If you want to get a good feel for it, just read the parting remarks in the director's two posts to CGP.  I think I'll take Ken's suggestion and sit this one out next year.

Final result: 7-8, 7th place of 10.

I was definitely feeling some burnout this weekend.  Perhaps two multi-days in a month is my limit.

Next month: Cleveland.

Bingos:

Mine (26): SHEEnIER, BRASIER, HAIRlINE, ANTRORSE, ASTERISK, eTYMONS, CTENIDIA, OXIDASE, SLEEKER, REMATING, TOwERING, OILBIRDs, OVICIDES, VINIEST, PASTEUp, JuMBLED, SENNETS, RATBAGS, ORIENTED, CINEOLS, EnDORSE, UNSWEAR, BRoMIDE, TANNERS, RETAINED, RETIEING

Opponents (28): DIETARy, LAYOvERS, ELAPSES, UNeATEN, OUTLINED, PApERING, FUNNELED, ALUNITES, HONKERS, REMOVED, FAIrINGS, fALLOUT, DOZIEST, (DE)PLETING, CATIONS, ADROITER, VIsITED, RETiNULA, BRINIEs, LAUwINE, DePORTs, CAtSPaW (challenged), ORIENTS, RElAXES, RESCALE, DELAiNE, AUStERE, FINITUDE

OK, so who ever snuck the alphagram "AEEFGILT" into my stack of flashcards this weekend should know that it had me nearly ROFLing and slightly tweaked my post-tourney pride when I got to it on my lunch break today (If you can't find that one in the OSPD or Zyzzyva, it's a 4+4 and a back extension of GETA).  Unfortunately, within about 45 seconds of seeing it for the first time, I found myself speaking to an extremely distraught woman whose son had been hospitalized with a serious medical condition, so I had to work extra extra hard to get into Serious Mode.

And man, what a weekend, even if it seemed to pass by in a happy blur and I'm fairly sure my mediocre spread said more about my performance than my first-place record did.

More later.

Yeah, it's been a while. So, I had a great time and a solid result at the Hazel Park Rotisserie Contest and Scrabble Tournament this past weekend. In fact, I had a virtual title match with sneakyofverb  in the final round. Unfortunately, I didn't have much to work with in the final game; just a late J and Q and an anemic 69-point baby bingo, and Evan wiped me out. It was only fair, though: I benefited from a lucky break in my round 9 matchup against Evan-- he bingoed on me to take a 19-point lead with three in the bag, but drew AAI and was unable to score, go out or block my TWS setup play, and I eked it out. So, it's all square karmically. Major props to Berofsky for winning this tournament yet again. I'm not sure anyone was in the same league as him this weekend, and he seems like just the kind of guy you want as your (three-time!) tourney champ.

With one major exception, I think I brought my current A game to this tournament, and it is always encouraging to see recent work pay off and get positive feedback.

The exception: I blew an endgame against Mason (no chuckles, please) due to a scoring error. I actually laid down a winning play, then picked it up because I didn't think the sequence netted me enough points. I searched in vain for a higher scoring sequence or one that might push him over on time, and ended up with a botched D-stick. Actually, he had 9 fewer points than I thought-- and the kicker was, we had checked the score three turns before, and for some reason I can't begin to fathom now, I wrote the corrected score NEXT TO the incorrect score, and then continued using the old score. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too much of a headcase* to get anywhere in this game. Luckily for me, the game was at the end of day one, so I had plenty of time to recover, and it didn't cost me anything but rating points. But I think that was reason enough that I didn't deserve to win this tourney.

The other losses I could deal with, more or less: Anstandig played the bingo-bango-bongo on me (for 62, 99 and 80), and I applied all the pressure I could, scoring big with stuff like (F)ITMENT and VICUNA while hoping for a free turn, but he just kept on scoring unabated, putting up 505 in 11 turns. Krieger opened with REAWOKE and hooked an N to it for a 75-point bingo two turns later. I battled back from a 165-point deficit and had a winning out bingo on my rack that he blocked inadvertently (bah!). I would like the second game against Alex back-- the phrase "playing a style that requires that you get lucky" seemed appropriate here, and I made some just plain bad plays early and threw away some good stuff for less than fair value. Alex hit big first and took control of the board. The wins included a couple of bad baggings (sorry, Pete),but most were very competitive, like one against Epstein where I again barely withstood a late go-ahead bingo, this time with only one in the bag.

