[As posted to CGP on 2002-09-27]

It's two-thirty in the morning, and I'm just finishing up with the last
of the day's tournament chores.  I'll make this quick, as I have to be
up again in four hours.  Today was the first day of the 23rd Annual
Toronto Scrabble Tournament, comprising the seven-game Leah Katz
Memorial Early Bird and a new three-game pairs event in the evening,
followed by the twelve-game Michael Wise Memorial over the weekend.
The Toronto Scrabble Tournament is jointly directed by Lisa Kessler,
Lisa Deift and myself, who after a few years' practice are coming close
to adding up to one Mike Wise.

As I announced to the 32 players who showed up early this morning
for the LKMEB, we dedicate this event to Leah Katz, a longtime member
of Club #3 who felt that twelve games of Scrabble in one weekend was
just not enough fun.  In keeping with the enjoyment that Leah got from
the game regardless of whom she was playing, we have only two divisions
split at 1500, and I commended all those who showed up heedless of the
peril in which they placed their ratings.

In the evening, Lisa Deift took over so that Lisa Kessler and I could
enter as one of the twelve pairs in the consultation Scrabble event.
(Kristen had to withdraw from the first day of play, but hopes to be
back in the tournament tomorrow for the main event).  I hadn't realised
what fun it would be, and look forward to making it a regular part of
our weekend's offerings.

I'll let Sherrie Saint John take over the keyboard now.  Complete
results to date can be found on the web at

http://www.math.utoronto.ca/jjchew/scrabble/club3/tourneys/200209/coverage.html

John Chew
--
John J. Chew, III * jjchew@math.utoronto.ca * +1 416 876 7675
Director, Toronto SCRABBLE(R) Club (National SCRABBLE(R) Association Club #3)
http://www.math.utoronto.ca/jjchew/scrabble/club3/ 
--
[Sherrie writes...]

Although the main event won't begin until tomorrow morning.... er...
later this morning, a lot of SCRABBLE has been going down in Toronto,
Ontario. In the pouring rain (thanks a lot, Isidore!), John Chew and
Lynda Wise and I helped bring equipment for today's early bird event.
There were two divisions and they fit nicely into one room (tomorrow,
with 102 scheduled to play, we'll be in two rooms). John broke the
group into two divisions.  A had 11 players and Libero Paolella had the
day's first bye. He'd struggled to get there early and was disappointed
to have a bye first thing (someone had dropped out at the last minute).
Due to the aforementioned rain, several people were a bit tardy and
Ember Nelson arrived just as the games began at 9:15. Turns out Randy
Greenspan, who was driving, had spent the last hour driving like a
maniac in the breakdown lanes to get there more quickly.  It worked!
So, he hadn't planned on playing. I guess he was going to work on
centering his qi# (for Bob Lipton) or something. When he discovered
that the A division was uneven, he offered to play, which at first was
greeted with great pleasure by Libero. However, his pleasure soon
turned to dismay when he lost to Randy by 209 points. I think I
overheard him jokingly ask whether he could get his bye back! :)

Randy won that division with a 5-2 record and got $130. In division B,
Gene Rawlins went undefeated, 7-0 +413 and earned himself $210. John
Chew will post full results.

I left as round 2 was beginning, but Graeme Thomas, who was unhappy
that no one was playing a "proper" game of SCRABBLE (he prefers
SOWPODS), was word judging. And not doing too much of that either since
we use that double-challenge thing. Where he comes from, there are free
challenges, and thus MUCH more challenges.

The early bird, which had 32 players, and was named for Leah Katz,
wound up at around 6pm and then the inaugural pairs event began at
7:30. In between the two events, John Chew played a quick game of
clabbers with Zev Kaufman. In their game, John tells me that he played
TLREIANO and then later hooked a T to it. Zev didn't challenge the
play. At the game's end, Randy Greenspan wandered by and asked what the
word was supposed to be. Zev shrugged and said, "I don't know, but it
is ORIENTAL plus a T and John tells me that it plays through FAST and I
figure he knows those words." Still perplexed, after John told him it
was NATROLITE, Randy wandered away shaking his head and John called out
after him, "It is one of the top 100 9s!" I guess Randy (and the rest
of us) aren't studying our top 100 9s enough! Btw, John won that game.
It must have been his FAST, ORIENTAL blood! :)

Sensing that we needed more players, Graeme Thomas and Ron Hoekstra
drove 1 1/2 hours to bring Craig Rowland to the pairs event tonight.
Turns out he was my partner and we had much fun. In game 1, we kicked
Randy and Ember around (he'd used up all his luck at the early bird!).
We found eRASION and ThINKING and they got down ATELIERS through the R.
Craig and I marveled at how well they managed almost every single E in
that game. IN game two, we faced the brothers Goodman (Mark and David).
Though we found TREASONs and made a few other nice plays (extending
MUGG to MUGGIEST on the triple for 39 and almost wrenching a win!), the
Goodmans prevailed, 363-351.  They got down CEASING and PRETtIER to the
R. In the last game, we faced Graeme Thomas and Ron Hoekstra. They
played weird stuff like AMBO and RATHE, and LATEX (oh, but that is
weird in another way, but I digress), we won, 372-353. The funniest
part of playing that duo (and we laughed a lot that game, bothering
virtually everyone else in the playing room) was hearing Graeme find
"nifty" plays that he mentioned to Ron and Ron saying, "but that isn't
in our book!" Somehow Ron managed to keep the in the TWL despite
Graeme's best efforts!

The highlight of course, wasn't my games, but the winners. The duo of
John Chew and Lisa Kessler (both running the event, too, I'm sensing
collusion here...) ran away with first place ON SPREAD. Two teams were
undefeated, them and the Tim Anglin/Jim Nanavati duo, but the spreads
were +210 and +170. So, even in pairs, spread matters. John and Lisa
earned $130 for their efforts, Tim and Jim won $80, and the third place
team: Libero Paolella/ Sal Desiato earned $50.

John attributes his great games to getting all 8 esses in the first two
games. His last game, versus the Goodmans was more well-balanced
tiles-wise. One anecdote in that game. John and Lisa played JOWLy,
creating ANTISERAL*. The Goodmans held for a long time. And finally,
the non-doctor Goodman (David) said to the Dr. Goodman (Mark) that
since he was a doctor, it was up to him to make the decision. A few
more minutes passed and Mark finally decided to challenge. A good
decision: the play came up.

Tomorrow is another day of SCRABBLE.

Until then, sherrie (and Adam Logan who corrected most of my typos as
we went along)