From: Rich Baker <rgb5@cornell.edu>
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 1997 22:13:27 -0500
Subject: Rochester, Day 1
Message-id: <3.0.2.32.19971108221327.006cf4d4@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu>

I can hear some of you shaking your heads and tut-tutting already, but yes, I am playing in the Rochester tournament this weekend. It's a bit of a strange affair so far, but everything is going along reasonably well and I don't have any regrets. When it comes down to it,I suppose I play the game primarily for fun and I'm willing to take a lot of things in stride.

This particular Saturday morning, the weather was particularly dreary as my wife and I drove the 90 miles to Rochester. Light drizzle and mist with dull grey clouds covering the sky. We arrived about 45 minutes before the scheduled start time and learned that there were only about a dozen people registered. In particular, there were only three people registered in the "Expert" division including the director (~1730), Jerry Sheiten (~1750) and me (1908). Grant Rowland (~1370) volunteered to play up, so we had a four person division for an 11 game tournament. The intermediate and recreational divisions were combined to form a single division for the remaining nine players. Since the person who was supposed to be our word judge didn't show up, the director asked the player with a bye to act as word judge. I think this is a really bad idea, but since we did at least have a copy of John Chew's printed word lists it wasn't too difficult for the inexperienced players pressed into service. I did witness one incident where a woman used a Franklin to adjudicate a challenge, but since the result was correct, I didn't say anything at the time. The tournament is being held in a Barnes & Nobles book store, which is certainly not a quiet environment, so anyone who insists on quiet, well run tournaments would probably be best advised to skip this tournament. (The tournament is smoke free and fully accessible though.)

The first nine rounds of the tournament (7 today, first 2 of 4 tomorrow) are round-robin in both divisions, triple round robin in the top division. The last two rounds will probably be some variation on Swiss pairings, or it could be based on completely random or incomprehensible (to anyone but the director) criteria. The only thing I know is that I'll play whomever I'm paired with, and that it is very likely to be one of the three players in my division. I'm there to play some Scrabble, not to stress myself about winning the tournament or about maintaining my rating, so as long as I play, I'll be satisfied.

I was going to post the full results at the end of day 1, but I left everything in my car and it's still raining, so full results will have to wait until tomorrow. Standings in the first division are:

Rich Baker         7-0    +880ish
Unnamed Director   4-3    +110ish
Jerry Sheiten      2-5    -110ish
Grant Rowland      1-6    -880ish

There were reporters from both the local television station and the newspaper. Hopefully there will be some good publicity despite the low turnout. There were plenty of gawkers. In particular, two women came because they had seen a flyer for the tournament and wanted to find out what it was about. They have gotten addicted to the game playing at home, and I encouraged them to get involved in organized Scrabble. They did get the information on the club in Rochester, and Jerry told them about the tournament that will be in Buffalo in February. Hopefully they will follow up.

I'll try not to leave the results in the car tomorrow...

Rich