My bingo list is a tad Hodgesesque this time around, but I did get exactly 14 blanks:

Buckeyes (26): DEMENTs, fAINTERS, RIDGIEST, EPISTYLE, sERIATE, RESINAtE, PRIORIES, ALINERS, FORTUNE, UNBASTEd, ENHANCER, HOARIEr, AGOUTIES, ACQUIRED, CAnOPIES, SPINOUT, LOMeNTA, RETINAL, ANTINOmE, REsORTS, KNiFERS, SABOTEUR, InTROMIT, AMMINES, RETINAS, NETTIER

Wolverines (21): EnWOMBS (by Alex; he also made a pretty setup hooking a U to CONGO. Kid's got some mad word skills), rEARGUED, OILIEST, REMAINED, DISEASE, MONEYED, REMAINED (again), AbLEGATE, RATTAILS, TINKLERS, REAWOKE, REAGEnT, SPaNKED, POMADING, WINTERlY, ATONIEs, OUTRAVES, RENTING, TaNGIER, FLeURONS, AIRsCAPE

The Lipkin grid also reveals a number of gifts:

	Valid, challenged	Phoney, unchallenged	Phoney, challenged
My Plays	RIDGIEST EPISTYLE AMMINES	PENTIC*	(none)
Their Plays	EnWOMBS	(none)	MIAO* THIER* JIMPS* SOG* FLAVONID*

This chart was generated by cross-tables.com

So... superfun* tournament.  No karaoke this year (as much as I would have liked to turn Chris Cagle's "What Kinda Gone" into a ditty about blank designation, I don't think the crowd would be feeling it), maybe next time.   As always it was awesome to finally cross paths with LJers like

aibretty, porosus and hector31, who collectively dominated Division B.  See you guys in A next year-- no sandbagging :)  Thanks to tailskid for the pizza tip, and special thanks to pbzeigler for the Beef Jerky Unlimited tip, which made the trip home far more enjoyable.

 

Time to gear up for Michigan vs. Kentucky Ohio!

I'm posting from the Goasis off of I-71, which is the Ritz of gas stations-- free Wi-Fi, a Popeye's, and it's huge and well-lit. A+.

3-3 today to finish 9-5, + 184. I was in contention through 12 but dropped two tough games to Ted Rosen at the end. Still, this tourney did the trick of wiping the slate clean after BAT, and I just might hit 1700 if the newly-minted expert from Strongsville hooks me up with some feedback points.

	Valid, challenged	Phoney, unchallenged	Phoney, challenged
My Plays	ORINaSAL TENFOLDS BaLLIES	PRIMALs*	KVAR*
Their Plays	(none)	UNWILTED*	HAOLI*

This chart was generated by cross-tables.com

It was a hell of a first day here for me-- 6-2, with wins over Greenspan, Panitch, Carol, Scheiten, pbzeigler and ipecac_icecap, and losses to Epstein and Sykes.  There's are 6 (!) players on top of the division with six wins (Greenspan, Panitch, Epstein, Sykes, spherulitic and me), and I have by far the worst spread of the six (something like +75).  No repeats until the final round, so it will be hard to overtake the players in front of me.  But the games today were a blast, and afterwards we went to Niagara Falls and then played Anagrams at the Anchor Bar with Lipe and Ubeika.

Time to attempt to get some sleep.

So, yeah, after completely overhyping this beard thing, I lopped the whole damn thing off a couple of hours ago, and got a haircut, to boot.  It was a very emo experience.  I felt like I needed a change, so I went and did away with the most visible reminder of the shitty last six months of my life (also, I realized that I was turning into Steve Hartsman). I do feel quite a bit better.  I'm flying out at 6 AM, so I'm off to bed... I'll be at the hotel at, oh, around some time before 8:00.  Early bird players, kick ass.

I went 2-2 on the day to finish 7-5, +166.  The final tsh report had my rating at 1688; I should also get a feedback point or two from Matt Ridout, and maybe another point or two since I played Early Bird winners Pete and Marc twice.

The good:
-It felt good to play and see Scrabble folks instead of poring over tsh reports from the live coverage of some far-flung tournament
-I should hold on to my rating despite getting out-blanked 18-6 over the course of the tourney
-I actually learned some things that I can put to immediate use
-I don't live in West Virginia
-I get to play again in three weeks

The bad:
-Losing my last game to Thomas Hall cost me $250 and 1700
-My two losses on the second day were possibly winnable, if I just focused on outscoring my opponents instead of futilely trying to block (mediocre) bingoes in the pre-endgame
-Marc Broering will most likely pass me for 3rd in KY (he may get to 1700), after another unsurprisingly strong performance
-96.1 The Urban Wolf promised me that they were going to play "Trying to Stop Your Leaving" by Dierks Bentley on my ride home, but I lost the station's signal before they got around to it :(


When I signed up for this tourney, I had pretty low expectations; I was really just going to get back in action, and expected a bit of a hit.  Of course, something changed in the course of the week--the Arden cutoff was lowered, so I picked up up a new short-term goal.  So that final-round loss stings, but at least I've got another (better) shot coming up soon, and maybe I'll draw, I don't know, one-third of the blanks in Boston :)

( Bingoes and challenges... )

A solid first day of Scrabble-- 5-3, +107, one game off the pace set by Raffi, Pete and Matt Ridout.  I had a few really spacy moments that cost me--sticking an S on the back of NAW against Ryan Fischer when I had a perfectly good bingo elsewhere, and, well, pretty much my whole game against Thomas Hall.  It seems like every tournament I have one game like that, usually at the end of a long day (at the PC it was against Alex Fiszbein, at my last Hudson it was the last game against James Dodds).  I really need to fix this problem, now.  Playing more frequently should help-- I probably shouldn't be starting the drive to the tourney site at 3 AM either.

