More from Sherrie Saint John...

Round 4, 2:07 PM

Pairings are going on as I type.  Rita is dutifully eating at her judge
post. 

The players have begun to mill in.  The media is, if anything, increasing
in number.  NBC did a stint during lunch hour where their reporter played
on a board, putting words down and spelling them out loud.  At one point,
his cameraman said, "You need to buy a vowel." His intent was good, but
he got his games mixed up!

Due to scheduling conflicts, the games will be played differently than
we'd expected.  One fewer game tomorrow (making six), and one more on
Sunday (making eight). 

Joel Sherman (USA) began his game by running up and requesting a new
Protile.  Seems one of his G tiles disappeared from his set.  If we
discover a missing J, we'll have a certain suspect in mind for sure!

This afternoon, Tony Sim and Teresa Schaeffer have joined the force of
runners for the word judges. 

Jim Nanavati (CAN) is 3-1! He is quite excited too.  In his last game, he
faced the mighty Felt (USA).  He, Jnana, bingoed out with ENGAOLED.  In
game 3, against Randy Hersom (USA), Randy played DIAZEPAM.  Against all
odds, Jnana came back and defeated Randy by just four points. 

Rita Norr found a challenge slip with the word FORETOLD at her desk.  The
expression on her face foretold that the challenge would not meet with
success. 

Word Judge Baker adjudicated on RATFINKS.  And it was good.  He said,
"This is the only place in the world where RATFINK is good."

We just found a PINK tile with a white G on it.  The mystery is getting
more complicated.  Joel's WHITE tile with a pink G was missing.  Aliens…

J.  J.  Jonah (ISR) is 1-3 and teammate Paloma Raychbart, 2-2, are having
much fun.  The game that Jonah won was a squeaker.  He won by only 3
points against Salah Fadl Mohamed Salih (SAU). 

This past round witnessed an amazing showdown between Boys (CAN) and
Daniel (CAN).  Robin defeated David 453-425 in a very tense game.  One or
both of them will tell you more details about the particular plays, but
some outstanding words were the aforementioned RATFINKS (Robin), GEOMANT
(David; instead of MAGNETO/MONTAGE; for the Y-hook, says Marlon Hill, who
watched the whole thing unfold).  She took a gamble when she played
TOWIER (rather than WROTE, keeping AI).  The word judges initially
disallowed the play, but the ever-quick Rich Baker caught the error and
ruled it acceptable.  The word judges told Robin afterwards that her win
was kinda unfair; after all, there was two against one!