Causeway Challenge - farewell to Scrabble (day 5)

I went into day 5 with the same positive mindset which brought me so much success yesterday. And the magics still worked plus it was aided by good fortune seeing me getting almost 60% of the blanks and 70% of the Ss (which is by the way almost the reversed stats of the dreadful day 3, where I got 40% of the blanks and 30% of the Ss).
So the fortune has been fair to me after all.
In the end I got 50% of blanks in the whole tournament and 44% of the Ss.
I won 4 games today and lost 2. The two games I lost were by 1 and by 30 points...

My highlights today:

PR(OF)ITErS
where I thought I had won the game on the last move but was quickly brought down to earth by my oponent who advised me that there was still one letter left in the bag ;)

(JAR)OVIZED  
not a bingo but I was still very happy to play that off the rack DEIOSVZ leaving an S and scoring 40+ points.


tEASPOO(N
simply a nice word to play :)

After the tournament there was the presentation of the prizes.
Premier division has been won by Pakorn Nemitrmansuk to the great joy of all players who probably wished him this win to make up for his missed WSC final in Warsaw.

After the presentation I got a nice white Causeway 2011 T-shirt and then hurried to the taxi. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do any more shopping in Johor Bahru as I had been hoping to and was left with 66 Malaysian ringgit which I exchanged for 26 Singapore dollars at the airport. Just a little less then 4 hours until a take from Singapore. I'll be flying an LH779 Lufthansa Airbus A380 to Frankfurt, then by plane to Poznan and from there directly to Lodz by bus.


This journey concludes a magnificent Scrabble year for me, in which I have played a total of 5 tournaments (1st German Open, Peterborough All'Nighter, Cock of the Northt in Coventry, WSC 2011 in Poland and Causeway Scrabble Challenge in Malaysia).
It has been a Scrabble year for me which which was sparked by the decision to hold this year's WSC in Poland.
I'm very happy to end the year on a high note by celebrating my 17th place in Masters division of the last ever Causeway tournament.

This concludes my Scrabble journey.

It's been 4 unforgettable years and I'm happy to say that the last tournament made me a complete player.

Without further word knowledge, I will not go any further...
And if I have no time to acquire this knowledge, I will not go any further...
I don't have time to acquire word knowledge...
...

The STATS for CC day 5:

Games won: 4

Games lost: 2

Spread: +308

Average for: 417.3

Average against: 366.0

Blanks: 7/12 = 58%

S's: 16/24 = 67%

Games won:

2 blanks: 2/2 (100%)

1 blank: 1/3 (33%)

0 blanks: 1/1 (100%)

Bingos for: 12 (2.0 per game)

Bingos against: 9 (1.5 per game)

7 letter bingos: 6 (50%)

8 letter bingos: 6 (50%)

Bingos with blanks: 6 (50%)

Bingos without blanks: 6 (50%)

Highest no of bingos in a game: 4

Lowest no of bingos in a game: 1

High game: 487

Low game: 378

Highest combined score: 842

Causeway Challenge - the enlightenment (day 4)

What a day it has been. After an unlucky streak yesterday today everything has changed. And I have changed some things, too.
For a starter I decided to give my lucky charm (a nameless beagle mascott) a chance to show his magical qualities and pulled him out of my rucksack for the first time during the tournament. It seemed to work as I won the first two games comfortably. 

Another change: I used the free Thai scoresheets to record my scores as I had just run out of space in my Tilefish score book. And I used a pencil which made recording racks and scores so much easier than with my pen. Another change: in the first two games I gave up on tile-tracking just for the fun of it. And it also worked - I was more relaxed and I concentrated on my racks more. It also made some very quick and painless games possible.

Another change: I decided not to go to lunch today, as I remebered that yesterday I hadn't won any game after this meal. Instead I went to the shopping centre and bought some colourful scarves for my girl friends back in Poland.

Today something amazing has happened. After countless Scrabble games I had played before I finally managed to apply the rule which I had known long before. It says that this game is all about making each move the best possible. Full stop.

Thinking about needing to win, worrying about losing games, about opponent's rating, about his/her great luck - it all got me nowhere before.

