TLW66 - Nomads Results

Things went a bit downhill from this point, with defeats by Mark Nyman, Phil Appleby and AndyDavis In the last five games. One particular point of regret was when Phil placed his bonusSTRAINS in one part of the board, almost hit his dock and then reconsidered - the secondposition he chose blocking my potential play of PTERYGIA.Approaching game 18, Andy Davis was one win behind and could win if there was a swing inspread of about 450. He was playing Martin Reed, while I was paired with Ivan Oddcat.The last game was a stormer. We both started like trains, though I happened to pull ahead withplays of H1NNIED and ALSOONE to his choice REACQUIRE. On the final racks, I realised that hecould either score 64 with ADZ/ZO, or go out with BOZO. I was over 500 by this point, anddecided it would be nice for both of us to reach that figure - so I let him have the former byblocking the latter. I ultimately won by 539/502. David mischievously suggested that he shouldquote his own score to Andy, who had beaten Martin by 70-odd, and then see his reaction whenhe announced "Unfortunately, Andrew scored 539".This was a tremendously enjoyable event and an amazing result for me. I cant believe I willmaintain (his sort of form for too long. I would mention that I am more adventurous than I usedto be, after hearing comments a while back that I was more successful in friendlies than ratedgames. My attitude now is to concentrate more on improving my rack leave, even when thisappears to open up opportunities for my opponent, as I find that more often than not I end upusing the opportunity myself. I am sure that state of mind has a lot to do with winning as well,and I may do an article for the newsletter giving away some of my psychological tips. Thenagain, maybe ifs wisest not to...Durham ... God Help Us Next VearReport by Pete FinleyDid we miss a Durham tournament somewhere? The records say this one was thetwelfth, but long before the end we felt sure it must have been the thirteenth.The run up to the tournament had been smoother than usual. Even the late cancellation of JoanLawrence, who had bronchitis, wasn't a problem for long. It left us with an odd number ofplayers, but that was sorted out almost immediately when Paul Allan rang to ask if he was toolate to enter. Our only worry was that we were a little short-handed in terms of runners.It turned out we were saving all our bad luck for the weekend. One player took exception to acomment made by his opponent and went home after only two games. That freed one player ineach round to act as an extra runner, so that particular doud had a silver lining. But then thingsstarted getting worse. At the end of the first day, Ken and Lorraine Gordon, who had travelled allthe way down from Aberdeenshire, discovered that their car had been stolen. Not surprisingly,they decided not to play on the Sunday and went home by train.Things kept on getting worse. As we were about to start the first game on Sunday, Kate McNultypointed out that her opponent wasn't present She went off to look for her and came backdistraught, having found her in a hypoglycaemic state. As I was about to leave to get help forher, Barrte Hall came up to report that another player had swallowed a Scrabble tile! I decidedthe first patient's need was greater and left Barrie to cope. Fortunately the player hadn'tswallowed the tile and it was found later. Meanwhile an ambulance took the first casualty tohospital and she missed the rest of the tournament. I'm glad to say that my triage andparamedical skills were not called upon again.39