From: Joel Sherman <icenine@panix.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 03:48:06 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Reno Diary, Part 4:MAIN EVENT Days 2 & 3
Message-id: <Pine.SUN.3.94.970718011225.25208A-100000@panix3.panix.com>

From the desk of G.I. JoelGERNAUT:

In the Dallas NSC last year, a chap from upstate New York (I believe he said the Buffalo area) named Ben Withers came into the Expert division with a 1656 rating and started the tourney with a very good run. So good that I was playing him in round 6 and he started the game with MEWLInG for 80, and immediately drew the 2nd blank. After I challenged off his phony COrVI-N-ES*, I determined there was no way to stop him from playing an acceptable bingo with his rack, assuming he finds one, which I had no trouble doing, so I played a weird looking word hoping to draw a challenge, scored some points, drew 5 tiles, and hoped he'd screw up again. He played a real bingo the second time, not the biggest one available, but still enough to be up 77 points after my response. I fought back as best I could but still lost 476-434. I played Ben again in round 18 and slaughtered him that time. That was Dallas, now I get to play him for the third time in round 9 of Reno. I open with LUTZ 8g (26) keeping 3 more consonants and he plays GAZET! Off with its head, I play BLAZED j5 (24) and lead 50-0. Then I start drawing drek, and on his 6th turn, Ben plays VErBEnA to take a 40-pt. lead. The rest of the game is a struggle for me to create openings while attempting to get a bingo rack together, and it never quite works, so I lose my 2nd out of 3 tries against Mr. Withers, now rated 1766.

Round 10 starts slowly against the Feltster, after he bingos STEARINE (63) on 3rd turn, I recoup with 75 points from two tws, and then get 51 for FATLY tl-Y/dw, and the game starts afresh at 184-all after turn 6. It now becomes a strategic battle on a relatively (for us) tight board, with a bunch of power tiles staying in the bag until very near the end. I manage to get the first blank down with HORNfELS (64), in a position where it creates minimal new bingo lines, draw the X, and Felt has to dump his blank in a cheap non-bingo, so I escape with a hard-earned +74.

In round 11, Lester and I draw for first and I pick the J; I immediately say "you have to draw an L now," (J for Joel, L for Lester) and he does!! Lester is obviously displeased with my seeming clairvoyance, and shoots me a suspicious piercing stare. I open with ZESTY (54) and he comes back with CHARIEST a turn later, we exchange my ERRATAS (70) for his IODInATE (60) on 6th turn, but I take the lead for good with POSY (52) on 7th turn, and coast to a +71, despite missing cagy Lester's setup of a Q dump on next to last turn. It was relatively simple but I was about to drop my flag and didn't take a good look at what he did, so I jettisoned 40 points of spread.

Round 12 was interesting, my first encounter of this event with the underrated Jim Kramer. He opens with ZOO 8f (24), I have too many vowels so I dump AZO f7 (12), and he bingos with WENDIGO 10d (81) to take a 93- point lead. After I respond with RIM i6 (21) I catch a tremendous break when Jim tries DAWIE* d8. I challenge it off and then climb back in the game by finding A-LT-I-TUDES 7f (67). We stay close thru turn 6 when he bingos with REFILEs (86) and I reply LOATHER (90), and after my turn 8 DERISION (70), his turn 9 SEXY (56) still has us neck and neck, but I luck into SINUAtE (65) on turn 10, and salt away a 499-421 win.

Now I get to play Jeff Widergren who is still riding high after his 2nd place finishes in both of the warmup tourneys, and well up with the leaders in the main event to this point as well. I open with COUlEES for 72, find PROTE-G-EE (63) next, and never look back, piling on ALLURING, ESPRESSO and ANETHOLE later, and combined with some surprisingly bad play near the end of the game by Jeff, I steamroll to a 469-248 win. In round 14, I learn a word from Joe Weinike, when I challenge his 13- point THURL in response to my opening DOUX. My mistake doesn't cost me anything, as Joe's tiles are not able to score yet on a fairly tight board, and a few turns later, I take the lead for good with PIgsNEY (92) and coast to a 403-282 victory.