Today I went into each game with a fresh mind and a thought: "I can play just as good as this guy. So why should I lose this game? If he's/she's luckier, so what, that's his/her good right, isn't it? I have also been lucky before. Would I rather never get lucky so that nobody gets lucky, too? Why care if he/she knows more words than I do. This just means he/she had spent more time learning them and deserves to win a bit more"

It's all that simple. But during my earlier games I seem to have always concentrated on the emotional aspect of this game. Emotions are good for spectators. When you're playing your game you need to concentrate on the game. That's it. You can enjoy the result afterwards, and this is what I'm doing right now. I'm just very very happy that I managed to achieve something.
Tomorrow is the last tournament day. It all went so quickly. I feel like I've just arrived and I already have to leave. I will miss the Zon Hotel and I will miss this amazing tournament.

Thanks Michael Tang for your great idea of organizing the Causeway Scrabble Challenge.
To be a part of this wonderful event has been an honour to me.

 [...]

The STATS for CC day 4:

Games won: 8

Games lost: 2

Spread: +428

Average for: 429.0

Average against: 386.2

Blanks: 11/20 = 55%

S's: 16/40 = 40%

Games won:

2 blanks: 4/4 (100%)

1 blank: 3/3 (100%)

0 blanks: 1/3 (33%)

Bingos for: 21 (2.1 per game)

Bingos against: 14 (1.4 per game)

7 letter bingos: 8 (38%)

8 letter bingos: 13 (62%)

Bingos with blanks: 8 (38%)

Bingos without blanks: 13 (62%)

Highest no of bingos in a game: 4

Lowest no of bingos in a game: 0

High game: 526

Low game: 298

Highest combined score: 906

Causeway Challenge - day 3

[Appologies for the lack of daily reports. The challenging number of daily games plus the jet-lag contributed to the fact that I am no longer able to report as I need to have some rest...

I hope to report the games herein when the tournament is finished.]

Day 3 was just as amazing as day 2 because it started with two consecutive wins, one loss and another win. Then there was lunch and ... I have lost 5 games in a row. This has pushed me down to 48th place.

I have lost 4 of 7 games by a margin smaller than 40 points: -25, -25, -33 and -37. Another lost games were -56, -76 and -101. This means that despite negative record of 12-17 I'm still in positive spread of +332.
I was very unlucky in all of my endgames today but luck too has played its part. I got only 40% of the blanks and 30% (!) of the Ss.
You can't do anything about it and I accepted it without any grief.

I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow - for the third and last time we'll be playing 10 games. 

 The STATS for CC day 3:

Games won: 3

Games lost: 7

Spread: -144

Average for: 407.4

Average against: 421.8

Blanks: 8/20 = 40%

S's: 12/40 = 30%

Games won:

2 blanks: 1/2 (50%)

1 blank: 1/4 (25%)

0 blanks: 1/4 (25%)

Bingos for: 16 (1.6 per game)

Bingos against: 22 (2.2 per game)

7 letter bingos: 9 (56%)

8 letter bingos: 7 (44%)

Bingos with blanks: 5 (31%)

Bingos without blanks: 11 (69%)

Highest no of bingos in a game: 3

Lowest no of bingos in a game: 1

High game: 466

Low game: 355

Highest combined score: 901

Causeway Challenge 2011 - day 2

[Appologies for the lack of daily reports. The challenging number of daily games plus the jet-lag contributed to the fact that I am no longer able to report as I need to have some rest...

I hope to report the games herein when the tournament is finished.]

As to two day two it has been amazing - I won 6 out of ten games despite being very tired due to sleepless night before (with jet-lag taking its usual second night toll).

The STATS for CC day 2:

Games won: 6

Games lost: 4

Spread: +383

Average for: 430.7

Average against: 392.4

Blanks: 10/20 = 50%

S's: 18/40 = 45%

Games won:

2 blanks: 1/1 (100%)

1 blank: 5/8 (63%)

0 blanks: 0/1 (0%)

Bingos for: 18 (1.8 per game)

Bingos against: 18 (1.8 per game)

7 letter bingos: 12 (67%)

8 letter bingos: 6 (33%)

Bingos with blanks: 8 (44%)

Bingos without blanks: 10 (56%)

Highest no of bingos in a game: 4

Lowest no of bingos in a game: 1

High game: 503

Low game: 374

Highest combined score: 894