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WPC 2008 Commentary: Round 2

Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23.

Round 2

Joanne Craig (AUS) vs. Dave Wiegand (USA). She is picking up the tiles as I sit down to chat. She's beat him, 472-438. I see his ThEBAINE for 70, GESTATE for 77, and OUTVIED for 86. Her bingos: CONTRARY to the Y for 80 and DUNGIEST through the S for 61. She says it was a great opportunity, getting to play Dave.

Amit Chakrabarti (USA) vs. John Barker (AUS). I see BALONEYS, RESTIER, WETTEsT on the board. Amit bends over and says, "the real news of this game is John had SATIRE? on his end rack." Amit had to defend like crazy to keep him from bingoing.

Jean McArthur (USA) and Adrian Tamas (ROM) are both dressed in black, are smiling, and bending forward as they discuss their game. He won, 501-280. Jean spent much of the past month or so memorizing her 2, 3, and 4-letter SOWPODS words. In a moment of candor, Chris Cree (USA) was heard to say, "Darling! I wish I knew all that!!"

In this game, Jean saw many words she didn't know but she admitted that she didn't want to make him walk up to the machine over and over. I see aPHORIES*, ACULEATE, and SERPULAE. She got down FINAGlES. After their game was picked up, she walked over to me and said, "5-point loss or not, walk or not, I'm walking to that machine a lot more now. He got away with two phonies in that game!"

Sam Dick-Onuoha (USA) vs. Louis Reed (USA): hYDRANT and AUDIBLE jump out at me.

Trevor Halsall (AUS) vs. Theresa Camilleri (MLT): INDUNAS, CORTICaL, and RONNELS are fun plays. They look like old friends bent over their board, discussing the game.

Marty Gabriel (USA) vs. Puneet Sharma (USA). I see Marty wave and shake his head in impressed disbelief. I heard him say, "I knew GLUNCH, but CLUNCH? wow!" Puneet skillfully played LUNCH one short of the triple and on his next play slammed down DIcTION/cLUNCH, virtually knocking Marty off his chair. I see APERIES, OWLIEST, and PLANTERS on their board.

Sam Kantimathi (USA) vs. Travis Chaney (USA). Sam's opening rack was CUTDOWN, but he didnt' dare play it, deciding on WOUND. As I'm standing over the board, Travis walks back from the challenge machine and says, "CUTDOWN is good." The game long over, Sam moaned loudly and pointed to his aircraft carrier sized tracking/scoresheet and said, "Take a picture of this, CUTDOWN was my rack!!!" I assured him that I beleived him. The board has some fun plays: IVORIES and TOLEDO. Travis played DiCTIEST, but it was Sam's late-game find of SPIELEd, which hooked to make QUAYd which won him the game, 420-406. QUAYD# is certainly not in the OWL!

He sees me coming, his eyes squint and he gets this sly smile at the corners of his mouth. He says, "Hey Sherrie, he played QI, is up by 30 and look what I found." I must note that he pronounced QI as "CHI," and I say KI and wonder if I'm wrong. Anyway, John O'Laughlin (USA) played BARGEMEN/IN from the B through the second E and WON THE GAME! His opponent, Victor Ikawa (BHR) was smiling, but it was a stunned kind of smile. I wish I'd been a fly on the wall the whole game. Victor got down STEALTH along the triple, hooking to make JOEYS for 98 points! John got down trIPEDAL to the L along the triple and also played OUTDARES and NAILERS. It was John's win.

We've got two working, properly dictionary equipped adjudication laptops now, all is right in the world. My colleague in all things Internet (now get my photos up, dude!) has run off to get some Starbuck's teas/coffees.