Late last fall, when Jennifer and I sat down together to draw up a blueprint for the Collins Coalition and determine our goals for 2020, we knew one thing for certain, right off the bat: It would all begin with Hood River.

Hood River is our flagship tournament. It's a perfect microcosm of what we're trying to build with the CoCo overall - it draws a highly competitive field of Scrabble players, no doubt, but it's also got a sense of community about it that's vibrant and collaborative and fun. We all spend the weekend living in a house together, and as a group, we share all the responsibilities that come with being roommates - we cook together, we clean together, we carpool everywhere together. There's a shared sense of teamwork in these events that you don't see anywhere else in Scrabble. Everyone does their part.

This year was our third annual Hood River Open, and we're proud to say it went better than ever. The whole weekend went smoothly, from the actual Scrabble tournament to the postgame meals to the after-hours festivities that make the event unique. We're so grateful to everyone who helped make the weekend possible.

A few highlights from the four-day weekend:

• We all met up on Friday night on Oak Street, the delightfully cute little main drag in the center of Hood River. The area is known for its fantastic breweries, wineries, and all sorts of world cuisines; we settled on dinner at Ferment, a new brewery that specializes in fermented farmhouse-style beers and kombuchas. We noshed on everything from burgers and patty melts to fresh-baked soft pretzels to kimchi plates. None of us had tried this place before, but it turned out to be pretty great. Hood River is a charming little town, and we never tire of getting to visit.

• Back at the lodge, the evenings were jam packed with after hours activities. On Saturday night, we had a trivia contest, written by quizmaster extraordinaire Jeremy Cahnmann and emceed by Tim Weiss. On Sunday, Jennifer and I directed a puzzle hunt, in which teams of players ventured all over the house finding and solving logic and word puzzles. There were also, of course, countless rounds of Codenames and Anomia and other games played throughout the weekend. Good times were had by all.

• Food! We cooked up a storm throughout the weekend. Meals included a giant pot of beef stew on Saturday night (with a sweet potato chili alternative for the vegetarians in the group), a crepe bar on Sunday morning, and of course the traditional Conrad grillfest on Sunday night. There were enough burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches for everyone (and then some).

• Oh - and at some point, we managed to squeeze in 20 rounds of actual Scrabble.

The tournament itself was a thrilling one. It was a close race for much of the way - Dave Wiegand jumped out to a nice lead on Saturday, standing tall at 7-1 with a host of players chasing him at 5-3. The tables turned on Sunday morning - Conrad ran the table before lunch, moving to 9-3, while Dave and a few other 8-4 players tailed him. Eventually, it turned into a three-horse race between Dave, Conrad and Chris Lipe. In a pivotal round 18, Dave lost and the other two won; soon after that, we were headed for a Conrad-Chris final.

Chris needed to win the final game by 96 to win the tournament. They ended up in an extremely close game - toward the end, the score was about even and Chris had a bingo-prone rack with a blank. Conrad chose to let Chris have his bingo of GESTAPO for 81, and he scored just enough in the endgame to survive. Ultimately Chris won the game by 86, just 10 points short.

I'm thrilled for Conrad - he's obviously a deserving champion, and it's fitting that he's the winner of the first-ever CoCo event. He's been an important part of our organization, helping behind the scenes with everything from tournament directing to graphic design to possibly even writing for this very blog (more to come on that). So it's great to see him succeed. Props are also due to Chris, to Dave, to John O'Laughlin for finishing fourth, and to Chris Tallman, who won the class prize for putting up the strongest finish out of the bottom third.

All in all, we're very happy with how this event turned out. We're proud to have another successful HORO in the books, and we think we've laid a very good foundation for our new organization. We're beyond excited for the upcoming tournaments on the calendar for 2020 - both the five you see listed today, and a few more we're planning to announce soon. Stay tuned.