12-1

I typed in that title and blogger tried to auto fill the field with "12-12" which is what I ended up being in Albany last week...what a difference. I lost my last game before lunch,
then had my magical amaretto sour -- which I drank every day in Albany before going on my brief winning streaks -- and came back to win all my games after dinner. And these games were tough. I feel like I can honestly say, mostly because the guy admitted it, I lost my one game because I went completely tile dead, while he was picking up powertiles and laying them down like nobody's business. But even with the unbalanced distribution, I still only lost by 40...protecting the spread. I will also admit that I have been that totally annoying girl that is complaining because she lost her one game. Waa, poor me. (But c'mon, really, he GOT EVERYTHING! Pout.) Anyway, Phil actually set me straight at the end of the end when he said that no matter what happens tomorrow, I've accomplished something pretty spectacular. Out of 25 people most of whom have been playing for years, I sit atop the field. "We're not looking at anybody else's name here. We're looking at yours and everybody else is looking at it too." So, I will stop my carping (and try) to stop worrying about the last four games tomorrow. I have had all manner of games this tournament...close ones where the tiles were fairly balanced, close ones where I got nothing, but made lemonade, blow outs where I had every tile (sorry Nancy) and blowouts where my opponent had every powertile, yet I found a way to win each one (except that one), so hopefully I can keep that up tomorrow.

Plays of note today:

*While playing the second seeded player who also had an undefeated record at the time, I made sure to keep track of every tile in the bag. With ten tiles left, the q was still unseen and with my rack of piguini, I decided then and there to hold onto that u until I saw the q. My opponent then bingoed with pingier (which I challenged off the board) so I knew she didn't have the q. I played off my p, so I wouldn't open up any spot for her to play a real word if she found one, and picked up another i. She played off five of her tiles, but I still held onto my u and sure enough I drew the last tile out of the bag: Q. I quickly played quod on my next turn before she could go out. I won that game by 31.

*Playing my first game after lunch and soooo regretting my alcohol drinking decision, I am playing the last undefeated player in the tournament. We are neck and neck, there is one bingo lane left -- a front ess hook word on cot. My rack is a ridiculous inino??...I can't think of anything with those letters ending in ess, so I play off in -- there are 7 tiles left in the bag. I draw br. I am up by sixty. She bingoes with listers/scot. I am all FECK. She takes a 13 point lead. I hold the play. I only have 4 minutes left on my clock and now my rack is ??binor, her el is standing right at the start of the triple line, so I start shuffling my tiles looking for a bingo through the el. Thankfully the obvious ing made my search easy and I bingoed out with laboring and winning by 21. (I also played a phony bingo in that game atresiae, which, while I knew it wasn't good, I also knew was way too plausible for her to challenge it. She didn't.)

*A dude tried to bingo on me with stroding and unsiked (with the blank as a d) Nuff said.

*My game with Nancy I had zesting, but since she opened with the unhookable duh, I couldn't play it. I was sad. I did get to play Fique on her, though! She almost challenged it too!