commentary from Sherrie Saint John...

Round 8



This morning's games started earlier than yesterday: 8am sharp. Most

of the wrinkles are ironed out and things are running most smoothly.

My status has improved as I now have my own chair in the NSA's 

press area. Not only do I have a chair, but I even have a portion 

of the table. Yesterday I stood at the front of the word judge table.

By game 7, my feet were..... well, you know.



Hats from the goodie bags are in evidence again today. I count 12.



Robin Pollock Daniel (CAN) just came over complaining of

six racks in a row with one vowel, and she was only playing the

great Jere Mead (USA). All these racks had either Is or Os.

Late in the game he played PALMIEST. He had a SATIRE rack at that

point and there she was in her one I or one O racks, over and

over. She told me she had played off two tiles, keeping an N on her 

rack for balance and then she got both Ns that were left in the bag! 

So much for rack "balance."



Ken Nakai (JPN) played TAENIAE at b2 for 68 points and Paloma 

Raychbart (ISR) responded with INMATES at c2 for 87. The points may

not have been all that great, but it was a complete parallel play

from the beginning to the end! The play is only possible in SOWPODS,

Paloma points out, because she created TES.



Adam Logan (CAN) had the honor of playing David Boys (CAN) this

round. As Adam puts it, "David had everything." As further 

evidence, he told me about DEGREASE, JEELIED#, and ERUcTaTE.

Adam had 8 consecutive racks out of 9 with at least 6 consonants, 

much like Robin's game this round!  Adam further points out that 

he has won every game so far in which he has picked a blank, and 

one more besides.



Joel Sherman (USA) told me that he had a bunch of good tiles this 

game and he used them to his advantage by beating up on Bob 

Lipton (USA). 



Rita Norr, word judge extraordinaire, took the challenge FOOTSY. Doing

the OSW portion of the lookups this round, she was shocked to see

it was unacceptable. The OSPD saved that challenge for the person. 

She then looked up FOOTSIE in the OSW (to see if it was good) and it

was unacceptable. She said: "You can't play footsy/footsie in

England? Those conservative Brits!" Yvonne Gillispie, the NSA 

Features Editor, just overheard this story and is planning on sending

out a press release with it as the heading. This kind of anecdote is

a bit more comprehensible to the average living room Scrabbler than

the "I could have played IJTIHADS if only there had been an open

H!"



Jere Mead (USA) in his demolition of Robin Daniel (CAN) had the

rack OUGUIyA$, which he couldn't play. So, instead, he put down

GUAIOCUm$, through a C on the board. In a post mortem, Wone Mamadou (KUW)

said to Jere, "Oh, I use OUGUIyA often. It is a currency in my 

country." Jere and Joe Edley (USA), who overheard this comment, were

both amazed at how different Scrabble is in the global sense. What

is to North Americans a list of "obscure foreign currency," is an

everyday item for others!



In a last-minute move of utter desperation, a player attempted

WUGH. The word judges decided that it must have been an OSW player

who confused it with VUGH$.



Allan Saldanha (GBR) fell to fellow countryman David Acton (GBR). Seems

that one's duration at Table 1 is fleeting for almost everyone who

makes it that far!