Just got back from Kutno. We played a friendly match Warsaw vs Poznan. My city lost with 8:16.
Out of six games I won three (avg spread +174). The other three games I lost were with my most serious contenders for the Championship: Wojtek and and Rafal (avg spread was -56).
And now for the good news:
1. Irek (a new player I invited to play with us) beat Wojtek - the reigning Polish English Scrabble Champion. It was a close game and Irek finished the game with a two-blank-bingo TAINTED. Wojtek missed a bingo at the end which he was unsure of - CEMENTS (funnily this word is known in Polish as 'cementować').
2. I am aware of the reasons I lost to Rafal.
a) I didn't challenge a phoney 3-letter word! When he put *KAG on the board I got hypnotised and started wondering if this word takes an S in front of it instead of challenging it off. When I was sure the word didn't exist it was already too late to challenge. After this move Rafal bingoed with S(H)UTTING, which I see as an immediate result of him dumping the letters K and G in *KAG.
b) I didn't do the tile-tracking - why, oh why? In the end with a very closed board I was left with AEERN unable to play it out. In the end Rafal played a 3-pointer (S)UI and I lost with 5 points.
c) talking of 5 points: I could have well had them, had I not earlier challenged the word TILLED worth whole 7 points. No comments on that.
3. And the greatest news of the day is:
Hurray! My attitude has changed. I played the best moves I could and didn't think during the game about the potential loss. I finally realized the (not so) simple truth: If you want to win you must be prepared to lose. You must accept the defeat. If you're sure you played your best, the defeat won't taste bitter. The defeats will come from time to time, but losing once or twice doesn't mean you're worse. It may as well mean your opponent was a bit better or had more luck. I hope to keep up that attitude until the Championships (taking place on June, 27-28).
(...)
PS.
Good God! I let another phoney off the hook. *PEATING is a FREAKING PHONEY!!!
From this day on I shall challenge every bingo I hadn't learnt.
Beware!
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An article about the match (in Polish):
http://www.ekutno.pl/?kutno=0&y=1&zoom=3346
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