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March 19th, 2010
bbstenniz
 | 03:05 pm - BAT
Glad that dropping out allowed someone deserving to qualify...yay for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) scrabblek8!!
You heard it here first: Jerry will win.
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March 18th, 2010
cesarsalad
 | 12:29 am - i know i played this badly
and i know i should stop looking at games for a few days but i have to know what the best play is here. He just played KEPI through the P. What do you do here? Do you play defensive? Score? Offense?
I laid down LUSTED/GAZARS but I just wasn't convinced. There were still good spots where he could score, and if he uses the S with IFS he can score a bit. Then I picked it up and played 4B STAVED. I don't like the leave but I like the points. What line of thinking should I follow here? Should I attempt to outplay him on a somewhat closed board after LUSTED?
After 6000 many-ply iterations, it ranks like:
SLUED 65%
STAVED 62.4%
LUSTED 62.1%
So SLUED? I don't even like losing my S, but B13 BUR, which I briefly considered, just doesn't cut it.
Turns out he does 13G Q(I) for 44... (a much easier decision than I got for my 44) and draws the second blank to it. But I should have found TANYARD, so it's my fault.
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cesarsalad
| 11:58 pm - whoa
i'm playing so badly at club that i kind of don't want to come back anymore. i am very distracted at the moment. i probably should take a small break from scrabble and figure out my life a little better. in any case, here is a funny position in my first game vs Pete:
cesar: Turn 12
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O -> cesar EHPRRTU 339
------------------------------ pete ------- 374
1|= ' B A X A L| --Tracking-----------------------------------
2| - " E O O R I E | AIQSTUZ 7
3| - P R o V I d E - |
4|' N A E Y - '|
5| O W C L O G |
6| " R E G " O K A |
7| ' D A B C O U D E |
8|= Y T U F A ' F I L|
9| M I M A W N ' |
10| T E N N I S T " V |
11| - S E S T I N E |
12|' J A I L O R D E N I|
13| - ' ' - G |
14| - " " E H|
15|= ' = ' D O|
------------------------------
To show you how badly I was playing, note where I put my opening TUFA play. I seriously must have some cognitive dissonance or something.
In any case, I made up for it by giving myself a tiny chance to win with JAILOR/FATSO -- and here is my chance! And what do I do? I play PREY before playing TRUTH, and I had like 9 minutes on my clock. of course he blocks TRUTH and I lose the game.
But this game is technically unwinnable even if I do TRUTH first! Your task is to find out why.
I only drew one blank today, but I blew two games. In the second one I missed AADNRTY and through an I. Hilariously, I saw both at the end of the game once my mind was clear and I was actually looking. I don't really know at this moment if I want to spend hours of my life studying words for such meager reward. But I suppose seeing my friends at club&tourneys should be reward enough; if I wasn't so hard on myself for playing badly I wouldn't even care. Then I played the last one not as badly, but still -34 equity against a good player so 1-3 for me again. Worst year ever.
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scrabbledude
 | 02:15 am
A dark time now, with only a few uncertain slivers of light peeking in somehow, oscillating through the sway of trees, between the blinds in the night breeze, soon to be extinguished and gone in the dull darkness of dawn, yet again giving way to the banal brightness of day, when all fates are the same, and last night's fever is forgotten flame.
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March 14th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 03:29 pm - stee game of the day
i was 5-5 +a nice number with only 4 games to go. if i win the next 4, i can maybe finish 5th and get my entry fee back. so then comes this game, where i play terrible.
vs David Whitley: http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5693#0
i don't actually know a lot of my racks, so thanks to Dave for annotating this for me! i haven't heard back from Air Canada yet :(
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March 12th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 09:46 pm - !
lady gaga saved pop
Current Music: bad romance
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cesarsalad
| 09:11 am - STEE game of the day
vs NaOH, the eventual winner of the tournament. Way to go, Sodium Hydroxide!
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5678#0
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March 11th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 11:47 am - If they don't find my scoresheets
I'll just tell you how game vs Mike Baker went. He opened with BOTHeRS and I played JA(R)OVIZE because I'm awesome. Then he freakin does HYALINS/JAROVIZES for three million points. I spend the rest of the game playing catch up, then make a desperate move that empties the bag -- I had to, because I needed to get rid of both a V and an X to have any chance of bingoing, and I draw the blank and I have a bingo in two spots. He blocks one spot and I missed DIaTONI(C) despite having about 4 minutes on my clock. Boo!!! Then I spiked a tile when I figured it out later.
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March 10th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 10:55 pm - STEE game of the day
i start playing worse and worse:
5) vs Chris Grubb
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5659#0
Any help is appreciated!
