1-1 (early Bird saratoga)

Remember the woman who beat me after I thought I had won, but then we recounted and she won by three? I just played her again! I was drawing well...opened with a bingo (outseen), bingoed in the middle with inanest, but I kept "pulling a Dawn" and opening up triples for her and she hurt me bad each time...ugh, so she was ahead by like 50 or 60 with no tiles left in the bag. She takes like seven minutes or so to track (I am having a terrible time with my clock management in this division...I keep second guessing My own EVERY move...liek th second time I opened up the triple, I thought she had a bingo and the triple line would only fit five letters, so I thought I was safe...nope...she punched me in the gut with like "fiery" or something horrible.) Anyway, she has lots of time, she like retracks the game, my tiles are eeilrss, but I'm not sure that ireless is good and it would be an outplay, so it's like an automatic challenge. Anyway, I sit and sit and the best thing I can do is relies for like 26--and I would still lose. Then she makes her move and plays "tope" I AM SOOO HAPPY I NEARLY JUMP OUT OF MY CHAIR. Of course, she takes it off. (Why am I so dumb? It's like I have never played poker before! Which I have...and have a poker blog.... Anyway, she takes another three minutes, shrugs and says "okay, I know you got it anyway" and plays tope again. i bingo out with tireless!!! I win! And I tell her I didn't have it otherwise. She is sad. Almost as sad as if she'd won by 1 and then we recounted and she lost by three.
Of course, I looked at the standings, I am in last. My opponent in that first match had high game of the tournament and I have the worst loss. Seriously, it's just like last year.
I played the woman from charlotte who played "crepier" on me. She got both blanks and used them both for mid thirties point plays which baffles me. She bingoed twice potties and like some satine word. I thought I was done for, but then she hung an ar on the triple line and I bingoed through with retrains (learning the eights has been one of the single most rewarding of the mundane exercise of Scrabble study.) Then I got a nice sick 40 point play with woke and suddenly I was back in it. With no tiles left, five on her rack, three on mine she was up by 17. She used my woke to score 8. I found a 15 point play, with lave/lie. (My decision on this was (semi) interesting. I could have gone out with vine for 7 points plus the 3 tiles on her rack, but I knew they were only 1 pointers, so I decided to take my chances that maybe she couldn't go out and just scored as many points as I could.) She scored four more BUT INEXPLICABLE went over on her clock by ONE SECOND!!! It was BIZARRE. I go out with a six point play, plus her tile AND I win after her penalty!
OMG!!
Pout.
Lost the last game. I no longer remember what a blank feels like...I only recognize them when my opponents drop them on my ass.
2-2
Lost another one. 2-3 AND I'm her only win for today. Hawesome. Still have not touched a blank. Good news? Still bingoing withuot them. Be fucking nice to play someone who doesn't get them both though. Tom Brady jersey coming off, There Will Be Blood sweatshirt going on.
PLAYING UP IS SOOO STRESSFUL!! None of my mind gamey tricks work here...like putting down my letters for words that I'm not sure about and waiting to see if my opponent will write down the score, thus confirming that it's good. Nope. They stare at you the whole time untli you hit your clock. THEN they write or challenge or whatever. Not to mention the sheer word knowledge. WHAT THE HELL IS BLET!!!?!?!?!?
I have not made one challenge. NOT ONE. Too scared. (Good thing too, everything I have looked up later was all good.)
I am 3-3. Just had a CRAZY game where I got to play "lacings" and draw the challenge. Studying the pluralizable ing words has been the fourth most useful thing. I shoulda taken a picture of that board...my rack was lacins? And I had to play horizontally over cay
owe
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So I was looking for sla something but the best I could come up with after oh...ten minutes was lacings. Eh. A win's a win.