Here is a report on my experience of 2012 Nationals, playing in Division 2. I've posted a lot of this on Facebook for those of you who are my friends there, but have added some additional material below.

Record: 15-16, +6
Average score: 393
Rating went from 1586 to 1534
Power tiles: 137/310 = 44% (not crying, just reporting)

X: 10/31 = 32%
J: 11/31 = 35%
( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1569
Ending Rating: 1721 (!!!)
Record:  15-5 +463 (2nd out of 10 in Div 1)
Average Score (me-them): 403-380

Bingos/game:1.9 (38/20 games)

Hi, livejournal.  I’ve been taking a break from writing. Before this tournament I was languishing in the doldrums of the mid-1500’s. Not a bad place to be, but I felt frustrated. I was getting better ( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1547
Ending Rating: 1541
Record: 11-9 -372

Average Score: 399
Bingos/game: 2.0 (40/20 games)

This tournament benefited the Duke Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation Center. I’m happy we contributed to this cause, but it is freezing in there and I think if we do it again we should find a building with heat. I was wearing my coat the ( Read more... )

The game is from the Durham Charity tournament on 1/15/12 between Eric Smith and me. I would appreciate some insight on what I should have done to prevent Scrabble catastrophe at the end. Thank you Eric, for the racks.

http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=10240

I feel like I learned a million new words this year but made very little progress, rating-wise. So I am really working on my strategy, studying expert games online and asking myself why they made the moves they did. I love playing but I love learning words and studying games online even more ( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1578
Ending Rating: 1547
Record: 4-4/+298
Average Score: 423
Bingos/game: 2.0 (16/8 games)

And announcing: My first uploaded game, Matt Bernardina vs. me. See link below.

The venue was All Fun and Games in Apex, NC. The Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering players took up half the room and the Scrabble players took up the ( Read more... )

Record: 9-5 +147
Starting rating: 1559
Ending rating: 1578
Average score: 400 (vs. 389)
Bingoes/game: 1.93 (27 in 14 games)

It is nice that they moved the Asheville tournament up a few weeks so that we could see the foliage, which was beautiful, and the weather was great. I love Asheville. Unfortunately, I stayed for 2 nights at the Days Inn Asheville ( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1545
Ending Rating: 1559
Record: 9-10/+152 (+ 1 bye)
Average Score: 402
Bingos/game: 1.8 (35/19 games)

Well, I had fun. This was a small tourney (17 players, after 1 dropped out) and very smoothly run. I didn’t feel anonymous, everybody was very friendly and the local players extremely hospitable, and I got to meet and play some top ( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1527 ( Read more... )

Starting Rating: 1531 ( Read more... )