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Back to 2010 King's Cup Live Coverage

2010 King's Cup Commentary: Final Round 1

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Go to: 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 16, 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.

David Eldar (AUS) and Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA) draw to see who goes first in the not quite best-of-three finals match on stage, emceed by Amnuay, directed and annotated by me, with runners posting moves on a big board beside the stage for the audience. Also taking place between us and the central riser are the finals for the student divisions of the tournament, so it continues to be festive. "The Final Countdown" is blaring loud enough on the stage that my ears are ringing.

I say "not quite" best-of-three, because the tournament rules say that if one player wins the first two games, they are declared the winner, but if not, it's the player who outscores his opponent in total during the three games, not necessarily the one who wins two games.

David starts off with a bit of luck, drawing the blank, and gets to go first. He plays off QI keeping JORTT; Pakorn replies with HUB/HI keeping ADST.

David now has JNORRTT and no plays which score even 20 points, so he elects to keep the board fairly closed and trade keeping RT. Pakorn, with ADSTUWY, decides that 18 points is better than none and plays BAWDY keeping STU.

This gives David a place to bingo INVERITY (78), which he does, setting up Pakorn's reply of UTOPIAST# (74). Unfazed, David plays his second bingo, CAMERAE (81) parallel to Pakorn's, with a three-tile overlap. Pakorn plays TUX (39) keeping the unpromising PRSW.

David has DEFKLNO and has a choice of triples to reach with FINKED or his choice, ANKLED (48), keeping FO. The E gives Pakorn his second bingo, WHIPSTER# (86), and a 231-229 lead.

David plays FOOD (45) keeping NOB down from the corner, Pakorn plays his third bingo, SUNFASt (81) hooking UTOPIASTS. I should add that a lot of these plays are getting (free) challenges. As I'm entering them into Quackle first, and then copying them to the website over a slightly flaky WiFi connection, I respond instantly to word adjudications and the game proceeds at a quick pace.

David gets 42 points for 12a JIAO, but gives Pakorn back 33 for a12 JOLE. David now has ABEELNO and a fairly well-known bingo through -AT- which Quackle estimates would have given him a 64% chance to win, but misses it in favour of BALED for 30 points and a 30% chance. Pakorn does not slow down, with DErINGER# (82), his fourth bingo.

David at least managed to fish NONAGED# to his ONE leave, and overlaps it on the other side of UTOPIASTS from CAMERAE, for 72 points, but trails 437-418. Six tiles left and it's looking too close to call. Pakorn plays VIRILE (34) blocking a couple of lanes and pulls ahead 471-418. Ouch.

David has AAEMORT and plays AROMA (41), but Pakorn has CEGIOYZ on his rack and scoring opportunities for the Z. After toying with David for several agonizing minutes after placing COZEI (sic) on the board while he pretends to recheck the score and retrack, he corrects to COZIE (32) and leads 503-459.

David plays out with TEG (20), catches Pakorn with EIY for 12 and ends up losing a close one, 503-491.