Chester Tourney 2012

Almost a month on from my last post.

Was off playing my first scrabble tourney of 2012 last weekend at Chester. I went with no great expectations having had about 2 months off from studying. The journey down there was a little stressful when my third train leg from Manchester to Chester terminated at Stockport because there was a freight train stuck further down the line. An hour's wait for the next train (I was not allowed to re-route because I had to go via Altrincham according to my ticket). This meant that as we proceeded to stop at every station the train was invaded by school kids...

Anyway I finally arrived around 5.15 p.m., still with enough time to chill out before a very good 3-course dinner and then two games of scrabble. A flowing game 1 against Phil Robertshaw with (T)ITRATOr to counter his early bonus, ASS(I)GNED as a 4x and a late GUESSER gave me a rare large win. I followed this up with a 4 bingo game against Steve Perry, including t(O)RQUING for 124.

Day 2 also went well, starting off with a 2 point win against Wayne Kelly with a nice bonus spot of S(U)BOCEAn, and also (B)URSTONE and SPANKER. My winning ways continued, although I was in severe trouble against Janet Phillips. Trailing slightly on a blocked board and holding rubbish I dumped TUTU/UR, keeping back ELS and was rewarded with BEIG which played parallel to TUTU for 83!

So, 11 out of 11 at the end of the day - but so was Lewis who had accumulated a mega spread.

Day 3 continued well with a couple more wins and then I had to play Jackie, who had just blown her game against Lewis. The writing was on the wall. I started with a bonus on move 2, and turning over my tiles had snagged a blank - and ENUUUV. So I changed UUUV and started a vowelfest. Meanwhile Jackie was bonusing away with gay abandon and when not, playing off the power tiles for hefty scores. I held that blank until the very last move when I got a consolation bonus of FETIDEST. I won the next two games and now for the showdown. I was a win ahead of Lewis but still needed to win as his spread was bigger than mine, And it was a horrible game.He got ahead early on and the board was fairly blocked. My deficit widened to 3 figures, and I was still way behind when I eventually bonused with (R)ePARTEE. Lewis played across it to stop an 8 down on to it, and I played SAZ for 41 for a faint glimmer of hope. It was not to be, and I lost by 21.

Still, second place with 15/17 and a tourney rating of 203 was not bad. I could get used to not studying if I could keep that up!