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Just 7 letters for only 7 points and yet...
ANTLION made me forget for a few happy minutes about the futility of studying words without meanings.
ANTLION made me ponder about the etymology of this word accross the languages showing surprising similarity.
ANTLION with its compound structure made me think of German language where such structures are commonplace.
ANTLION made me look it up in Wikipedia and Google Images.
ANTLION made me shiver when I learnt that it digs holes to catch ants.
One simple word.
If you think of all Scrabble words the world seems endless...
Scrabble tiles play a key role in Rosemary's discovering that her neighbour's real name isn't Roman Castevet but Steven Marcato when...
turns out to be...
...and so I hurried to the Scrabble club directly after work (yes I sometimes have to work on Sundays...).
It all started at 15:00. 6 games a 20 minutes with free challenge.
And it went like this:
Game 1 Grzegorz
W:365-362
Grzegorz bingoed twice, I only once but still managed to squeeze the win.
Game 2 Urszula
L: 305-311
One funny situation in that game -I was facing DEEIRS? on my rack and what came to my mind was DRESIE and I was struggling to find a valid bingo. After the game i found out i could have played aDRESIE and was devastated by the obviousness of that bingo. In the endgame I panicked seeing the clock hand reaching twelve and disregarding the small hand showing me the last minute. I lost with a blank on the rack...
Game 3 Grazyna
W: 364-411
Oh, I was lucky in this game. Grazyna told me she had bingos all the way through and ended plying only one with me always blocking the right spots for her :) What I found especially exciting was her playing ODYMANI on the double-double for 97 points when I stroke back with UBOJAMI with the A extending her bingo into ODYMANIA (whatever that means) for 94 points.
Game 4 Maciej
L: 274-385
No bingos in that game for me. When I tried to play DERBACh it got challenged off because I hooked his phoney *TENT to *TENTA...
Game 5 Jarek
L: 327-390
A nice bingo for me from Z to the TWS - (Z)AMGLONO for 92 with another possibilty to play GALONOM. In the end my opponent bingoed and I found myself with an awkward rack, having to exchange, then he closed the board and it was game over.
Game 6 Adam
L: 355-368
Could have gone either way. Adam went into the lead on the first move and I was chasing him all the way. I caught him in the middle by playing (C)IEŃCIEż for 103. This word is so awkward nobody would ever use it, Adam challenged it but it stayed on the board. When I look back on it, it was a miracle I found it - you just need to imagine facing CEEIIŃ? on the rack and making 100+ points of it. On the last 4 moves of the game I was mirroring Adam's score with 18 and 36 trailing by 1 point. He played out with 10 points got 2 points from we and won by 13. I wasn't a bit sad...
I'm quite happy with my performance. I beat one strong player again and spotted some nice bingos like SZWALN(I)E meaning LATHES which is a word you immediately associate in Poland with LODZ as this city used to be the main textile production centre in Poland.
More about Łódź:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA
My bingos:
GnIDZIE, SEdANIE, SZWALN(I)E, UBOJAMI, (Z)AMGLONO, (C)IEŃCIEż
So only 1 bingo / game
50% blanks
The BBC documentary I appeared in - whole 1 second of it ;) - has even got its record on the IMDB site.
Now that's a WOW!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1577917/
My post about the documentary:
http://literaxx.blogspot.com/2009/12/merry-scrabble-x-mas.html
Today when I was trying to access my blog from my company, I got this message. Creepy!
I'm happy to anounce that the Łódź Scrabble club reported on my good performance in the recent tournament on Friday. They even linked to my blog :)
http://www.scrabble.lodz.pl/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=510&Itemid=2\ (Polish)
On Sunday 15:00 there is another meeting, I'm coming :)
Łódź (pronounced "would" like in a phrase "would you") - name of Poland's second third biggest city (744 500 inhabitants)
łódź - Polish word for boat
Yes, that's true! If you play it in your native language in the club with no need to prove anything to anyone - especially yourself. If you don't care about winning or losing, about the ratings, spreads, high scores, numbers of bingos etc. You play Scrabble for fun and that's what all games should be about.
I've just come back from the Scrabble club. I have played my first ever club tournament and I feel great! I placed 2nd out of 10.
Game 1 Andrzej
W: 382-287
2 bingos: STYLOWA and WAB(I)oNYM
Game 2 Kuba
L: 321-400
1 bingo: GrUNCIE
Game 3 Grazyna
W: 427-264
3 bingos: UB(R)ANIEM, W(Y)PNIESZ, ŚWIETNI
Game 4 Radek
W: 376-274
2 bingos: UTRACIE, NAGI(Ę)TEj
Game 5 Grzegorz
W: 382-285
2 bingos: BONANZO, RYCZA(Ł)Em
Spread +378
for 378 - against 302
2 bingos per game
I actually made some use of my English Scrabble vocabulary by playing ATONIO and BONANZO.
NB:
I was willing to go to the Rammstein concert in Lodz today but I decided to save money this month and passed on it. As it turned out on the day of the concert I went to the Scrabble club. The building was exactly opposite the Atlas Arena where Rammstein was giving its concert today. When I came there I found it impossible to park my car and I almost gave up but somehow found a parking space. Later when I got out of the club I could here the distant sound of "Engel"...
So the two strongest Scrabblers from Warsaw met again for a Scrabble rematch. It ended with, believe it or not, the same score - 11:1 for Rafal.
It looks definitely like Rafal is the strongest player in Poland at the moment.
As a current Scrabble champ I should be doing something about it, but frankly I don't have time. I switched my focus away from Scrabble and currently I'm concentrating on my job...
Time will show if my love for Scrabble will prevail. For the moment it's a farewell to Cardbox and plans to learn all the 5's...
