Here we are at the inaugural New Year's Eve tournament, held in Los Angeles. This week did not start off well given that Southwest canceled thousands of flights, and three players - Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, Kolton Koehler, and Becky Dyer - were in danger of dropping out, sending me off in a mad scramble to salvage the tournament if we only had six players. Everyone was a trooper and said they would play even if they had to play the same opponent three times each.

Friday came, and eventually the Southwest contingent made it. Becky traveled the farthest to be here. Besides Becky and David Whitley, who stayed at my house, Zachary Ansell might have had the shortest commute. Peter Armstrong drove here from Portland. On Friday night Yukiko Loritz, her husband Keith, Becky, and David came over to the venue (my friend Adam's house), and we all ate takeout from Din Tai Fung. I think I ordered half the menu. Yuki also brought all her Christmas baked goods, so desserts were delightful.

Adam's house is located in Mar Vista, which is adjacent to Venice. It's a great Scrabble space, and because we had a modest group of eight players, there was plenty of room for people to spread out. For those not playing, they could hang out in the kitchen or the adjacent family room.

Saturday came with rain (which rarely happens in California, except when one wants to run a Scrabble tournament). Eight people playing 14 games made it easy to do a back-to-back round robin, with each player facing each opponent twice in a row. There were eight games on Saturday and six on Sunday.

Lunch on Saturday was from Stella Barra and included salad, pasta, and pizza. Yay for carb overload. Dinner was Korean BBQ made by a caterer I hired; since it was raining, he cooked in the garage. We rang in the New Year by playing Codenames, So Clover, and Azul.

On Sunday, I set out the 12 Days of Cheeses from Whole Foods, along with crackers and salami. We ate the Korean BBQ leftovers for lunch with salad and rice, and we also snacked on various sweets like candy, cookies, and dark-chocolate-covered pretzels.

As for the Scrabble tournament, Pete finished in first place with a record of 10-4, +798. He also received a bonus prize for playing the highest-scoring words with the letters "NYE" in them - DUVETYNS and AROYNTED. Kolton came in second place with a record of 10-4, +502, and Zach won the class prize for finishing fourth with a record of 8-6, +204 in his first-ever Collins tournament. All of the top finishers received rockhopper penguin plaques to commemorate their performances, and everyone in the field got a rockhopper mug as well.