2008 Silicon Valley Showdown Scrabble tournament - Day 1

After about two months of absence from Scrabble tourneys, I was somewhat out of touch. Wan, my dearest wife, granted me a birthday pass to attend the 2008 US Nationals in Orlando, Florida in July.

I played in Division 6 two years ago, currently qualify for Division 5 and need only thirteen rating points to hit 1200 to qualify for Division 4. I have been hovering just below 1200 for a year and never had a breakthrough at tournaments. With the birthday pass comes with the opportunity to play in local tournaments in an effort to boost my rating points, as I really do want to qualify for Division 4. I played in a 1-day tourney last week, and managed to raise the ratings to 1091, just nine points short!

The Memorial Weekend, remembrance for US war veterans, gave me a nice 4-day weekend and is also the time for the annual Silicon Valley Challenge! I finished third in the Division 3 last year, and hoped to do better this year.

Twelve players this year in Division 3, average rating of 900. I am second seed based on my ratings, with expected wins of 13.6 wins out of 19 games over three days (8-8-3 games).

And I won!! This was an amazing tournament and of course, it certainly feels great to finally win a major tournament, albeit in Division 3. Was undefeated for the first day, in fact, undefeated for the first 10 games, my longest winning streak ever! Won the tournament on the 18th round, overall 15 wins, 4 losses. Yes, I had fun and lots of luck on my side. Yes, there were some ‘newbies’ in the mix, but they were decent players.

Game 1: JD Rosenberg, rated 628, 11th seed

First 11 games was round robin. I played from the 11th seed upwards. JD gave me a run for the money and I was trying to catch up the whole game. I started, but his first move was DEF(O)RMed across my CLOUD!! With two blanks!! He led the game for 15 turns. I caught up a little with INERTI(A)S on turn 3 but he pretty much led the whole way. Towards the endgame, he gambled with TRINGLE# (a British-only word), at N6 across. I knew RINGLET, did not know of TINGLER but definitely was about to challenge TRINGLE. However, he played the ‘I’ was over the middle bottom triple word score and I had WZ on hand. I took my time to track all the tiles, and realized that he will empty the bag and have the Q tile which cannot be played. At that point, it was 313-352 with his non-word bingo. Played WIZ for 45 points, and caught up 358-352. Knowing that he cannot play out, I played my remaining tiles to maximize my score and won 405-372. Makes tracking tiles worth all the while! Oh, and I faked out with BRASSE 

Game 2: Steve Brown, rated 657, 10th seed

Had the luck for this game. Steve changed his tiles the first two turns. On my 5th turn, I played TRAW(L)ING and towards the end, played DEPICtS. Won convincingly 460-249.

Game 3: Miriam Kasdan, rate 791, 9th seed

Luck on the roll. Played RAWNESS on 3rd turn and played oX for 35 and a natural RITZY for 42. Won 390-289.

Game 4: Shirley E Scott, rated 908, 8th seed

This is such a close game! Won by 1 point! Played UNSTATE on 5 turn, but she caught up with HALTERS and shortly sHORING. We leveled at 323-323 after a good play of my JO for 51 and he KAYO over my JO on the triple word for 38. It was a close fight to the end. End game, won 382-381.

Game 5: Jim Barker, rated 966, 7th seed

This game was a slow start, with normal scoring plays until I bingoed with TESTING on the triple word corner on the 7th turn. Played BANIA#, another British-only word, which got challenged off. Later on, followed with R(E)ALISED. Won 383-340.

Game 6: Lois Oda, rated 1005, 6th seed

This was another slow low-scoring game. Bingoed with PANDeRS. Won 349-304. She ate me alive later….

Game 7: Betty A Toole, rated 1015, 5th seed

She started off with DAZES, and my initial rack was EEIOOUS. Wished EUOI was good here, but just played off (Z)OO for 14 points. Picked up ?R!! Next turn, bingoed REISsUE(S) into the top middle triple word score. I kept a small lead through this game. She tried a non-word bingo SAUTIEr which I challenged off, but I knew she had SInUATE/AUnTIES plus many more. She later played MAR(R)IeRS, which I challenged unsuccessfully. Yet, with careful end-game moves, I won 357-327.

Game 8: Raghuram Jonnalagedda, rated 1029, 4th seed

This was certainly an interesting game. Raghu was a SOWPODS player, like I was. So, he plays certain words which I knew were no good in the US. On his 2nd turn, he bingoed with SNiCKED, which I did not know but decided not to challenge. I bingoed two turns later with PERSONA to even out the score at 139-139. Got crappy vowels for the next three turns, but finally got the blank and bingoed with TENAILS (blank=L). After that, I kept the small but comfortable lead and started closing off the board. I challenged off this TYRE/EVET because I knew EVET is a British-only word. I also challenged off FERET, a non-word. Won 413-345.

Hence, end of Day 1 of the tournament, with an 8W-0L record! The only person across 3 divisions to have an undefeated streak. I was pretty stoked!