So, this was my first time directing a tournament, and I want to recognize the support from the CoCo to let it pretty much run itself. This was a more intimate tournament, held at a private residence and with only 7 players, but it was still a great time, and an awesome way to spend the weekend. Chinese food twice in a row and 12 games of Scrabble? As George and Ira Gershwin would say: Who could ask for anything more?

The outcome of the tournament was never much in doubt, as Sam Rosin was locked into first place with two rounds left (and ended up undefeated), and Josh Castellano was locked into second place from at least the same point. Going into the last round, Bob Linn and I were tied on wins and losses, but he had the final bye, and my spread was so lousy that I would have had to have beaten Nits Chagti by about 500 points to take third place. Alas, 'twas not to be, so Bob took third.

The special prize category was for highest currency play. As one might expect, XU was the winner, played by Zach Dang for 55 points in round 6. (I was really hoping someone would hit HRYVNIAS or something, or at least LOONIES, but oh well.) Although I suspect we weren't all that meticulous in recording all of our currency plays, we wound up with a list that included the aforementioned XU three times, PENNY, QURSH (played for 51 by Sam and almost toppling Zach's XU), JEON twice, EURO, GROSZ, and VATU. The prize was $10 and a €1 coin, in honor of the fact that the U.S. dollar recently achieved parity with the euro. 'Merica!

I wish I had kept track better of notable plays or sequences from the other players, and maybe some of them can add to this blurb after the fact. As for me, I was proud to have hit the 40,000-probability SPIFfIES and the 22,000-prob OVERvOTE against Josh in the same game, both of which drew challenges. This was right after we had discussed holding a special prize at some future tournament for lowest probability bingo.

Thanks to Bob for hosting, the CoCo staff for facilitating, and all the players for making it a very pleasurable experience. Until the next time, friends!