Recapping this weekend’s 2-day Boston area tournament
I'd like to share a brief anecdote about Becky Dyer, who I hope I'm not embarrassing too much by revealing this.
About a week ago, I sent an email to all the players in this weekend's Boston tournament, briefing them on all the details of the event - the location, the schedule, parking logistics, and so on. At the end, I mentioned that everyone was welcome to join a group dinner after games on Saturday night. A few minutes later, I got a response from Becky:
"I'd be interested in getting in on the Saturday dinner plans," she told me. "If I'm not too tired from all the winning."
To be clear, this was just a bit of joky trash talk - Becky has never been an arrogant player by any stretch. She was just messing with me. I believe there was a smiley face emoticon in there. And at the time, I thought I would be playing because the field was odd, so I shot back a little trash talk of my own - "I'll see what I can do about that," and so forth.
As it turns out, we had a roster shakeup in the last few days, so I ended up watching this weekend's action from the sidelines. And, well, you know how this ends. I watched all weekend long as Becky demolished the whole friggin' field, cruising to her first-ever CoCo tournament victory. At one point midday Saturday, her record was 2-2; nine rounds later, it was 11-2, and she was Gibsonized. No one else had much of a chance.
All the winning, indeed.
Let's back up for a moment, though. This was the first CoCo tournament ever held in the Northeast! I organized it on the campus of Tufts University, where I went to school way back in the day - I worked with the Tufts events staff to get us a cool venue in Aidekman Arts Center. We had a big playing room with lots of open space, bright lighting, spacious tables, and a big projector at the front to broadcast pairings and standings and whatnot. We hosted 12 players, including a smattering of people from all over the region - some from the Boston area, and others from New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and more. It was a fun group. Everyone was a joy to host.
As for the tournament: It started out close. The big winner on Saturday morning was Matthew O'Connor, who started off 3-0 with a good spread; there were a bunch of 2-1s chasing him, including Becky lurking in fifth place at the lunch break. Players noshed on Indian food; there were many biryanis and vindaloos and other scrumptious Scrabble words.
After the break, Becky began to make her run. She couldn't be denied late in the day Saturday, as she closed the day with three straight wins over close competitors at the top of the standings - BJ Premore (485-426), Cedric Lewis (452-425), and Matthew O'Connor (a nail-biting 401-400). This put her in first place, though with a precarious spread - she was 6-2 +87, meaning she had to be careful not to lose too many games Sunday. She had a pack of people at 5-3 chasing her.
Hence Becky chose the strategy of... just not losing. She picked up Sunday right where she left off. Her first win of the morning was a relatively narrow one over Richard Buck, 424-368, before she absolutely blew the doors off her next two opponents, 597-246 and 655-272 (!!). Suddenly spread was no longer an issue.
Toward the end, she was two games up on Carl Durdan, with the spread advantage as well. I told Carl he still had a chance to win: He just had to beat Becky by 268 twice in a row. What happened instead was... well, Becky got down an early SALTIRE in the deciding game, then followed it up with the snazzy EUROZONE and SNAFUED. After the first seven turns, the outcome was clear. Carl pulled me aside and explained, "At this point, the only question is whether she'll beat me by 268."
Becky finally did drop one game at the end - she took a beating against Mike McKenna in the final round, after she'd already been Gibsonized. But nonetheless, her finish of 11-3, +937 was more than good enough for first place, netting her $325. Matt rallied toward the end of the tournament to finish second - at 9-5, +723, he earned his $200. Carl recovered in the final round to beat Richard and lock up third place - 9-5, -217, making $150. And Mark Francillon's 7-7 record and +203 spread earned him $150 for the class prize.
Oh, and speaking of Richard: His record of 7-7, +142 earned him the final $2 in the prize pool. This was the "Why'd You Even Come Here?" prize, given to the player whose record was the most perfectly mediocre. As you can see, he was quite proud to receive this honor.
In closing: I hope everyone enjoyed the tournament! I'm grateful to everyone who made the trip for the weekend - especially Becky, who traveled from far-away Texas just to be with us. And a special shoutout to local Boston player Joev Dubach, who took advantage of our Newcomer Discounts program to play his first Collins tournament. I hope we'll see you back again before too long, Joev.
This was a really enjoyable event, and I'm excited for more like it. While this may have been the first-ever CoCo event in the Northeast, I very much doubt it will be the last. In fact, we've got some things in the works right now, and I'm optimistic that we can announce them soon. So stay tuned!
But in the meantime, there's plenty more awesome tournaments listed on the CoCo calendar already. I hope we'll see you at one of them soon.