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WPC 2008 Commentary: Round 7

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 7

As this round begins, Wilma Vialle pulls up a chair at the end of my table, slips off her shoes, and proceeds to give herself a very thorough and probably very needed footrub. I was just about to get into the queue for mine when she received a "director" call and had to jump up.

Earlier today, as he was rushing off to lunch, I caught John Chew about to put up pairings with masking tape. I said, "John, this isn't a garage sale, could you use something more attractive than hand ripped masking tape?" To which he said, "Here, you put it up more attractively." Which I did.

About two hours later, having overheard this, Bryan Pepper walks by and sees my masking-taped down power cords and said, "Hey, what is this here? A garage sale?" I admitted that it did look bad, even terrible, but that Wilma, in an act of international kindness, had gotten down on her knees this morning to tape them down for me. I couldn't very well say no. But, Bryan had noooooo trouble. He sniffed at her and said, "I carry black tape, gorilla tape." And so, he commenced to "make it better." At one point, seeing what he was up to, Wilma said, "I didn't use scissors, you know." He deadpanned, "I could tell." You tell me what you think! :) I took some before and after photos. I'm gonna submit them to the Home & Garden Network as an example of a SCRABBLE tournament makeover. This way, Susi Tiekert will be sure to see it as she watches that channel 24/7.

Donna MacDonald (AUS) played Michael Early (USA) this round. He said he opened with FOMITES for 80 and later played RAZNGS for 75 (which drew a challenge, so 5 more points). Another bingo went down, POINTINGS for 64. Mike won, 471-328, and says this is the first game where he's "run away" from his oppoent. All his other games were very close.

Adrian Tamas (ROM) vs. Dave Wiegand (USA). I san see that things are tense in their neck of the woods, Dave with 4 tiles on his rack and Adrian with af full rack. They cannot seem to agree on the score in the endgame, so they clock gets paused and several rounds of wrong score cumulation was corrected. From what I could see, Adrian was the one that was off a bit. Anyway, I see lots of bingos: AFORETIME for 80, NARcEINS for 71, and FILENAME for 76, all for Adrian. Dave played DROOLINg for 70 and BEWARES for 74. In the end, it was Adrian's win, 457-408.

John Luebkemann (USA) vs. Geoff Thevenot (USA): I see a bingo, bango, bongo of sorts! HEADWAY for 125, sULTRIER for 113, and APIMANIA as a 48-point double-double non-bingo through the AN. John played FEARLEsS and JOINTURE from the JO (not bingo, but pretty). Later on REDD got played on the triple, creating JOINTURED for 46 by John. Big time Geoff win, 543-338.

The word VERVET jumps out at me. Bob Jackman, overhearing as he walks by, gestures at the board with a Kit Kat candy bar in his hand, "it means monkey." David Eldar (AUS) has just whipped up on poor Nick Ball (USA), 444-348. I see Nick's mOULAgE for 71 and then all David: ROSACEA for 79, MATIEST for 78, and WINNERS for 74 (of course!).

Howard Warner (NZL) is walking around with a stack of two pillows. He uses them for his lower back at every game. He explains that in New Zealand he travels around with his own chair on wheels. But, since it won't fold up flat for the overseas flight, he settles for these two pillows when he travels. Not that he is complaining, he says, but he's just played 7 Americans in a row. He gets that half the field is American, but why ONLY Americans for him? He chuckles as he points this out.