Round 15 is my first crack at Joe Edley and it turns into one of those games that you just can't win no matter how well you play the crap you've got. Joe opens with FOB 8g (16) to which I answer TEAPOT 8e (25) keeping N, he plays ROBLE 8a (26), and I have OROTUND on my rack and no place to bingo, so I play OROTUND from Joe's O at b8 (20), Joe plays AGRIA 7i (14), I play DELETED 5e (4x 36) holding OT and going ahead 81-56, and then all hell breaks loose. Joe finds the lovely LIMEKILn l6 (82), and follows immediately with TINGlIER a1 (80), and I can't find a vowel for most of the rest of the game, and Joe runs away 462-240, putting a nasty dent in what had been a pretty good cum on my scorecard. In round 16, I lose to Bob Ellickson who got OUTsAIL, and should have bingoed out with C-ONIdIUM, but didn't find it so saved me a good deal of spread, and even more when he challenged my next to last play and allowed me to go out instead of going out himself, 319-344. So I finish day two at 11-5, good plus, and not too far off the W/L pace. Then I make the mistake of going to the buffet at the El Dorado with Paul Avrin, Roy Dixon, Lynn Cushman, Barbara Singerman and Mike Baron. Good company and good food, and only $8.55, but Paul forgets to request non-smoking seating, and I eat twice as much as I ought to and am terribly uncomfortable the rest of the evening, which is spent playing anagrams with Trey Wright and Chris Lennon and a couple of others. Keep me away from buffets!

Luckily, the coffee supplied by the Sands is keeping me moving, and I suffer no ill effects from the buffet the next morning. In round 17, I play the other cagy veteran, Dennis Kaiser, who is having a great run at this point, and he continues, scoring with cOESITE (62), CAECA (42) and WHIST (60), good enough to outrun my OUTBEAM (65) and DIKE (43), and after I have to use my blank to play the X in last rack, he pulls out a small victory 344-374. Dennis' win in the next game put him ever- so-briefly in first place! In my 18th game, I thought things started well when I replied to David Wiegand's COG with UNPOSED (77), but he came back immediately with MANIACS (79), and a couple of turns later, when I played FLUX h12 (42), he slapped down INtERREX 15a (95) after all of a second and a half's thought. On my 7th turn, I retook a small lead with pERONEAL (66), but he nixed that idea quickly with HETAERA (71), and the coffin was sealed. Altho I did manage to stick David with a couple of unplayable tiles at the end and recoup about 40 points of spread, the win was still his by a comfortable margin, 422-481.

In round 19, I played what may have been my most flawed game of the tourney against Lynn Cushman. After her 4th turn CLEANED (71), I was a solid 60 points behind, and it took the lucky draw of ZOEcIUM (109) to get me back to a small lead two turns later. But then I blundered, playing INDENE (27) next turn, holding an A (missing the simple ADENINE in the same place)! This would have given me a comfortable margin, instead I had to sweat out a tense endgame and settle for a +16.

In round 20, I trounced another overachiever, Bob Prentiss. I bingoed on turns 2 and 3 with ASSURED (64), missing GRADUSES - sorry Larry, altho ASSURED was arguably a slightly better play, and HANgOVEr (91), and later finding BAILM-EN-TS (64) which drew a desperation challenge, and I cruised to a 482-374 win. Round 21 saw me play a very strange game against Carol Kaplan -- after bingoing with RECANTER on turn 2, on a very tight board, I played both blanks in non-bingos: the 1st netted me 60 for JANeS, and I settled for 30 with the 2nd playing wREATHEN thru 3 letters on the board. 367-304 was the final in my favor. Then I put round 22 out of Ann Hay's reach early with FILIGREe (63) and WOESOmE (74 and challenged) on turns 2 and 3, ATTIRED (73) later, and a +112, to get to 15-7, and an increasingly paunchy cum.

I'm moving into contention for 1st now, feeling comfortable physically and mentally, and so, I head off to dinner at the Harrah's Steakhouse with Rita Norr, Paul Avrin, Karen Merrill, Jim Kramer, Roy Kamen, Lisa Odom and Steve Pellinen. I wish I could still eat their magnificent Five Onion Soup served in a giant Walla Walla onion as a bowl, but alas, my tummy just won't tolerate onions anymore, tho three others in the party did enjoy it. The Caesar salad prepared at the table which has received many raves in past years was a bit disappointing to those who tried it this year, as it was a bit overdrenched in dressing, but the rest of the meal was excellent as usual. My grilled Portobello mushroom topped with smoked cheddar appetizer was wonderful, and the broiled swordfish steak stuffed with shiitake mushrooms was just great, and Lisa tried the medaillons of buffalo, which was a great surprise, tender, juicy and flavorful. The desserts were terrific as usual also, I had the strawberry ice cream pie, and Roy Kamen had the Bailey's cheesecake, and as far as I know, no one at that meal caught the chicken pox from him. :-)

Stay tuned for the last supper and the whole nine yards, er rounds.
G.I. JoelGERNAUT