The tsh report has my current rating at 1695.  If I go 4-0 tomorrow, I'll win this; 3-1 should get me over 1700.  If I go 2-2, I'll probably be the fourth-best player in Kentucky :)


Oh, and I had JAROVIZE in my Speed Scrabble game against Marc Broering, but I still got creamed.

I burned though most of my vacation days in the last couple of weeks, but I still have a couple of "personal" days left, and I should have 3-5 vacation days by July, so the pipe dream of D1 in Orlando is still alive, though I'll only have a couple of chances now to pick up the 60 rating points I need.  I signed up for BAT today, and the schedule for the rest of the year seems pretty well set:

April: BAT
May: Chicago (rainbow-colored unicorn turd) or Seattle
June: Michigan Madness, NAST Final (unlikely; pending Early/Late Bird announcement)
July: Orlando (if D1)
August: None
September: None
October: Elyria (is there a date yet?), Big Apple
November: Lexington
December: Albany

Not too shabby, though the potential gap between June and October kinda sucks; maybe there will be a Michigan tourney or NAST satty somewhere to attend.

I've played in eleven tournaments so far, and Dan Stock has been in seven of them.  He's been playing far longer than me, so we aren't "twins," but this is uncanny:

Huzzah, I'm back on the ISC best list, which has a surprising number of real people on it this time around (at least 11).

(Superficial) Scrabble goals for next year (I'll add to this when I come up with things):

Achieve a peak NSA rating of 1750 [current rating - 1690]
Become the highest rated player in Kentucky/Ohio/Indiana [current leader - Mike Paxson - 1744]
Get up to 15000 sevens and 15000 eights in my cardbox; answer questions with at least 97% confidence [currently at 8000/8000]
Win division 1 of an NSA tournament [okay, I've sort of done this, but there were only 6 players in that division!]
Get 100% on a daily sevens challenge on Aerolith or JumbleTime [current high - 89%]
Get 90% on a daily eights challenge [current high - 76%]
Peak ISC rating of 2000
The winter jar
Write down 100% of my racks at a tournament, so I can actually look over the games later!
Come up with at least three new entertaining anecdotes to tell during downtime at tournaments--yeah, I'll make shit up if I have to.
Play tournaments in at least three states/provinces where I haven't played before [I've only played in OH, KY, IL, MI]
Regarding the above item, I should probably apply for a passport in case there is an attractive tournament north of the border sometime down the road.
Finish the Director's Test [geez, I should do that this week!]
Direct or codirect something
Not whine about being from Kentucky on this journal for a whole year.

Marc Broering just played the best phony against me on ISC, and by 'best' I mean most vulgar, of course.  He had the rack ABDHJS?, and played through an O on the board.  Disappointingly, the word isn't even good in Collins.

And on that note, happy holidays, everybody!

So, my mom's back at home now, after a brief stay at a rehab hospital highlighted by a nearly-successful escape attempt.  She can't speak beyond "yes" and "no" responses to questions, and even those responses are fairly difficult.  She does seem to understand the nuances of others' speech, she's very mobile and self-aware, and there are many simple tasks she can accomplish, but if she picks up a TV remote she's completely flummoxed.  The brain is so freaky.  I really have no idea to expect from here on out.

I went back to club this week, and went 5-0 against somewhat diluted competition.  I received a gift from Jean, as she mistracked, misadded and misplayed the endgame to lose by 4.  I controlled my second game, against Steve, from start to finish, and then I went into cruise control for the rest of the night, beating Matt Collins and Pam easily, and then in my final game, I recorded a new personal high score, 616, using only 8 minutes on my clock (if was way too easy; I drew two naturals out of the bag, and got both blanks late).  Unfortunately, it was against a newbie, and newbies are very rare at the Cincy "club."  He was a decent long-time kitchen-table/online player, and I sure hope I didn't scare him away.

I'm hopelessly addicted to the impromptu multiplayer games of OWL 9s that break out almost every night on Aerolith.  I sign on to Aerolith several times a night hoping for a fix, and I know I'm not the only one.  I've achieved a reasonable level of competence with practice, I think; when I started I was finding mostly high-prob 8s with esses tacked on, but now I'm finding decent real nines like APOCRYPHA, INWROUGHT, FLAGEOLET, BEEFSTEAK, FROSTWORK.  I can't wait to try out some of these words in a game of Racklash.  As for ISC, my rating is at low ebb.  With a couple more losses, my rating will be lower than my NSA rating for the first time ever.  That should be strange.

So... I've got the last week of December off, I can sneak into a division with an average rating of 1790, and I've got this unexpected Scrabble-related check on my desk... I absolutely have to play the Albany New Year tournament.

I only went 3-2 today to finish 9-6 +560, but that was enough to finish on top of a tight pack (Paxson at 9-6 +250, Owens and Carol at 8-7) for my first career tourney win.  A 127-point win over Paxson in the penultimate game turned out to be key.  A win over Steve in the final round would have pushed me over 1700, but it was not to be.  I outbingoed my opponents 33-20; I'm not sure how concerned I should be that I was only able to win three more than I lost with a margin like that.