Well, my last blog in August 2023 said that I wouldn't be running tournaments in Vancouver anymore because I was moving to New Zealand to be with my girlfriend. That was only half true - sorry! (And extra sorry that the true half is the latter half, so I won't be hosting a CoCo event a month here or anything.) Writing these blogs is dangerous anyway - someone in my family I should have already told about my then-new relationship found out because their girlfriend read (stalked) the last one - oops!

So why did I, in fact, run another event in Vancouver? Simple - I hadn't seen all my friends in the North American scene in 15 months, and Tara had yet to meet many of them. It had to be done by remote control - with the massive help of my proxy (and Vancouver Club director), Chris Williams. Chris found the hotel we played in, designed the winner's medallion, and had physical supplies ready and waiting for me to pick up when I arrived back in Canada just 3 days before the tournament began.

I first sent out invitations back in June, and RSVPs began trickling in. I was thrilled to see that my good friends Josh Sokol and Evans Clinchy sign up. Evans brought up at least three items I'd shipped to his place due to the Canada Post mail strike, and Josh and I were able to go on a double date of sorts on the Saturday night.

Then Chris and Rachel Grubb signed up - which meant that Rachel was recovered enough from her recent health struggles to play - and both Tara and I really enjoyed her company. Chris was sporting his Woogles apparel, which I'm jealous of (although I do have a lovely CoCo hoodie now, so I can't complain).

I was happy to see Eric Fox join the list - I encouraged him to play CoCo tournaments after meeting him at his first tournament in Lynnwood, WA last year, and it looks like he has no regrets doing exactly that!

Chris Cheng (first time playing CSW!) and Alec Sjoholm have been to all 3 of my tournaments - I'm always happy to see them. And I'm glad my "advice" to park for free in Richmond Centre Mall didn't get Chris' car towed (I think - I didn't ask about Sunday!).

There were a few entrants I didn't know as well - Tara ended up playing all of them a few times and she told me she really enjoyed the games and their kind personalities - Noella Ward (who was selling really cool tile bags - Tara bought a Toronto Maple Leafs bag somehow), Maureen Morris, Cheryl Melvin, and George MacAulay. I'd looked up players in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a player from New Zealand that was going on a business trip there a few months back - and Cheryl's name came up on cross-tables! I don't think they ended up meeting - but it was funny to see her appear again on my entrants list.

There were also 3 brand new players - Henry Gould, Cam Lawrence, and Olanma Cheche. All were quite new to the tournament scene - but they were great sports and company. Cam edged out Henry for the $100 CAD new player performance prize, with an initial CoCo rating of 747 narrowly beating out his friend Henry's 741.

Much of my experience with the actual gameplay happened when players came up to the challenge computer, as I was simultaneously directing the other lexicon. Right off the rip, Evans drew a challenge with his 9-letter bingo of (ME)SeNTERA and it came back green - a sign of things to come. First-timer Henry got challenged for JORTS*, which (I checked) isn't in the CSW24 update, somehow. I was (not so) secretly rooting for Tara's challenged play of UNPLACE for 99 to come back good, and she let out a "#$%& yeah!" when it did. She admitted afterwards that it was a wild guess - always nice when those work out, huh?

Both lunchtimes were chaotic - on Saturday, someone had the bright idea of driving the 3 blocks to the mall food court - there were zero (0) parking spots available in the entire mall parking garage due to Christmas shoppers, so our group of 12ish players split into 2's and 3's as we tried to grab whatever food we could elsewhere. On Sunday, I was looking forward to joining the group to go to Tokyo Joe's, a Scrabble mainstay that I'd never been to despite (formerly) living here, but there was a critical tsh (software used for the WOW divisions) bug that cropped up right before lunch that took an hour to fix (which REALLY made me appreciate CoCo's slick tech setup), so no dice for me. 3 different people (including perennial visitor James Leong, who also joined in games of Skull the previous night) heard about my predicament and brought me lunches though, so I had more food than I could eat anyway in the end.

Near the end of the tournament, there were four players in contention - Alec, Chris Grubb, Josh, and Evans. Despite having the fitting rack of BBEEEER at one point, Evans took a page from my book and used Coke as fuel instead (as pictured below), and entered the final KOTH rounds with an 11-2 record. Chris Grubb was sporting an identical record, so the two faced off in the final games.

(Editor's note: It was Coke Zero, thank you very much. -Evans)

Because Evans had a decent lead over Chris in spread going into rounds 14 and 15, Chris likely needed to win twice in a row to win the tournament. And for a while, he looked poised to do just that. He won a dramatic one in the first game, finding a beautiful play of FLOCCUS for 36 from a clunky rack of CCFOSUW in the pre-endgame, then outrunning a late bingo from Evans to win 468-450. And then in the finale, he went first with an opening rack of DEEINPW and found the very pretty bingo, giving him an 82-0 lead right off the bat.

Eventually, though, Evans came back to win the game and the tournament. It was a back-and-forth battle to the end, and a pivotal moment late came when Chris played QUA right in front of a triple lane, setting up a very juicy AQUA hook. Evans got to the spot first, bingoing with RAGTIME for 93, and then held on to win by a 472-374 final.

There was also a battle for the class prize that caught my attention - Noella versus Tara. Tara had no idea she had a chance to win money until halfway through her last game, when I informed her as they were at the challenge computer (no pressure!). She pulled out the win, though, earning her largest Scrabble cash prize ever! The other winners were Alec in third place, Chris Grubb in second, and Evans, who, (quoting him) has now won 100% of CoCo events in Canada - congratulations!

After the awards ceremony, a bunch of us went to the hotel restaurant/bar, the Free Bird. Several players played anagrams there - meanwhile, I lost by 190 points in a "friendly" against Josh, who wanted revenge because I laughed when he bemoaned falling out of cashing position (just kidding - we just wanted to play a live game after so long!).

I hope that the next time I randomly decide to show up on this continent (and run a tournament, because apparently that's what I do), readers of this blog will come out so they can be part of the next edition! Haere ra (goodbye) for now.