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March 9th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 09:27 pm - STEE game of the day
i really really hope they find my scoresheets. maybe i dropped them somewhere at home, but i can't find my folder anywhere. it also had some word lists. ARGH.
I annotated a few more games before I lost them, so here is game 4 vs Dean Saldanha. I was 3-0 at this point, +500, in first and on top of the world:
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5650#0
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cesarsalad
| 03:27 pm - my scoresheetses
Amazingly, I lost my scoresheets again. I think I may have left them on the plane!!!
I called Air Canada and have a file reference number. I will do anything for my precious scoresheets! My precioussss
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March 8th, 2010
redessence
 | 11:41 pm - First Week of March (and Vancouver tourney)
( The week up in Kelowna and pre-tournament shenanigans )
As for the tournament itself - wow. I find it interesting that in the last year I've done my best ever at Scrabble by focusing on other non-Scrabble things, such as my workout/meal planning and academics. It's only now when I have surrendered my pride (in this specific context, pride in the sense of rating entitlement, luck, etc) that I am getting recognition and results that I once strived for. I am humbled that I had the opportunity to play against and beat so many good players, a majority of whom I consider to be better players than myself. I owe a portion of my change in attitude towards Scrabble tournaments to James, who has long demonstrated to me and everyone else that it is possible to be good at many things, that it is not necessary to be the best at anything, and yet have an amazing time along the way. I don't think I've ever had more fun losing by almost 200 than when it happened against James in the 3rd last round of the tournament, even when it officially killed my chances at winning the tournament. We were laughing the whole game as he cleaned my clock. I did get a chance to play him again in the final round of the tournament, and I did get my revenge! I had to fight myself briefly as James played his 4th blank (he had both in both games) and took a sizable lead, but the fight was very brief. I was able to concentrate and think rationally in a way that I never used to be able to, and a lot of it is because of an increase in confidence in both who I am and my identity being completely separate from Scrabble results. Thank you James for being the best example in the world of this to me and to everyone else.
Some amazing timing was part of the reason I did so well. In my first game against George Macaulay he missed a 3x3 of S(T)RuDELS through a U with a blank T, and instead played R(O)DLESS, putting the L in the only spot on the board that allowed me to play a natural FRUGALlY through it. Against Rafi after he played a very nice WE(A)KFiSH I 3x3 through his W with ENTwINED. Against Cesar I got down KHEDA for 52 near the end of our game on a very tight board. Against Dean after he played AbOIDEAU one short of the 3WS I had XU on my rack and played it for 84. In all cases those breaks ended up making the difference in the games.
In case you didn't see the results, I came in 4th in the tourney! All of the top 4 had a record of 10-4, but I had the lowest spread at +208. Noah came in first with the highest +500 spread, aaagmnrs made 2nd with the next highest +500 spread and Eric came in 3rd with the lowest of the +500 spreads. My new rating is 1850, the highest I have ever had, and what's more, it puts me in 8th place in Canada!! Being in the Top 10 in Canada is far beyond any expectation I ever had coming into the competitive Scrabble scene. Thanks all for believing in me...I'm still in shock!
Current Mood:  thankful
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cesarsalad
| 10:29 am - STEE game of the day
i meant to post that one yesterday but i forgot. so this is game 2 against rebecca s
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5644#0
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cesarsalad
| 07:43 am - STEE game of the day
amazingly after noah and james stole my scoresheets, i found them again in my backpack. some kind soul must have put them there.
So i bring you game 1 of Vancouver 2010 vs Mike Frentz!
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=5643
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March 7th, 2010
cesarsalad
| 11:10 pm - more vancouver
3-1 in the morning after a serious focus mistake against dave whitley that probably cost me the game. i was pretty frustrated after that game, but after such a tough start it's hard to focus. i'll post that one later, it's a typical "cesar wants to play a cool word" mistake rather than really look at the double-double opening he just made. i have horrible focus at Scrabble, it's really almost weird; i don't know anyone else who continually makes these types of mistakes.
then in the afternoon i played rafi twice in a row and he opened with two bingos on his first game and bingoed 3 times in a row in the second game. to his credit i challenged homeotic in the first game because i didn't know it, it put me down by over 100 and it just looked funny. but i was probably very unlikely to win anyway.
it's really really awesome that noah won. we're really proud of him. also, eric tran is freakin sick at scrabble. that's the fastest rise i've ever seen; all the way to 1950 without ever dropping in rating since he was in the 1300s in just a few tourneys. i wonder if he'll hit 2000.
as for me, i don't know when the next tourney will be, but i'm about at that point where i realize i do need to study. let's put it this way, i'm only going to tourneys to see my friends now, i can't really expect anything until i am good with the words.
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