Scrabble - What a Difference a Week Makes

I have played two tournaments so far in August, both 2-day round robins with promotion/relegation of the top/bottom 3 at the end of day 1.

One of my favourite tourneys, the Nottingham Nomads, took place in the first weekend in August. I got a lift down with my friend Allan, setting off at 7 a.m. full of hope and anticipation. I played OK and was unlucky to be relegated at the end of day 1 after winning half my games. I had needed to win my last game on day 1 by about 75 to stay up, but in an absolutely cracking 10-move each game where I played 3 bonuses and also scored 102 for BEMIX, I only won 531-467.

I was not too down-hearted and as long as I did not have a disaster on day 2 my rating would not suffer. However, I only won 4 out of 8 on day 2 as well when the tile-gods turned their backs on me. Lack of blanks did not help, but much worse than that was swinging between vowel- heavy and consonant-heavy racks.

Tourney rating only 181, and actual rating dropped 4 points to 192 as I was dropping games at well over 200.

This weekend was the Scottish Round Robin in Perth. I like this venue - it is where I won the Scottish Open championship.

I won day 1 with 6/7, with my main rival Paul coming 2nd with 5/7. The tile-gods were much kinder to me this time, giving me 8 blanks over the 7 games, and in general my racks were nicely balanced. 16 bonuses played, average score 442.

Day 2 started badly when I blew an end-game to lose by 1 point. However, I pulled myself together and finished in 2nd place with 5/7, with Paul coming 1st with 6/7. Again I got 8 blanks over the 7 games, 14 bonuses played and average score 423.

I was very pleased to beat Paul in both our games over the weekend. Tourney rating 196, and actual rating has recovered by 1 point to 193.

Still hanging on in there to gain one of the two Scottish team places for the next world championships. It is the British Matchplay Scrabble Championship at the end of August - 18 games over the bank holiday weekend. I have still to decide whether to enter the Durham Grand Event in September. I would love to as it was the brain-child of my friend Pete as an attempt to have a high prize fund tournament. I will see how I feel after the BMSC...