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Back to 2009 King's Cup Live Coverage

2009 King's Cup Commentary: Round 9

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3, After the Tournament.

Atiruth Sakdiyakorn (THA) says he's still trying to get away from work (I've had days like that), so this time the bye goes to World Champion Nigel Richards (NZL). Nigel doesn't want to waste an hour not playing a game, so Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA) offers to sit in for Atirut and play two games at a time. I overhear the offer and make a counterproposal that I play Nigel while running the tournament (Ravee is still away buying laptops) and the web coverage, so I apologize if the commentary is a little skimpy this round.

With a bit of luck and help from a kibitzer who points out the Collins anagram to ROMANCE, I manage to get down a bingo and end up with 328 points. It also helped met that Nigel ran out of steam toward the end of the game, scoring only 163 points in his last five turns. I guess that's the most positive spin I can put on a game where Nigel started with bingos on his 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th turns (WINCHED, REeNTRY, NUTLETS, ASSONATE#, jUNGLIST# triple-triple) to open up an early 530-165 lead. Oh, and it was fun, at least for me.

Geoff Thevenot (USA) dropped by to report that he had played ILMNOST through I.....E. Solution at the bottom of this page.

Dianne Ward (AUS) and Graham Buckingham (Eng) called me over to ask what to do in their game when the seventh N appeared. I counted the tiles in the bag to make sure there were 100 tiles in play, and offered to work out their exact distribution (they declined, I'm glad), but told them they had to keep playing with the bag as it was. At the end of the game, they came to swap an N for an E, from the parts box that holds all the spare tiles.

Charnrit Khongthanarat (THA) beats Marut Siriwangso (THA) at Board 1 to regain the lead. Now they're both 81, with Charnrit ahead of Marut on spread 1147 points to 372. Jason Katz-Brown (USA) (who wants to make sure his Mom is following online) is undefeated today, rising from 23rd place at the beginning of the day to 3rd place after this round.

LIMONITES.