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WPC 2010 Commentary: Round 1

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Go to: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29.

Round 1

Nigel Richards (MYS) faced Ebikeme Adowei (NGA) this round at table 1. As she did in the National SCRABBLE Championship, which wrapped up two days ago, Dee Segrest is on Nigel annotation duty. Kate Watson is annotating his opponent.

Robert Linn (USA) vs. Marty Gabriel (USA): ColUMNEA, SCOUtING, TOILETED on their in-progress board.

Bob Lipton (USA) is telling me he's retired from SCRABBLE because he is working full-time now in a hospital. He loves his job and was happy to take some vacation with his wife, Barbara, here in Dallas. He had a nice first-round win against Nick Ball (CAN), 483-384. Some fun words on their board: CONSTER, ULYIES, HEXANES, LOOsENER, DWAUM, ITA, and SOLERET.

John Chew tells me that we are running a round robin pairing system followed by modified swiss.

Mark Kenas (USA) vs. Travis Chaney (USA): DEMERG?, SPORTIVE, HEXYL?, TONNAGE, and AMORETTO.

Jim Kramer (USA) vs. Chris Cree (USA): TETANISED, LARIATS, and rAMPOLE. Game in progress still.

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA) vs. Brian Bowman (USA): ?REAKAGE, ZANILY, and ZOCALO.

Nathan Benedict (USA) ending up defeating Geoff Thevenot (USA) this round. I see Geoff's CANALLER and Nathan's SNORTER. VULGO, WAAC, and ZOS are other fun plays. The interesting thing about this match was all the me, me, me, I, I, I stuff going on. At the 2/3rds point of the game, only 1 letter I had been played. The end was an I slog.

American National School SCRABBLE Champ, Bradley Robbins (USA) is here for the WPC (he just did the NSC!). This round he played NASPA web committee member, Tapani Lindgren (USA). Bradley tells me with controlled excitement that he binged out with OUTsOAR and he played SOILURE, too. Of the game, Tapani shook his head and said, "he was good."

Chris May (AUS) has made his way to the tiny kitchen. He's seeking water and the pointy paper cups are discouraging him from drinking quite enough. He tells Geoff Thevenot (USA) that he played SULFURET this round. I think I overhear about 200-point win this round.

The annotating team of Kate Watson and Dee Segrest were shaking the cobwebs out of their early morning heads. The Nigel Richards (MYS) vs. Ebikeme Adowei (NGA) game was so much fun. Of the first 7 plays, Kate in convinced 5 were collins. In the end, behind by a bit as he'd been all game (go Ebikeme!), Nigel set up this beautiful play of DIAMETER through the I, hooking to make DOTED/RIA/AR/MI/ED/TI to win.

We're relocated John's monitor onto another oyster table so that the players aren't doing pilates moves to see the standings/pairings. Robert Linn (USA) has already spotted one broken light bulb. I hear him: more light is a common mantra.