Recapping this weekend's Twin Cities Special tournament
Well, for such a small tournament, we definitely didn't lack for drama and excitement! This may have been the first CoCo tournament that was majority "bilexual," as Mike Johnson likes to say - but for all that, there were plenty of high scores and lots of Collinsy goodness all weekend long.
As the last few rounds of the third round robin played out, it was clear that Lisa Odom and I were on a collision course for a final round showdown to determine first and second place - and in the end, we had a disappointingly one-sided game where I drew just about all the goodies and the final score reflected that.
I want to take a moment to congratulate Lisa for her excellent performance this weekend - despite being less familiar with CSW than she is with NWL, her exceptional strategies and word knowledge served as a springboard to have an excellent tournament. I've always described the experience of playing CSW from a NWL background as additive, where just about all of the skills you develop and words you learn are still essential and relevant, while you also have additional ways to apply them using a larger lexicon. This weekend's tournament, I believe, clearly demonstrates that the differences between the lexica aren't quite as broad as we often think they are! Lisa surpassed her own expectations, and I'm ecstatic to see her earn this result.
Shall we talk a bit about the games? Under the watchful eye of our benevolent dictatrix Kiwi (well, when she wasn't snoozing on the couch, anyway!), we got up to all sorts of shenanigans. Mike mentioned his dual bingos of BELEaPED and SANDPILE, both played through D's on the board, as highlights from his Round 4 victory over yours truly. He also highlighted Ruth Hamilton's 140-point triple-triple of REFLATES, and I saw her throw down bingos like YULETIDE and FLAMEOUT as well! Lisa told me about her Round 1 game against Ruth, where she had a suspicion about a potential OURN hook on the board, and aggressively opened up a triple line in order to block the hook - which turned out great, as she prevented NEGLECT from being played! She also mentioned unexpectedly drawing into a 97-point LOZENGE from a leave of ELN, which completely disarmed Steve Pellinen's promising AENOSU? final rack.
Speaking of Steve, he offered up this anecdote from Round 13:
My most consequential sequence (a classic situation): Rob had just bingoed with PENLITES. After a few minutes, I saw only one possible play to stay close - SODALIC* to almost even the score (if it's good, of which I am unsure). I lay it down, Rob says "Hold," and after looking at his tiles, he says "OK." This did not feel right - something told me "Uh-oh," and sure enough, Rob plays GLADDEST through my S for 167 points. All of a sudden, I'm down 180 points, on my way to a 130-point loss.
Speaking for myself, I got some fun plays down in many of my games. GLADDEST was my second triple-triple of the weekend; the first was DRAISINE, also against Steve in Round 8. Reviewing a lot of power tile words paid off this weekend, as I also hit XYSTER for 76, JAPANS for 59, and BEDAZE for 89. However, by far my most memorable word of the weekend was (J)AWFaLLS for 72+5!