Taking the plunge

Say what you want about blue hairs and old people, I’ll take being beaten by them everyday and twice on Sundays to getting my ass beat by a scrawny kid with floppy hair and braces.
I played my first Scrabble tournament on Sunday…I didn’t know what to expect, but the only way I’ll ever make good on the myspace claim that I’m nationally ranked, is to play a rated tournament.
I emailed back and forth with the president of the Philly Scrabble club and he said that his King-of-the-Hill one day tourney was a good tournament to get started at.
I was giving a ranking of 0 and listed as the tenth best player. Even though there was another guy there with a 0 ranking.
This annoyed me.
My first game was against the 1 ranked player. Again, this annoyed me.
I held my own against her, especially considering she opened with a bingo.

I had one of those “almost a bingo” racks, so I played off a u for like two points. She punished me by hitting the x going both ways. I cry. But I drew the blank and managed to find the word lavished through her d to bingo. Ok…we’re kinda back.
I ended up picking up the z and playing it on a double going two ways.
She physically winced!
Yeah, baby.
I took a brief lead, but she capitalized by playing dices on the triple. Actually, looking at the board, she hit every triple. Pout. Gotta stop opening up those triple lines. My humiliating moment of the game was when she played moues and I thought she had misspelled mouse. I was soo gleeful when I slammed the button and said challenge.
SOOOO GLEEEFUL. Like hahaha stupid lady misspelled mouse.
Waaaa.
She won by more than 100 points.
Oh well. Whatever. Stupid number 1 ranked player.
My next opponent was the number four ranked player. She was an affable enough older woman – like mid sixties.
She asked how my first match went, I said I got stomped. She said “yeah, my first tournament didn’t go so well either.” She then showed me how the clock worked (it was one of those cheapie small silver ones) and how to fill out the score sheet.
And then we drew tiles. I drew aelorss and immediately bingoed with lassoer.
She was all “Wha—but but…one who lassoes? I guess that’s good. Argh. I hate when people open with a bingo on me.”
I smiled and promised I wouldn’t do it again.
She played cults and my j on a double. She exchanged. I played the k on a double.
She started complaining bitterly.
I was in total control. Even when she bingoed finally, I was still ahead handily.
HAHHAHA and then I played the q going both ways on her for almost as much as her bingo.
She started whining like there was no tomorrow.
To her credit, her small game almost killed me, coupled with my penchant for choking in the endgame.
She took a small lead with no more tiles in the bag. Her fucking “wired” play was worth something like 50 points somehow. I was going to cry. Then I saw I could play my y on the double going two ways for thirty odd points.
“Dammit!”
She exclaimed.
I jumped.
“I can’t win,” she muttered.
Whew. She played out her last two tiles for 6 points and Dawn was 1-1.
Then I was matched up with the number 2 ranked player.
This woman ate me alive.
ALIVE.

She opened with a bingo (dieting), she ricochet played off my power tiles for more points than I realized were allowed on a play AND the challenged off my phonies in a heartbeat. To wit: Opa. No good. Then I played wang on the triple line and she turned red and said “um, I challenge that.”
Honestly, I thought it was good. But no.
She put down wait instead and said “I think you were thinking of ‘vang.’
Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.
She posted the 492-234 score up on the highest score sheet at the back of the room. Fuck her.
1-2.
I took my aggravation out on the next old lady.
HHAHAHAHAHAHA
I played flawlessly.
I bingoed three times, including a fake – but way plausible looking “skivener” hahahaha…once I established that she wouldn’t really challenge, I got more creative (She did rebel when I played zart on the triple line for 65 points…it was no good.) She then played some word, which formed AYA, a phony I’ve played in the past. I insta challenged it. I actually crushed her by almost 200 points.
2-2
My next opponent was an old black lady.
I underestimated her.
This game was fun because she also wouldn’t challenge. I played a classic Fisch/Dawn phony “awo” and though she thought long and hard, she didn’t challenge. Ha, I thought, neither did he.
Suckers.
But, her game was sick.

I played my z for a nice amount of points, she exchanged a few letters and then bingoed with instant.
She then ricocheted off my z like two turns in a row for way more points than I got from the z.
I played a phony bingo on her – tearied, though I thought it was good. I also got to play the word miaouing – after opening with miaou – though I wasted like three turns trying to draw the damn g. But she challenged it and I earned myself a free turn.
She took an handy lead when she played jars on the triple line, and in desperation I tried to bingo out by playing the word candier.
“Well, since it’s the last play, I challenge.”
Oh well.
She ended up going out, so she got all my candier tiles.
Not so candier for Dawn.
2-3.
I was then paired with the other newbie and he won in a game that I should have taken down. I fucking suck so bad at the end game that I couldn’t even take a picture of the final board. I improved his 1-4 record to 2-4. I wanted to vomit. Mostly because instead of opening up a bingo line for myself when I was holding two blanks with two tiles left in the bag, I played Mig, leaving the m hanging with four open spaces behind it – of course, I should have played rig instead so I could find a word ending in r. impressively I came up with the bingo vomiters but I would have needed five spaces behind the m.
Groan.
I had to walk it off.
Man.
Since our records were tied, we were paired up again for a tie breaker. He won that won more handily.
I was honestly scrabbled out after 7 games.
7 grueling games. But I got my first tourney out of the way, memorized a couple of useful wordlists. (The funny moment in my last game with the kid involved the rack aegirst. I had been having trouble remember the words seagirt and stagier because they are way weirder than the more common words found in that rack…of course, when I actually see the rack aeirsst with a g near the front – all I could think of was stupid seagirt and stagier, though they wouldn’t work…pout…ok, it’s only funny if you were there for the fuck why can’t remember seagirt moments, only to then live through the why can I only think of seagirt moment.)