Collins Scrabble rolled into Austin, Texas this last weekend! Becky Dyer and I were delighted to host 20 players on the newest stop on the CoCo tournament schedule for 14 rounds of tile slinging. We said hello to a wonderful mix of seasoned CoCo tournament players and CoCo newcomers.

Despite us directors taking a backseat this time, Texans were still well represented in the field by David Whitley, Geoff Thevenot, Rasheed Balogun, Matt Canik, Winter, and Prashant Murti. Matt was playing only his second Collins tournament ever – and first in 6 years! Prashant, a regular player in the CoCo's virtual club on Woogles, was playing in his first in-person Scrabble tournament ever! We had six CoCo debuts in total with Geoff, Matt, Prashant, Winter, Brian Bowman, and Melissa Routzahn all playing a CoCo tourney for the first time.

The caliber of the field has to be one of the strongest CoCo tournaments so far. Ten players were rated over 1850, including several former national champions, runners-up and world championship competitors. Unsurprisingly, with all this firepower, the average score across all 140 games of Scrabble was a healthy 426 points.

Our highest combined score in the tournament was a Round 10 matchup between Evans Clinchy and Melissa Routzahn - a 567-504 win for Evans, for a whopping 1,071 combined points, the only game of 1,000-plus all weekend. Evans' plays included the very cute bingo of BELLInI (a peach and champagne cocktail). The biggest play of the game was Melissa's 185-point triple-triple of PRO(V)INCE. Not enough to win the game, but Melissa did manage to secure high loss for the tournament. Crazily, and unfortunately for Melissa, she also had the second highest loss of the whole tournament - a very narrow 492-486 loss to Mark Francillon in Round 7.

The Austin tournament also saw a new highest winning score for CoCo tournaments, as Dave Wiegand scored 723 in Round 3. Sandy Nang was the opponent who had the "pleasure" of watching Dave's powerful scoring from the other side of the board. Dr. Bing's bings were DISTEND (77), BOOMIEST (82), DECANTS (110), and NONPEAKs (167).

This tournament was incredibly close all the way through. At the end of eight games on Day 1, we had three players on 6 wins, seven players on 5 wins, and two more on 4 wins - 12 players were within two games of the lead! Our overnight leaders were Dave Wiegand, Chris Lipe and Matt Canik (a remarkably strong performance by Matt, given his lack of Collins experience compared to the rest of the field).

These front-runners had a tougher time on Sunday morning. Dave managed to hang to third place after Round 12 despite going 2-2. He suffered losses to Geoff and Brian, but managed a big 552-336 win over Chris and a very tight one-point win, 445-444, over Conrad Bassett-Bouchard. This game was an incredibly highly skilled game by both players played on a very tight board. Dave's plays included some cute board vision finds, including M(ANTI)D and VE(R)N(A)NT. Incidentally, this was one of three (!) games won by a single point during the weekend. The others were Sandy's win over Puneet in Round 7 and Chris' walk-off win over Geoff in the final round.

Other players started to make their moves on Sunday morning. Brian went 4-0 including a big 490-356 win over Dave to end Round 12 in first place overall, with 9 wins. Evans also went 4-0 in the morning to move into second place, also with 9 wins. Dave was in third on 8 wins, along with David Whitley and Rasheed Balogun, who both had 3-1 mornings. Conrad, Jesse Day, Geoff, Chris, and Randi Goldberg all were on 7 wins.

Following a lunch break (where several players refueled at the excellently monikered CoCo's Cafe just across the street from the playing venue), we were onto the final two rounds. Brian and Evans played on table 1. A double-double of (D)EBONiNG for 94 put Evans ahead. Brian was wading through tough racks and Evans scored heavily with two more bingos, including the lovely FLIXWEE(D) for 86, to take the win. In the title decider, Evans faced Dave Wiegand, who had just beaten David Whitley 581-379. After all the tiles were played, Dave emerged victorious, beating Evans 451-348 to take the Austin Tile X-Words championship. Dave's bingos were PEAcOCK (93), W(A)ITRONS (62), and AFEBRI(L)E (65). Dave ended with a record of 10-4 +1359. Evans finished in second place (10-4 +714), with Conrad in third (9-5 +975) and Rasheed in fourth (9-5 +471). Despite a tough last two games, Brian finished in fifth (9-5 +348) and won a class prize for best performance above seeding. Randi Goldberg (8-6 -419) also won a class prize for best performance above seeding for players rated below 1850.

Another first for CoCo tournaments in Austin was that we streamed games online. Although we had technical difficulties with the first game (read: it turns out that UT Austin blocks Twitch on its network), we were able to get the feed up and running successfully by game 2. Thanks to our four amazing commentators – Ben Schoenbrun, Will Anderson, Josh Castellano, and Austin Shin – who provided expert-level insights for the viewing audience. We had plenty of highly interesting plays and games. My favorite bingos that we got to see were Evans' FLIXWEE(D), Geoff's STEWBuM, and Brian's S(E)AGRASs. Chris' find of (KO)N(I)N(I) to rid two N's off his final rack was super cute. Hopefully we can do more streaming at future CoCo events!

It seems that fun was had by all. Off the board, players enjoyed the local Austin amenities. Many breweries were frequented, and much BBQ was eaten. A trip to Jester King brewery on Saturday night was notable for the pleasant evening weather, baby goats, outdoor "Back to the Future" screening, beer, and more games. In anagrams, Geoff stealing my NANOBEE with ABONNEMENT and Dave stealing Puneet's WOURALIS with RAUWOLFIAS will stay in the memory.

All in all, Becky and I are delighted with how our first Austin tournament went. We look forward to improving and doing it all over again next year!