TLW66 - Nomads Results

SOWPODS division: Round robin with a dummy player:Posn1234NameA. FisherA. DavisB. SmitheramD.WebbScore14131211Spread663456594544Thanks to Graeme and Vanessa for their part in organising the tourney, and congratulations to alldivisional winners, particularly SOWPODS and OSW A (I always thought the best scrabble playerswere called Andrew).As you may be aware, the fate of next year's Easter Weekend is undecided. I understand that theABSP committee will be discussing this in some depth at the next meeting, and I look forward tohearing the outcome of their deliberations.Sub-Editor's note:From this edition onwards, I have decided to include a match perspective from one of the playersat the bigger events. This month, as we have lauded the talents of ScratibleS-playtng 'Andrews',it seems only appropriate to include the thoughts of Sowpods winner, Andrew Fisher. This mayalso give some of the Sowpods doubters a fresh overview of the game played to that particularword source. All OSPD only words are marked $ all other words are in OSW. MORMy first round was a sit-out. All SOWPODS division players had to experience a bye at somestage, and I was delighted that mine was in game one rather than towards the end of the event.The campaign started in earnest with a tense win over Martin Reed. I had been faced with aninteresting decision on move 3 with the rack DDIPSU? - there was a floating R which would allowme to play SPUDDIeR for 72, but there was also a central ER which provided SPUDDIER for 42,keeping the blank. I opted for the latter and gained a small lead, which I think was the betterplay, although my rack took ages to mature subsequently.Round three saw me defeat my (so-called) bogey player Helen Grayson by one point - a verysatisfying victory after so many losses at her hands in the past.I kept on grinding out the wins, though I struggled early on against Brian Sugar In round 6, andwas fifty behind with the rack HLNPWX? as we reared the endgame. After dumping with HWAN($), I was forced into playing VOX which also set up a MK(Y) hook onto the triple with bothblanks and Vs unseen. Brian ignored the spot, and I pounced with a winning PYLONS for 69.Game ten saw my tenth successive win, this time against Allan SaManha. Allan was somewhatstunned by my victory (by Just two points), and gratfyingly described my endgame choice as'one hell of a move". Another narrow win came in round eleven, this time over young Brett, andmy last three games had generated just 28 spread points.Sadly my run had to come to an end, and my nemesis came in the shape of Helen Glpson. It waspretty dose, but I ended up having to try MUTES(S) as a hook to no avail. I had also missedHANDWRTT ($) on move one of this game, one of eight missed bonus plays during thetournament.I recommend tomato juice with tabasco as a lunchtime starter. I had this prior to my next game,and also the memorable eighteenth against David Acton. I started against Feml Awowade withOXEYE ($), and without doing much that was remarkable, finished by scoring 589 to his 225. Thespread of 364 is comfortably my highest against A division opposition, though I did once exceed450 against Gordon Proctor in an NSC qualifier. Feml was reduced to laughter as I went out withHOARIER, leaving him with the rack DECEASE. Surprisingly, I had no S's in this game.