Scrabble in North Salem

I finally made it back to a scrabble tournament after a nearly two-year hiatus. Unforch, my rating slipped as I ran into a bit of bad luck and a tiny bit of rust. I was happy with how I played, tho the results didn't match my efforts. I ended the day with 3 wins against 4 losses, but because all of my losses were by less than 35 points and two of my wins were blow-outs, I finished with a big "spread" (positive or negative total points). The spread only shows that I was playing well but doesn't figure into national ratings or rankings.

The venue was new to me: North Salem, NY, about an hour's drive from New Paltz. Cornelia Guest puts on a very nice tourney there, attended by 32 ardent Scrabblers -- she even had a 10-person waiting list for today's games. I was the second-highest rated player, and the way our ratings work, I was expected to win about 5 of the 7 games. As a result of my poor showing, my rating falls into the 1750 range, but still, that puts me within the top 150 nationwide.

Here were some of my more unusual words from the tournament:
TENUTI (pl. of TENUTO, a musical term)
SATYR (a wood nymph) ... this is the only one I could define without the dictionary!
JOWAR (type of cereal grain grown in India)
COFFS (to buy)
AUXINS (substance used in plant growth)
BEZEL (a slanted surface)
QUERN (a hand-turned grain mill)
JEON (S. Korean monetary unit)
CURF (an incision)

Bingos (using all 7 tiles for a 50-pt bonus):
Note: Letters in () were blanks
SALTIER (R)
ENCASED (S)
ANTIQUES
FELLOES (def: wheel rims)
ULULATES (U)
INANEST
NEATEST
INQUIRES (R)

I managed to win my penultimate game by over 200 points, scoring 552 (and the "high game" prize, good for $5). In the 7 games, I scored 351, 359, 361, 431, 402, 552, and 349, averaging just under 400 per game. Sadly, average score doesn't figure into ratings, either, tho some have advocated for this.

I look forward to returning there in two months. Meanwhile, I'll keep reading the Scrabble dictionary (me=nerd) and playing online as much as possible.