One more time

"Honey, I won my first game at the Scrabble club!" You'd think she'd have the decency to walk a few feet away from me before making that call. But no. She got her first win. Two bingoes to boot against the girl that crushed her last week. I don't begrudge her the win.

Who am I kidding? I hate her. And her stupidface. I know exactly what went wrong in this game. I underestimated her. I played a phony bingo on her, she challenged and capitalized with choice small ball plays (of course, she uses the cheat sheet, so what.ever. she's not so great.) I kept fishing for a bingo and when I drew one aeiirst I couldn't even find the word and ended up playing off the extra i for two points and fished out another tile. Disgraceful. But, in my defense, I kept assuming that I could make up the point deficit later. She did keep exchanging her letters. Of course, she then bingoed her very next turn both times, so sasat for me.
Anyway, as she called her boyfriend to pat herself on the back, I was going to cry.
I had arrived late to the club, so I had to play a 20 minute clock. Which, truth be told, wasn't a problem for me, I play very fast -- possibly too fast --- but I was out of breath and frazzled a bit and he beat me.

It didn't help that after the game I discovered he played a phony bingo on me. Husting my ass.
And I was gonna challenge too! But...well, let's just say my challenge record is as follows 100% of my words that have been challenged were deemed invalid and pulled off the board. 100% of the words that I have challenged have been deemed valid and I lost my turn. So, you can understand my reluctance.
Sigh.
Pant.
Ers.
Anyway, so at 0-2, I was ready to throw in the towel.
I then drew one of the tough regulars and wanted to die.
"Hey, how have you been doing?"
"I'm 0-2," I answered glumly.
"Me too," he said gleefully, "I'm due."
Gulp.
He drew a c. I drew an e. He goes first.
But he played a total donkey word "Lim" AND left the vowel right under the double word score!
I had the x and made him pay for that.
He then played two turns of baby words and I kept up my double digit scoring. Of course, he then bingoed with recoiling. AND THEN!
He realized he hadn't started my clock the whole game!
(Honestly, I didn't notice either, I just thought I was playing quickly.)
Anyway, I get closer and closer to a bingo rack. "I only need an s!" I thought to myself.
And then I realized that I was a moron if I was just gonna sit there waiting for an s to fall out of the bag, so I found a bingo with what I had "latrine." But I couldn't find anywhere to put it ---I thought about skipping my turn---- but then decided on playing the phony "int" instead.
He let it go because "well, you opened a triple line for me."
Doh.
He then showed me I could have played latrine for many more points AND no phonies atop "gag"

Doh. Again.
He was being very nice to me, but when I bingoed again on my next turn with aroused (who knows how to use her u's? who? He stopped being nice and started hammering at me.
I set him up for another triple by playing feel (even though I had the s for feels because I didn't wanna waste it.) He punished me hard with kois (k on the double and hitting the triple two ways. 69 points and I wanted to cry.
But then I fished for another bingo and was rewarded. I played moisten on him. The game was still close, but I had much more time left than he did and I took my time in the endgame.
I managed to find ether to take the triple on the bottom right and then played lot to finish my tiles and get his points! I won. He was unhappy.
:-)
My last opponent was also really good. (Not the usual softballs right over the plate I get when I'm 0-3) But he had a serious clock management problem and I punished him.
He'd take three minutes with his turn, and I'd plunk down my word complete with point total before he even drew his tiles.
I bingoed with unheated on my second turn.

Then I got to play queen for a double with the q on a double letter.
He was sweating the clock and playing foolishly.
He bingoed though to come within a frightening 22 points.
But I drew a familiar rack and bingoed back with dressier on a double.
I won handily.
He was a good sport though and held the board out of the glare for me to take a picture.
It did not feel good to utter the words "I have a Scrabble blog."
Oh, and I learned another thing about myself...if I can angle shoot, I will. In my first game with the 20 point clock, I found a bingo, and I noticed him look at me when I stopped shuffling my tiles.
So, I started shuffling them again and separated them into groups of three and two and two, so that he wouldn't block my bingo lane. AND THEN HE DIDN'T!
And in my match with the girl, I asked to borrow her cheatsheet to look up a word I wanted to play. It wasn't on there, but I played it anyway, knowing she couldn't very well challenge it when I'd just looked it up!
I'm funny.
Hmmm...of course, I lost both those games....