Hopefully the top 24 players in the country, but as Dunedin is 'isolated' many don't attend, so those like me (ranked only about #38 when selections were made) can sneak in!
Full round robin - 23 games spread over Easter Sat/Sun/Mon (8/8/7).
As the 22nd seed my expectation is only 5.7 wins out of 23, and after the first day I have 3 already, so confidently expect exceeding every electronic expectation easily! LOL
We played from 9am-6pm, then from 6pm-11pm I've been checking/transposing my games into Quackle (which I highly recommend, despite a few glitches and quirks!) for analysis and checking.
Let's focus on just one particularly interesting game today - Round 2, vs Denise Gordon from Wanganui (North Island). Last time she and I met/played was exactly 16 years ago - the 1994 Masters in New Plymouth!
The moves and board are shown below, and above (courtesy Quackle.)
In the first 3 turns we each got "cheap" bonuses, i.e. no blanks or S's, but neither very good scoring.
But her LAUNDER for 62 SHOULD have been either RUNDALE or LURDANE, each scoring 77 with big overlaps.
And after my RECOINE(D) I drew AAIINUX! Hard to resist the easy 36 spot for that X, but left a lousy lousy rack! (Quackle tells me a better move was (E)AUX to the 3pm TWS, for 37, but quitting 2 more revolting vowels. Shame on me for not seeing that.)
By turn 6 that LAUNDER-S spot was still untaken (that E-AUX woulda stopped it - grrr) so I slightly frantically swapped 6 to increase my chances. Arghh, too late, Denise had the S, AND the bonus. Oddly we recorded her score as 89, but it should have been 98. And further, I'm puzzled she didn't choose SERVING instead, for 104!?
Now over 100 behind perhaps I overpanicked - deliberately playing UH one off the edge, hoping she mightn't have a P. Good grief, BAP went down before I could even blink!
When she played (R)OIL - to go 150 ahead! - my eyes lit up. I had AEGJNST, and still FIVE I's unseen. Quackle seems to despise J's, and EVERY option it gave included playing the J THAT turn, but I'm happy choosing NEAT, for 19, leaving JGS and fair chance of an I and/or a blank.
Hindsight suggests *MAYBE* NEAT was better at 3C for 12, but I needed to drag focus away from the -IN spot, and/or also have someplace good for ME if she DID go up top.
Of course SHE had eyes on that spot too, for her Z, but she too was I-less!
Anyway, she sure plundered the "decoy" bigtime - but I'd drawn AI?O, so was content with my 95 - now a mere 100 behind!!
I then had FOLIATe, so (being a diligent tiletracker, unlike me) she blocked that spot with IWI. (ROTFL, those 2 I's had come too late!!)
So I had to look for 8's up top. I'm not interested in "spread", so I figured to try something even if just for a giggle. I had a couple of 'possible' ones lined up onto the H, but they didn't score nearly enough - it HAD to be a triple. So with constant shuffling I settled for the stupid-sounding BOATLIFT - she took one look and we were heading to challenge table. I really don't know who was more aghast at the result there! (Though I DID once key EVERY 8-letter word into a database, maybe these things stick in the subconscious? And an onlooker was NOT too surprised - he said there's a boatlift just a couple of km away down at the harbour!)
Hmmm, so with tiles on her rack I lost by only 3 - at least it kinda made a "game" out of it, although for me, alas, too late.
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