Recapping a summer of CoCo virtual club play
The CoCo virtual club on Woogles scaled back its schedule for the summer quarter, but the fun and intense competition wasn't scaled back at all! The five-game weekly schedule helped keep the standings close, and sure enough, the summer quarter club championship wasn't decided until the very final week.
We'll get to that excitement shortly, but first, a few numbers to help tell the story of how our summer in club played out:
Players who played at least one club game during the summer quarter: 35
Players who played 10 games or more: 22
Total games played: 401
Total points scored: 337,282 (420.55 per player per game)
600+ games: Evans Clinchy, 635 and 603; Colin Northmore, 625; Austin Shin, 624; David Whitley, 612
Tie games: 5
Games decided by 10 points or fewer: 34
Our club champions for each quarter are decided by win-loss differential (wins minus losses), and headed into the final session, two familiar names were deadlocked at +14, well ahead of the field: Austin Shin (the spring 2021 champion) and Sammy Okosagah (the spring 2021 runner-up). To say these players' reputations precede them would be quite the understatement, and it was no surprise that they occupied the top spots again. But would Austin defend his title, or would Sammy unseat him and give us a new champion?
Austin and Sammy won their first two rounds of the evening against other opponents, setting up a head-to-head showdown between the two players, tied at +16 win differential. A modest start gave way to a flurry of bonuses and higher-scoring plays. Sammy took a 247-232 lead with LEANINGS, but Austin landed the 72-point ENZYMS in response... only to see Sammy bonus again with CREMANT and recapture the lead. The score remained close going into the endgame, but Sammy couldn't quite get enough from his final rack of IOSTTT to pull out the win, as Austin's final play of DURE clinched the 2-point win (12 points after time penalties).
Austin's sizable spread advantage over the course of the summer quarter meant that netting one more win would sew up the championship, and Austin was able to do so in round 4. The night ended with an Austin-Sammy rematch; there was not as much at stake this time, but these two great competitors once again provided us a dramatic contest, with Austin squeaking out a 440-439 win to go undefeated on the evening. Austin finished with a 36-17 record and +19 win differential for the quarter. Sammy's 31-16 record and +15 differential were good for second place, and Evans Clinchy (29-19, +10 differential) took third-place honors.
The CoCo Cup is awarded to the player who plays the most club games during the quarter, and Mohammed Sulaiman, a runner-up for the Cup in Spring 2021, was the Cup winner this time with 68 games played. Bharath Balakrishnan (62 games) and Spring 2021 CoCo Cup winner David Whitley (57 games) were second and third this time.
Once again, we appreciate and thank all of you who come to play in our club - each and every one of you helps to make the CoCo virtual club a great place to find friendly and challenging Scrabble competition online each week.
We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday nights this fall!